Another Crusade

I hate to give this a negative review because I love the idea of a Super Mario RPG tribute game, but this just too janky to enjoy. The game just kind of "starts" without any exposition or anything but we supposedly play as a renowned, powerful warrior who starts off at LVL1 with noob equipment, I guess? People know who we are but we seemingly know nothing about the world and things just happen to/around us, there's not much dialogue (literally a silent protagonist) or motivation to progress the game. On Normal difficulty the inputs felt impossible and inconsistent and easy difficulty didn't improve them, it just adjusted damage calculations (IMO). It truly feels like every attack is completely random. The lack of a map or any kind of modern convenience make this game difficult to navigate as most maps are just giant, generic sandboxes with minimal collectables scattered in the corners covered in dust. The enemies are unimaginative and by the time you learn their (difficult) attack timings, you're ready to move on to something else. My personal dropping point was the ice castle boss, I kept getting wiped out, didn't have revives and did not feel like backtracking through the entire level just to buy revives from the previous town. I don't like giving up on games, but I felt 0 motivation to continue with this game because I was not enjoying the game by this point and I was not confident that things would improve. Overall, I do not recommend playing this game. I found it extremely difficult and boring and a few times shifted between feeling extremely frustrated to falling asleep while playing. As appealing as this game looks, just remember that this is not a Paper Mario = Bug Fables situation, this is a Pokemon Go = Garfield Go situation. Just save your time and money and replay Super Mario RPG if you're getting that itch again.

The timing window for attacking and defending is very unforgiving on "Normal" mode. The enemies already act faster than you in battle, hit 2 or even 3 times as hard as you do and they start pounding you with status effects by the third area on top of everything else.. instead of the game itself being challenging, it completely relies on your ability to get down the timing of attacking and defending or else you'll be met with the Game Over screen over and over and over. The game itself is an obvious throwback to the SMRPG SNES days with the diorama style battle sets and general art direction and even the spells work similarly by mashing X or rotating the joystick to increase spell output.. it really is lifting almost everything from SMRPG and where SMRPG was way too easy of a game even for its time, this game is the polar opposite being needlessly punishing and 99.9% of the entire game is completely reliant on the awful timing window. It's a shame really cause it's a decent little game if you play it on the easier story mode, but the game becomes a joke in terms of difficulty and it's not like the story is going to be winning any awards any time soon so there's no real incentive for me to lower the difficulty because I don't feel like it's detracting from the overall experience. I'll keep plugging away at Normal mode and eventually see it through to the end but the timing window is absolutely garbage if you consider how brutally difficult the boss battles are right from the get-go (bosses dealing 30+ dmg when you only have 30-40 max HP) you have to choose to constantly burn through whatever little healing items and spells you have to prevent a Game Over or somehow manage to string several Perfect guards in order to attempt striking back.. it's just unfair. I'm going to recommend against this for the average RPG/JRPG gamer even though I'm perfectly fine with being hard headed and pushing through despite the obvious imbalances. I suggest reading [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198450557661/recommended/2016190/]this negative review[/url] to get a more in depth analysis of the frustrations this game has to offer.

I feel like this game deserves some more attention! It's a pleasant homage to Super Mario RPG, a bit brazenly in some ways, but that was enough to draw me in and keep me interested. The puppetlike aesthetic is neat, and I appreciate the devs adding in an Easy mode, because hoo boy those timing windows are brutal. Easy does seem to change them to more reasonable windows, and tweaks damage as well.

Its a good game, but naviagation is a PAIN. This game desperately needs a map. I have no clue where to go half the time. That mixed with the difficulty make it a slog to get anywhere. There's a lot of potential here because I do like the gameplay. I would easily change my review if I could simply be pointed to a guide that can help me out. That being said I still recommend it

I dont even know how this game ended up in my library Boring imo

In the 27 years it took Nintendo to remaster Super Mario RPG there were some bangers in the same vein for sure, but few capture the fascination and challenge as well as Another Crusade did for me. It's a turn based RPG heavily inspired by SMRPG, a love letter to the story, characters and fights that made the original such a beloved title. 2025 edit. This is literally SMRPGs "Claire Obscur" in terms of difficulty. The artstyle has a very unique puppet aesthetic that makes everything both charming and a bit unsettling at times. I'm a bit biased as I later found out it was made by a mexican developer and some particular in-game references (like one of the hidden boss fights) make no secret of it. If you have good memories of SMRPG or enjoyed the remaster. Give another crusade a chance, please. It is criminally underrated and deserves a lot more attention than it got.

Finally a classic turn based rpg with QTE’s (quick time events) and 3d platforming. The normal mode has very tight windows for the QTEs which makes for a fun challenge and room to improve while the easy mode lets players enjoy the game at a more leisure pace. I’m looking forward to speedrunning this game.

I've been streaming the game lately and I'm really liking it - so far! It's a really great homage to one of the best games ever made, and it also stands on its own as a challenging and grind-friendly RPG. The characters are cute and entertaining, and I can always appreciate a silent protagonist. The game favors its gameplay and replicates its influence well in many places, but a few of the fallbacks of this combat style do show their face as well. Sometimes, combat is a bit difficult and there is a learning curve to a lot of the timed hits, but nothing seems to be unfair so far. The game has a really apparent "cozy" vibe to it, which its influence did as well, and it makes it easy to sink into. My biggest gripes with the game have to be the lack of sound effects in some cases and the overuse in others. Specifically, I wish there were more sounds in things like interactions with NPCs, and that there was a little more care with the spatial audio. Hearing the torches is a bit crunchy and it'd be nice if it'd fade in or out a little more. Also, the game could benefit from having some sort of map system that helps you recall locations, because a dungeon that probably took me 2ish hours could've been half as long if I could recall where I was going or had gone. I'm nervous that the rest of this game will require a lot more needless backtracking and hopefully that's not the case.

This game is a rotten egg.