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. The 8bit ports include all the features and gameplay elements found on the original version and the NES version is among the best.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Spectrum version offers quite good graphics with nice colors. The main map is packed with details and has some great effects when you select territory. Raiding takes the player to an excellently detailed castle scene where a swords fight takes place. Note that when raiding a castle, the original outdoor swords fight scene is missing on the ZX version (found only on the CPC and C64 versions) and the game starts directly at the second (indoors) scene. Also, the jousting scene is limited, showing only side-on, the lance aimed using an animated knight sprite at the bottom of the screen (the CPC and C64 versions have all the original graphics and gameplay). The sound is quite good, having several in-game short tunes as well as the original intro theme.