The game that made me love action-adventure. A game long abandoned by Sega and unfairly seen as a cheap imitation of "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past". Its a game that hasn't given it the opportunity to show its virtues, which are many and shine with their own light.

The people of an island try to exterminate invading monsters that have awakened from the underground. For this, when their children turn 14 years old, they are given a sword to help fight the threat and win the war against these hated beings. You start here. The premise doesn't look very different from the typical rpg. However, due to fate circumstances, you lose the ability to speak with humans and gain the one to speak with plants, monsters, and animals. The latter will be your greatest allies (and not like the flowers, who will try to scam you as much as they can), such as his puppy Johnny, a penguin or even a flame mane lion.

There are a lot, and some hard to get. I don't know anyone who has managed to beat the cheetah fairly in the kart race! Also each one grants a different power that you can combine or enhance with the other animals, giving the gameplay a brand-new and unique strategic flavor. And it is something that is vital to complete puzzles and continue the adventure.

Regarding the plot, it may seem dull, simple and little worked, but as the adventure progresses the plot becomes more mystical and profound than one would expect at first, with a slight search for spirituality in its history, a powerful ethical message based on respect for nature and an aggressive onslaught towards all social prejudice. Throughout the game you can also find a string of analogies to Judeo-Christian myths (the Tower of Babel or Leviathán), Greek (the curse of King Midas) and universal tales (Little Red Riding Hood, the Wizard of Oz and Jack and the magic beans ).

It has a lot in common with "A Link to the Past", that's a fact. The gameplay is fantastic, but nothing we haven't seen before. 8-way movement including jumping, which in combination with the powers of the animals makes combat fun. In Zelda we have heart containers, in Crusader of Centy we have apples and so on. However, it is an engaging and enjoyable game. For any fan of zelda it deserves a must try. Its playability has stood the test of time very well.

It's a shame Sega forgot about this product, but luckily we have an unofficial sequel called UNDERTALE, but that's another story ...

I didn't get too far into this one. I went off to an area I clearly wasn't meant to go to so early and tooled around there a bit. Lost all my health there and couldn't find a way to recover it. Finally I went off to the training grounds I was meant to go to and promptly died at some spikes because I had no health. Apparently there is no autosaving feature or anything because it just Game Overed me and I had to reboot the save which started me at the beginning and after that I was done. I am sure this game has a lot more to offer if some actual time is put into it, I barely got to experience the game I think so I can't say much about it unfortunately.

I think it’s a shame that Crusader of Centy isn’t held in higher regard than it is. My friends and I were taken in right away by the impressive graphics and soundtrack, and became enthralled as the story progressed, with each event proving more bizarre than the last. It has its stumbling blocks, largely thanks to some uneven difficulty and obtuse puzzle design, but it’s a charming, ambitious game all the same.

It is a shame about that distressingly ethnostate-friendly ending, though. Really came out of left field.

It is SEGA's answer to the "Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past", a pretty shameless one at that, the sprites and backgrounds are nearly identical in style, soundtrack and gameplay - Nextech might have been approached by SEGA to make a rival to Link to the Past for their console, being a contractor. The game is 3 hours long, with most of the fighting happening in puzzle-riddled dungeons. At the beginning of the game, you can only speak to animals and plants, gaining the ability to have pet companions with unique abilities. The game features its own Dark World, returning to the past mid-game after beating the deuteragonist: Maldra the Dragon. Corona then gains the ability to go back into the past and speak to humans; his new goal: make peace between humans and monsters. It's not Link to the Past, but it's pretty close.

Completed with all animal companions gathered and all Apples of Life collected. Frequently compared favourably with the gold standard of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Crusader of Centy is a Mega Drive exclusive overhead perspective action RPG. As a huge fan of the Zelda franchise, I've been putting off playing this for far too long! However, while I had a definitely had a good time with Crusader of Centy, I feel that it falls somewhat short of A Link to the Past's yardstick.

Rather than abilities coming from the collection of items, here the protagonist's skillset is extended by gathering animal companions, two of which can be 'equipped' at once. However, their effect is typically somewhat passive, primarily serving to alter/enhance existing core skills rather than provide an entirely different form of interaction; for example, one of the primary abilities - and puzzle-solving mechanics - is sword throwing, and an animal might extend the range, allow in-flight control of the sword's path or make it ricochet off walls. Overall the result is that the range of puzzle design that's available is quite limited, as are the available approaches to combat The inclusion of jumping as a core ability is great, though, frequently used to good effect to make navigation in itself a little more puzzle-like.

The story here is worth a mention, and while I'll avoid specifics that could be spoilers, the overall direction is fairly original. In particular, that it starts to explore ethical issues centred around the relationship between humans and monsters in parts of its closing stages is commendable for its time. Absent the comparison to A Link to the Past, Crusader of Centy stands up to this day as a very enjoyable and worthwhile addition to the exclusive catalogue for the Mega Drive, arguably a 'hidden gem' that more people ought to make time for.

As with so many media, it happens with video games that in the long history of their existence, entire works are forgotten by time. Be it through their similarity to other games that came before them, or through the fact that only a few played them at the time of their release. And in the case of Soleil, at least if you consider West, both are true.
Soleil was part of Sega's grand project to stock up on RPGs and adventure games, which had long been rather scarce on the Mega Drive. While the SNES spearheaded the golden age of RPGs and adventure games, Sega limited itself to the niches that competitor Nintendo served comparatively less. Be it action games, sports games and arcade ports. However, this meant that Sega missed out on a large target group, especially in Japan, who had a far greater interest in RPGs, which Nintendo only had in abundance on offer. Soleil was the first game of Sega's RPG project, which actively tried to compete with Nintendo in this niche. That the RPG project was crowned with little success hardly needs to be made clear. When you think of the RPG machine of the 90s, you're talking about the SNES with absolute certainty, and hardly the Mega Drive. Among other things, this "failure" ensured that most of the games from this project were increasingly forgotten over the years, usually completely regardless of their quality. Among these "lost gems" is unfortunately Soleil, which indulges its internet existence in a few Wikipedia articles and ancient playthroughs on YouTube. Which dismays me deeply, especially now that I've had a chance to play it myself.

Soleil has been compared to A Link to the Past since its release in the West in 1994. Which surprised me little, at least at first: the character looks very similar to Link, combat mechanics are similar, the game has a similar graphic style, there are dungeons with puzzles. That sounds like a real Zelda clone...doesn't it? When I first started Soleil I could have answered that question with a resounding "yes", but after the credits finally appeared on the screen I no longer think I can stand by that statement.

Soleil unquestionably takes some notes from A Link to the Past, but how it finally uses these characteristics and mixes them with its own ideas makes this game very much its own and special.

Soleil tells the story of Corona. On his 14th birthday, according to ancient tradition, he receives the sword and shield from his fallen father to begin his training as a hero of Soleil. After Corona tells the King of Soleil about his 14th birthday and is sent by him to the training camp, Corona seeks out a fortune teller. This one predicts him a future that will determine the fate of the world. For better or worse, it will be up to him. She also tells Corona that he would soon lose something important. A bright flash of light appears and the fortune teller disappears. Corona soon learns that he has lost the ability to talk to other people. However, he can now communicate with animals of all kinds. Corona asks his dog Johnny for help and starts with him, as his first companion animal, his journey through the country to find a way to regain his human language. On his journey, Corona meets other animals who, after he has helped them, assist him as another animal companion.

This is the core mechanic of the game. The animal companions function relatively similarly to items you would find in a Zelda game, but there is a much higher focus on influencing Corona's combat abilities instead of being a mere tool like a grappling hook. Just 4 of the 16 available pets could also be described as clear recreations of Zelda-typical items. Without as too many companions to begin with and no special abilities, fighting is very similar to the familiar A Link to the Past gameplay. However, Corona learns two abilities relatively early on that drastically change. First, Corona learns Sword Throw in training camp, which is Soleil's equivalent to Link's Whirl attack. Only, the sword throw is far more useful and the attack you'll use most often against bosses and masses of enemies. Combined with the animal companions, which can add ice and fire magic to the sword throw, among other things, the applications of the sword throw multiply all the more. Be it in the fights themselves or solving the rather simple puzzles of the game.

While the puzzles inside and outside the dungeons are very easy until the end, the focus of Soleil's puzzles is much more on platforming. This is made possible by Corona's dedicated jump button, which can be used to overcome huge chasms in combination with a certain animal companion. Even though none of the dungeons were really challenging in terms of puzzles, they were able to thrill in a different way with these platforming passages. Dungeons are also intrigued into the world of Soleil completely naturally. For example, Tower of Babel, which is not just any dungeon that stands in the middle of the desert without any context. It's a structure built by humans that was supposed to reach to the heavens, but was never finished. In fact, most of the dungeons aren't even really recognizable as such, as they're usually just part of the linear path that Corona travels on his way through the world. I often didn't realize it was a dungeon until I was face to face with the associated boss.

The bosses were always the highlight of a dungeon. While similar to the puzzles, they are not very complicated, the presentation of them and Corona's fast and dynamic movement makes up for it. All of this is accompanied by a soundtrack that could only exist on the Mega Drive, which makes the boss fights just plain fun.

The soundtrack probably reflects a lot of Soleil's personality. The game actually manages to tickle such atmospheric sounds out of the Mega Drive that you would normally only expect from SNES games. But in doing so, Soleil still preserves the console's musical identity. Soleil sounds like a Mega Drive game, but like no other on the platform.

Unlike most other adventure games, the player does not move through an open connected world, whose secrets can be explored further and further in the course of newly acquired abilities. Soleil builds its upper world according to a kind of level system similar to Super Mario World or Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. However, the available areas can be freely explored and revisited, whether for story reasons or to collect missing golden apples, which correspond to the heart containers of a Zelda game. Thus, Soleil follows a strict linear progression with hardly any deviations from the foreseen path, but this apparent restriction allows the game to convey a deeper narrative, which at the time was really only known from classic RPGs.

Because even though Soleil starts off very lighthearted with its story, it unfolds its true plot point in the middle of the game. Soleil is, I think, one of the first games to seriously ask the question, "Is it really right to kill monsters just because they are monsters?" This is a question that has gained a strong hold in the medium, especially nowadays. A popular example of this would clearly be "Undertale." However, despite the deeper subject matter, you shouldn't expect anything as profound from Soleil as these modern games. Especially the ending of Soleil's story might be considered rather inappropriate or at least questionable by fans of Undertale, for example. However, I won't go into that until later.

Corona's journey finally leads him to Iris, where he is directly confronted with the moral conflict for the first time. Namely, when he enters the village, he exchanges bodies with a slime, which flees in its acquired human form. In search of a cure, the games if briefly views the world from the point of view of one of the weakest monsters in most video games. Only able to move, with a jump that basically does nothing and the fear of being slain by a hero who pounces on you like a madman as soon as you go near him. Corona finally meets the mother of the real slime in a hiding place, who immediately recognizes him as a real human being and tells him what kind of fear they constantly have to live in, although they have never done anything to a human being. For them, monsters are all the same, even though there are obviously just as many differences in character as there are in humans. With the help of a witch, Corona finally succeeds in changing his shape back with the real slime. The latter thanks him because he was finally able to tell a human girl, with whom he fell in love, about his feelings. With this first hard thought, the player finally leaves Iris.

And it doesn't stop from that point either. Corona reaches the Tower of Babel to find out why no one there can communicate with each other, hoping to find a solution to his language problem. He climbs the tower and beyond, finally arriving in heaven itself. After Corona finally defeats the boss of the dungeon there, he hears a divine voice. This explains to him that Corona received the language of the animals to see the world from the point of view of these and the monsters, to finally end the centuries of bloodshed. Seeing that basically nothing has changed and that Corona, with his victory over the Boss in Heaven, has also desecrated this sacred place, the goddess gives him back his human language. She warns Corona that it is not the words themselves that are important, but what is considered right in one's heart. He should look at the world from the point of view of others and she would pass the final judgment on those who are not able to see this. For Corona the time had come to change history. The laws of nature should no longer apply. Soleil's crusade should come to an end. Corona should see how deep the sins of mankind reach.

This stark departure in the game's tone so far hits hard. Especially when you consider that Soleil is actually aimed at a slightly younger audience than the typical Zelda player.

From this point on, the second act of the game begins. Corona gains the ability to travel back in time at certain locations on the overworld. It is not clearly stated why one does this. But if you interpret the goddess' speech correctly, it becomes pretty clear. Corona travels further and further back in time per area, not only to see how far the cruel conflicts of man have reached, but to unearth the root of all evil. His time travel takes him back to the desert, among other places, where in a society people are branded as monsters and thrown into the dungeon if they don't keep them to strict laws. In the volcanic area, Corona prevents the creation of an entire cave complex in the present where a magician turns ordinary animals into mindless monsters. In the animal village on the beach, Corona gives animals the courage to stand up to evil creatures.

But Soleil draws the player even further into humanity's dark history in the penultimate two areas. In Dahlia Valley, Corona climbs inside the monster mother that created all the monsters of this valley and kills her from the inside by attacking her defenseless heart. With the death of this monster in the past, there will never be monsters in Dahlia Valley in the present. But probably the most depressing place in the past, is Corona's hometown. There, some monsters have broken out of the dungeons. These can be traced to the church. The monsters tell that they only wanted to talk to the king to make him understand that they didn't want to harm anyone. The king's soldiers storm the church and kill all the monsters without being able to prevent it. One of the soldiers is also surprised that none of the monsters fought back. And to add salt to the player's wound, the king announces that a statue will be dedicated to Corona for his services.

This is the statue that adorns the fountain of Soleil City in the present.

A last area finally opens its gate to the past. Corona has arrived at the origin of everything. The point in time before light flooded the world and the point at which monsters entered the world. There Corona meets the still living monster mother, who explains to him that all monsters come from another world and got to Soleil involuntarily. They would have tried forever to return, but the gate through which they came was blocked by an invisible power of spiritual energy.

To fight against this power, the player must face five mini-bosses, which are designed according to the five senses. After defeating these, Corona faces off against the Spiritual Energy, which turns out to be the easiest boss in the entire game once you figure out its weakness. With the disappearance of the Spiritual Energy, all the monsters are sucked back into their world, thus never having encountered humans.
Back in the newly created present, battles against monsters were never fought, which means, among other things, for Corona that his father is still alive and his statue is exchanged for that of the Goddess. In a final speech by the Goddess, she praises Corona for reminding her of the good in people. However, she says, humanity should always remember that they are not the only ones who exist in this world.
Finally, during the credits, Corona takes his dog Johnny for a walk, during which he meets all of his animal partners that he never met in this timeline.

You will notice, especially from modern reviews, that this ending is criticized by some. I partially agree with this attitude and would have definitely liked it better if humans had learned to coexist with the monsters at the end. But I would by no means go so far as to say that Soleil ends up stumbling over its ultimate message of mutual understanding. Indeed, this is reinforced primarily by the newfound relationship between man and beast. Perhaps with the disappearance of the monsters, the developers wanted to communicate that some people are too different to ever live together peacefully, to the regret of all involved. Even if this would be a rather bitter conclusion, with which I would not agree, I can not deny that one could come to this view, if one looks at the real world events, with all its real conflicts. It at least makes you think.
Soleil is a game that, for me, went far beyond the image of a simple "Zelda clone". With its beautiful graphics that stand head to head with the SNES's finest games, a unique OST, and an unexpectedly deep story that, while a bit critical for me towards the end, definitely deserves more attention. Maybe one day Soleil will undergo an "Earthbound revolution" and will see this little game for what it is: A game worth remembering.

SEGA's response to the Zelda series. It's quite charming in its own ways, and while the gameplay has it's similarities to A Link to the Past, it expands on it in ways that differentiates itself greatly from the SNES' masterpiece. Thank you Nintendo for putting it on Switch's Genesis online!!

The gameplay never got dull, with a much higher difficulty curve (imo) than A Link to the Past thanks to the enemies being on the more aggressive and elusive side. The puzzles had me genuinely stumped, although some solutions were a lot more tedious than others (single tiles to jump on, mashing A/jump at every corner) and required you to dissect an NPC's dialogue to the highest degree. Though the more simple puzzles were a treat - thanks to the game's engine upping the typical rate these kind of games would play at. A faster run speed (and upgrades!) coupled with a jump really helps put more inputs, decisions, and optimizations that help you speed up the gameplay to a degree other top-down games wish they could. I felt really engaged the whole time while controlling my character, compared to Link starting his boot/sword dash every time he entered a new loading zone whenever he wanted to be a bit speedy.
The dungeons were ok. It felt like the whole world itself was more of a dungeon, since the overworld is pretty well designed and heavily connected. There were puzzles at every step of the game, with combat being usually solved by the animal buddies you pick up (which were this game's equivalent to Zelda equipment). The combat itself was smooth, with the sword having decent range and cooldown, and a really cool charge attack similar to Mega Man X's charge buster... but for every direction. Had a lot of cool puzzle applications as well! The bosses could usually be cheesed, but that didn't make them a pain to avoid whenever they started to move. Overall had fun with the gameplay aspect.

Presentation was phenomenal. The sprite work was crisp and detailed, showing the full power of the Genesis near it's end, while having really cool sprite rotations to wow the player. I could make out everything the game was trying to describe to me, and the colors popped. It suited the game's aesthetic with the light-hearted adventure that was starting. And the music? Incredible jams all over the place. While it has an OST of under 20 tracks, many of them were so catchy and fitting to the game's atmosphere. I definitely copped around 10 or so of the songs haha. When I first booted up the game, I found myself chilling at the save select screen for a solid 10 minutes, jamming to that 20ish second loop. So raw

Story was interesting. It's pretty standard at the start, then near the end of it it starts to unravel what the theme of the game was. It somewhat makes you question why you're doing any of it and if what you're doing is really the right thing to do. I hear the English translation that I played (NSO) is a bit wonky, but I think I got the message. It's an interesting thought to leave the players with, but in the end it only goes as far as to give you that thought and that's it. Imo I don't really feel the impact as much as I would like to. Good idea tho

cool game glad I played it

Played for Retro Handhelds GOTM January 2022, was a nice choice to play through.

It's a damn cute and charming action RPG, it has a ton of personality and while it's pretty nonsensical, it was mostly fun from start to finish. Loses some points for some jank (swinging the sword can feel a bit weird, but your primary form of attack should be throwing the sword anyway)

Lots of cool combinations with the animal buddies, though for a lot of general use I used the fire or ice sword and the cheetah for fast running speed.

Definetly a cute hidden gem on the Genesis worth checking out!! Feels very zelda-esque while having it's own unique spin on the ARPG formula.

Music also slaps super fucking hard

Gameplay-wise, this game is decent. I see lots of similarities with some Zelda games, but this game still manages to get it's own unique feel and have fun with the concept. Getting friends and mixing their powers is pretty fun, but the game fails to provide any meaningful challenge. The bosses are pretty easy and the puzzles are pretty obvious, especially if they require some friend's power. The only challenge this game can offer is to be lost maybe 80% of the time. I tried my best without any guides but the story makes little sense and at times fails to point you to the right direction and some of the late-game levels are literal mazes I stumbled around way longer than I felt was needed.

In the end, I very much enjoyed myself. It's not a Zelda killer, but it's still managed to deliver an interesting adventure with some quirky humour.

A fine game that doesn’t quite live up to the promise of “The Sega Genesis’ answer to The Legend of Zelda”. The animal partners are a unique take on the items, and combining the attack and movement partners to find a play style that works for you is pretty fun. Unfortunately, the game never really forces you to master most of them. The combat is a little loose, and the bosses don’t put up much of a challenge. I appreciated the somewhat melancholy story, but the script isn’t great and the story isn’t told particularly well. I’m glad I played it, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype for me.

Really charming Zelda-like with great music and a pretty interesting narrative (aside from the ending). I really appreciate the focus on action over puzzle-solving, and the speed of the game is breakneck compared to other games of this type. I think my biggest gripe is that the action kind of doesn't feel great? The sword has a really small hitbox, throwing your sword takes just a bit too long to charge, the momentum makes me miss jumps or slam into enemies way too often, and there's no oomph to hitting enemies at all. All that didn't bother me too much because the game doesn't overstay its welcome and it's generally very easy, but if this game just felt a little bit better to control it would be great.

Crusader of Centy is pretty solid for the most part. Somehow, I haven't played A Link to the Past yet, which this game gets compared to a lot. I have played Beyond Oasis though, and out of the Genesis library that is probably the closest comparison I can draw. This game is definitely easier and more story-driven, though. It's also a pretty digestible length, has very good music, and a bunch of tiny animals follow you around! Yay!

The emphasis on the narrative, however, is what makes the game's biggest issue really stand out. You see, monsters and humans have been failing to coexist for many years in this game's world due to monsters' inability to communicate and humans' selfishness and desire for war and bloodshed. Once you realize you're essentially on the bad side in this story, your new mission is to make peace between the two, right? Well, for some reason or whatever it cannot be done. What happens instead is you have to go back in time and keep the monsters from being sent to the human world, keeping them both in their own little bubbles and preventing the whole song and dance from even beginning. No peace between the two is really achieved. It's a very hollow victory at best, and more importantly seems to draw an awful lot of parallels to segregation, whether intentional or otherwise. I doubt it is, though, seeing as it feels most like a clumsy and rushed way to wrap up the story. Whatever the case, it kinda sucks ass that that's what they went with.

This is still a great game, don't get me wrong. It's just that discussion about its unsatisfying and questionable ending often tends to overshadow it, and after playing it and looking into it I really do see why. Beyond Oasis doesn't do that. I bet A Link to the Past doesn't either.