Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade

"Great game! This came close to perfection."

While I was looking for a good medieval Hack 'n Slash game I stumbled across this one. After doing some research on some gamesites, I decided to give it a try, you can hardly go wrong for only 20 euros.
Man, was I surprised!

Gameplay: 9/10(40)

Great! Simply brilliant! I just love the way you fight in this game. Your weapons are a Sword, Axe, Mace and Bow, from which I always preferred the Axe, but every weapon has its own pros and cons. The fighting in this game is delicious, I often found myself shrieking in delight when an enemy fell to his knees and my axe caught him in the chest. The battles also become more fun when you choose a higher difficulty-rate. You can find some healing ointments here and there in the levels, and there's a savepoint in like every 2 levels, but the game automatically saves at the end of each level.

You learn new abilities when you fight with a certain weapon for some time, so if you use your sword only in the entire game you will have missed some abilities when you reach the end. You can use your abilities and skills to make the fighting a real lust. You can also learn some magic. The healing spells were nicely done, but I never really used the offensive magic because they cost too much of your magic-points(you get a bar with 4 cells and some offensive magic costs 2 cells, which takes some time to refill)

The learning curve in this game is short, you get the hang of it after the first 1 or 2 enemies you slay. You also gotta change your style of fighting depending on what enemy you meet. In the beginning you mostly meet some monks which you can berserk to death easily, but later on you really need to change your style or else you really won't make it.

Graphics: 7.5/10

While some people say the graphics weren't good, I'd say they were actually quite good. Especially in the levels with some more light everything looked great, and the movement of your character looked very realistic. I also liked the way you see dust flying when you hit the wall or ground with your sword, and the way boxes collapse when you hit them. They could've put some more work in the blood but overall I really have no complaints about the graphics.

Sound: 8.5/10

There's not much music on the background, but the sound is kinda atmospheric, it fits to the areas, and changes when enemies appear. The effects are good too, the sound of your blade ticking to the ground or walls is just lovely, and the metal on metal clash when you fight with an enemy sounds great, just like the sound of your blade hacking on a wooden shield. The sound is very clear, which is a good thing because there are no subtitles, but I could clearly hear everything said in the cutscenes. Yes, the sound in this game is very nicely done.

Story: 6/10

There's not really a deep story in the game, it's mostly the gameplay that keeps you playing. The story is about Adelle, a girl with divine powers and apparently known by the main character you control, Paul. Adelle gets kidnapped by an evil bishop and is taken with him on a crusade in order to complete an unholy circle. Ooh, sounds scary, but not very deep. You go on a quest to rescue Adelle and everywhere the bishop has been everyone becomes evil and is your enemy. In the end of each area you get a storyline cutscene. Meh, the storyline was not great, but it was acceptable.

Replay value: 5/10

There are no sidequests in this game because it's 100% linear but you can replay it just for the fun of it and choose a higher difficulty rate. But there's no real reason why you should play it again.

Multiplayer: 3/10

They could as well have let this out of the game. The multiplayer is just a 2D fighter with not much features and its kinda boring. It's not really worth it, if you let your friends come over you better grab another game to challenge them in fighting.

Pros and Cons:
+++Delicious fighting
+Great gameplay
+pretty good graphics

-Shallow storyline
-The Multiplayer feature sucks

Buy or Rent:

Buy! Now! This game is an absolute must-have.

After all, this game is wonderful. I looked for the ultimate medieval fighting game, and this one came close to perfection, and had only one minor flaw. I really recommend this to anyone, keep in mind that it's, sadly, only released in Europe. So if you live in America and search every gameshop for this game you better spare yourself the effort. But of you do live in Europe you should search every gameshop in order to find this game, because it is really worth it. It's a shame that this game is very unknown, it deserves far more publicity.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/06