Defender Of The Crown

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The year is 1149. King Richard has just returned from the Crusades and granted the Knight honorable title to 6 men who aided him on his campaigns. Some years later, the King is murdered and the Holy Crown is lost. To save the Kingdom, you will severely test your skills, swordsman abilities and military leadership. But should you succeed you'll finally win the Crown of the Kingdom and the love of many beautiful damsels! Quite tempting don't you think? As a Saxon Knight, you take part on a strategy game aiming to gain power and find the lost Crown. You can choose your character among 4 different Knights, each with his own statistics, powers and weaknesses. The game is played on a UK medieval map where you can move your armies and conquer either Saxons' or Normands' territories. Read the map, plan your raids or even team up with Robin Hood and then plunder the enemy strongholds and slash your way through for valuable gold that's needed to build your army of mercenary vassals stronger. You can also participate in jousting tournaments to gain (or lose) new territories or to increase (or decrease) your fame! As a jousting hint, just steer your lance to the center of the opponent's shield and then press the fire button at the very last second. Still, your victory or defeat in jousting will depend on your character's abilities in these tournaments! Defender Of The Crown is a great game to play and if you haven't tried it yet, go on and do it. It surely needs some practice but if you finally master its moves and its gameplay style, it will grant you with some amazing gaming moments.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The PC (MS-DOS) version supports either CGA 4-color or EGA 16-color graphics modes. The level design looks pretty close to the Amiga and ST, though the colors in EGA mode are not that accurate (the Amiga, Apple IIGS and Atari ST use 12bit and 9bit RGB palettes which means the developers had the advantage to choose between 4096 and 512 colors respectively). But either way, the visuals on the PC (DOS) version (even in CGA mode) are really pleasant to watch. As for the sound, the PC version offers some nice sound effects (not sampled though) and quaint medieval style tunes during gameplay!