Play for Free: Cursed Crusade

Video game demos today are like movie trailers. If well done, they can make a horrible piece of art at least mediocre. If there’s something special there though, a well-received demo can set the scene for a huge release. Or in the case of Atlus’ new hack and slash title, “Cursed Crusade,” it can make a bad game seem even worse.

In spite of simple controls, beautiful cinemas and what appears to be a pretty cool story, “Cursed Crusade” plays like an absolute disaster.

At first, the one-button attack scheme works splendidly. The amount of bloods and crazy looking kills helps as well. But after a few minutes, the relentless and ignorant button-mashing runs its course. While there are multiple weapons to chose from, the combat is ultimately unrewarding.

Most of the game’s problems stem from a terrible camera. While the title tries to change it’s view from time to time, reminiscent of other games such as “Dante’s Inferno” and “God of War,” the transitions aren’t nearly as fluid. The end result is a game that tries to do too much. This could have been a fun medieval beat-em-up with RPG elements; instead it feels like a broken, muddy-looking version of “Dynasty Warriors.”

On top of that, the enemy AI is brainless. One scene has your warrior face to face with three crossbow-wielding baddies. Have no fear though. They won’t try to kill you. They’ll just stand there, with no cover, wait for you to shoot them and allow you to continue killing their friends.

This is just a small taste of the silliness this game offers.

Had the AI been better, the camera woes and overtly simplistic controls could have been forgiven. While you don’t get the whole story from this demo, you get enough of a taste to realize there are too many problems here that could possibly ruin your gameplay experience.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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