The Crusade

The Crusade is a video game in the action genre and published by Inland International originally released in 1991. It is currently playable on DOS.

The Crusade is a below average action/strategy hybrid, similar to Gauntlet, but not nearly as fun.

For starters, the plot is pretty ridiculous: you're a king who has returned from a long journey, only to have a pompous guard deny you entry to his own castle and demand that you hand over a royal key. Thus begins the game's first mission, which puts you in charge of the king, queen and their followers as you try to retrieve the royal key within a set time limit (all of five minutes in real time). The following missions are no less implausible, though they are a bit more fun to play.

While the idea of combining top-down action with strategic elements is a good one, an idea that can spawn such notable games as Gauntlet and Rampart, to name a few, The Crusade falls short of these classics in many respects. You only have five minutes to finish most missions, there are numerous annoying hidden traps that can only be discovered with the 'Find Trap' command, which means clicking on a random tile, most of the maps are too boring and the enemies don't put up much of a fight.

All in all, a decent concept spoiled by poor execution. The original Amiga version is only slightly better known than this completely obscure PC conversion. Avoid it.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.