PlayStation Basement #23 - Guardian's Crusade

This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on February 2nd, 2019. It has been edited slightly for formatting.

Starting just the other day, it’s the lovely month of February. Time for more PlayStation Basement to celebrate our love of the original PlayStation and all of the weird and unknown games for it. I do one of these reviews every Saturday using a nine-point scale where 9-7 is Good, 6-4 is Neutral, and 3-1 is Bad.

In 1999, the monster-raising craze was sweeping North America. For me, it started with Tamagotchi and Digimon LCD games and Monster Rancher on the PlayStation. Eventually, of course, I played Pokémon Blue and many other games in that series. In addition to the previously mentioned Monster Rancher, the PlayStation had its own share of monster-raising RPGs in various shades of similarity to Nintendo’s hit franchise. Along with Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu and Azure Dreams, Guardian's Crusade was one such game.

The game was released in North America 20 years ago on January 31st, 1999. It came out in March of the same year in Europe and September of the previous year in its native Japan (as Knight & Baby). The game was developed by Tamsoft, famous for the Battle Arena Toshinden series and published by Activision in non-Japanese regions. The game tells the tale of a young man named Knight, his fairy friend Nehani, and a small, pink rabbit/pig creature named Baby that they encounter while finishing a short task. The pair is tasked by a spirit to take Baby to God’s Tower, a large landmark far to the east. Of course, Knight will have to brave dangers and raise Baby to be strong along the way. I’m sure that it will be quite a journey.

The cover art of Guardian's Crusade varies quite a bit between the eastern and western releases. The North American and European covers show our heroes standing before the luminous God’s Tower. The art is rendered similarly to the cutscenes of the video game. I like the sense of wonder that this art provides to the viewer, as we look on from the perspective of the characters. The Japanese art is rendered as a Claymation comic strip, showcasing the humorous nature of the game and its world. I think both versions are good, though the Japanese might be a bit better because of its strong use of color and texture.

Graphically, Guardian's Crusade is fairly impressive. While the game has a lot of smooth polygons with minimal textures and simple character models, the animations of the characters are well done and some of the designs are very imaginative. Every town looks more or less different, from pseudo-Arabian ports to cavernous tent cities to huge castle towns, Guardian's Crusade is a fun world to explore. Even more impressively, the game has no world map – it seamlessly transitions from town to wilderness as Knight, Baby, and Nehani navigate the lands. Once you get other methods of transportation, this still holds true; you can even see people walking about while you are flying above them. On the other hand, the battle backgrounds look pretty simple, but the monsters can be pretty unique.

I love the soundtrack to this game; it is one of the game’s strongest parts. The music tends towards downtempo, dance, and jazz. The song for the Cave of Fear is one of my favorite video game compositions. The sound effects do a good job of making the game special too. I love the menu sounds so much, their hollow, bubbly sound really standing out snappily. The slashes of Knight’s sword, the sounds of magical effects, and Baby’s cute cries also bring Guardian's Crusade to life.

Now, most importantly, Guardian's Crusade is fun to play too. It’s your standard JRPG in the vein of Dragon Quest with a few twists. The party consists of only one character you have direct control over – Knight. Baby can be given orders, but he does not always follow them; that’s part of teaching him and helping him get strong. If you don’t teach Baby right, he won’t listen to you at all. Nehani will contribute in a small part, healing or dealing damage, but only very rarely. It’s not only two-ish characters for the entire adventure though. The player also has Living Toys that act as spells or temporary party members. Living Toys are found in chests or received as gifts throughout the game with around 70 total. It’s fun to collect them, and some are pretty cleverly hidden. You can have up to three out in battle at once, so you can more or less build a party when needed.

I do have to say that the game is pretty easy. I was able to clear the game and only lost once. Naturally, with simple battles like this, you don’t have the range of strategies as many Final Fantasy games or tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem or Arc the Lad. It’s also easy to match your party’s strength to the enemies, as adversaries appear on the map as ghosts that are sized and colored depending on how strong they are to you. Stronger ghosts are large and chase the player, while weaker ghosts are small, white, and run away. It certainly makes exploration much more fun in this game, and there is a lot to explore. From collecting those Living Toys to finding new enemies that Baby might be able to transform into to searching every couch, potted plant, and fireplace to hear Nehani’s funny scoldings of Knight’s mischievous behavior (and sometimes even finding an item in one of these places!), it’s nice to not have a random goblin breathing down your neck every minute.

I really, really like Guardian's Crusade. I was really intrigued by the game when I first read about it back in a magazine and got it soon after when I finally found it at the game store. I finally completed the game yesterday, though I had played much of it in the past; it really held up and plays maybe better than it did back in 1999 in some ways. The humorous dialogue and the JRPG story taken from a different perspective (you’ll have to play to see what I mean) both made the game very interesting, and I always wanted to see what would happen next. The games ending made me happy too. Guardian's Crusade is around 15-20 hours, and it really is worth playing for RPG fans.

Guardian's Crusade receives a Good (9).