Treasure's a funny little developer. Some of Treasure's games are praised to the moon and back, while many others are swept under the rug and ignored by fans who would prefer that they didn't exist.
That would ruin the mystique, see. We can't have people mentioning Gunstar Heroes in the same breath as Silpheed: The Lost Planet. Heavens, no! With a back catalogue of classics like Guardian Heroes, Ikaruga, and Gradius V, Treasure's output is universally and indisputably amazing. You know, except for Buster's Bad Dream, Advance Guardian Heroes, Stretch Panic, and about a million others. But those don't count! Treasure was just having a bad day! You don't understand. You're...you're just biased, that's all.
Light Crusader is one of those Treasure-developed games that Treasure nutballs don't like to talk about. This week's Virtual Console release marked the first time I'd ever played it. Is it a forgotten classic, or is it just the Landstalker wannabe that I'd always assumed it was?
Well, it certainly looks like it would play better than Landstalker, for one thing. It's an isometric RPG, but you're allowed to move in eight directions instead of being stuck with diagonals only. The fact that your character has a shadow helps a lot. The jumping feels nice and floaty, too, and seems like it would lend itself well to platforming.
It's a lot more talky than Landstalker at first, though. You'll spend the first ten minutes of the game talking to townspeople (though you can push them down stairs and take an occasional swing at them, which breaks things up nicely), and it takes longer to get to the actual action. I actually had to consult a FAQ to figure out where to go after barely starting the game. The path to the first level is hidden in the graveyard, by the way, behind a tombstone that the game never tells you to push.
The gameplay falls apart once you get to the action sequences, unfortunately. Enemies take way too many hits to kill -- even the piddly little slimes -- and since everything in the game has a long invincibility period after it's damaged (except for your character, of course), combat boils down to long stretches of hitting and running. The bosses are particularly ridiculous, and deal tons of damage to your character while receiving very little in return.
The puzzles are generally pretty lame, too, and the controls lack the kind of precision Landstalker had, so jumping over spikes and pushing blocks can have unpredictable results. There's some interesting bits, like the magic system that allows you to combine elements for stronger attacks, and there's the usual Treasure graphics trickery going on that makes for some neat-looking special effects, but overall, there's nothing here in particular that makes Light Crusader in any way better than Landstalker.
I'd advise you to make like a Treasure fan and pretend that Light Crusader doesn't exist. It leaves more time for you to berate people for refusing to acknowledge the unbridled genius of Alien Soldier, besides.
Here's a video. Check out that supremely ugly character art in the intro!
