Guardian's Crusade

"An OK game with a few interesting ideas"

Guardian's Crusade is a great game for younger children or people who are just starting to play RPGs, but for older people or more experienced RPG players, this game can be quite boring. The game is simple to learn and has some neat ideas to keep the player interested in the game.

Graphics 7/10: The graphics are not too great in this game, but some of the enemies do look pretty cool. The towns are very easy to get lost in because most of the buildings look the same.

Sound 5/10: Most of the music is not very catchy or interesting at all. Some of the music is OK, but only for a few parts. Since you will mostly be on the world map and in battles, most of the music you will hear is very boring and gets repetitive extremely fast.

Story 4/10: The worst part of the game. The story is quite boring. You find a little pink monster and you are told to take it back to its mother. There are a couple of plot twists but nothing too dramatic.

Control 10/10: The control is just like any other RPG so there isn't really any problems with control.

Gameplay 9/10: This is the best part about this game. In battle you have the standard RPG battle options, but you also have a new option called Living Toys. You find the Living Toys throughout the game, and during battle you can use the toys to come out and help fight, heal, etc. Most of the toys stay out until they take enough damage then they are knocked out for that battle only. However, most of the toys that heal stay out for one turn then leave but you can still use them again in that battle as long as you have enough MP. There are a few toys that are pretty neat such as ''Walkbomb'' which does damage depending on how many steps you have taken and then resets those steps. Also during battles, the monster you are trying to return to its mother will fight too. This can either be annoying or a good thing. If the monster likes you it will attack the enemy, but if it doesn't like you it will attack YOU. This gets very annoying because if you are fighting a boss the last thing you want to happen is for your own team member to hit you. You can get the monster to like you by talking to it in battle by selecting the option ''Baby'' and telling the monster to do something. You can also have it fetch items for you and then you have the option to scold it, praise it, or do nothing if it brings back an item. another way to get him to like you is to feed it items, weapons, or armor. Weapons and armor may increase his stats depending on what you feed him. Also, battles are not random so you can kind of control what battles you fight. The enemies appear on the screen so you can run away from them. Sometimes, if your level is high enough, the enemies will run from you instead of chase you.

Challenge 3/10: Not much of a challenge in this game. Some of the bosses can be a little difficult of you are not prepared, but most of them should not pose much of a problem for you.

Replayability 5/10: Not much to replay here. The only reason to replay it is to collect all of the Living Toys if you missed any the first time through.

Rent or Buy?: I recommend you rent this game and beat it that way. It is a very short game and you should be able to beat it in one to two rentals.

Overall 7/10: This is a great game for beginners, but more experienced RPG players will find Guardian's Crusade boring. The graphics are OK and the story is not that great, but the gameplay is what makes this a good game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/01, Updated 03/29/01