Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown

One of the most interesting things about Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown is the fact that it was Capcom who actually put this out on the PS2, original Xbox and PC back in the early 00s. If the name “Defender of the Crown” sounds familiar to you this is probably because this is a remake of a game that was released on pretty much every platform under the sun the better part of two decades earlier before this was released. See even back then we have remakes of games!

The Prince Of Paupers

The story and setting of Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown is pretty darn awesome. The game has you playing as Robin Hood who has to deal with Prince John and that no-good Sherriff of Nottingham as they are up to their old tricks. This time though, they are trying to seize the ultimate power and take the whole of England for themselves. Robin Hood is not going to take this and he will reunite England and fight off these chumps!

Where Is Kevin Costner?

The presentation of the game is a bit of a mixed bag. The CG cut scenes are pretty awesome and move things along nicely. The rest of the game though has a rather low-quality design to it, even for the time period. It is not a horrible looking game, but there is certainly a blandness to it, especially the overhead map portions. The sound effects ranging from the music, ambient sound and voice acting all do a serviceable job in my opinion.

Working Hard For The Common Man

The gameplay of Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown is best described as a turn-based strategy game, but calling this just that is doing it a huge disservice. You see, this features a bunch of mini-games ranging from sword fighting, jousting, and raiding! There is the turn-based element of it all and the strategic element. However, these “mini-games” greatly keep things from getting too boring and give you many ways that you can bring new people to your noble cause as well as make money.

What is really cool about this is that the gameplay is very much a straight remake (all be it made for a modern console) from the original. You will need to unite the lands, collect taxes and so. You get certain bonuses for doing things like uniting areas that are close by and so on. The mini-games are a mixed bag, jousting is bar far the hardest and requires some serious skill, but the rewards are far greater than just doing a standard sword and bow fight.

The gameplay on offer here is pretty fun, but it does feel like a rater basic strategy game by today's standard. One thing that may put some people off is the difficulty. For a console game, the strategy portion of this does not hold back and right from the start this is one very challenging game.

Pros:

• I love the Robin Hood story
• The CG in the game holds up pretty well
• I enjoyed partaking in the mini-games
• It has more strategy than you would think
• One of the better remakes from this era

Cons:

• You only get to play as Robin Hood through the whole game
• It could have eased you in a bit more at the start of the game

While we talk a lot about genre-crossing games such as Deus Ex and Black & White as if it's something new, we often forget golden oldies like North & South and Defender Of The Crown, both excellent examples of their day, both combining platform action and strategy, the latter of course currently being updated in full-3D form as Robin Hood: Defender Of The Crown.

The new Cinemaware team promise 3D jousting, real-time strategy in the form of 3D castle sieges and massed land battles, plus Risk-style resource management across a map of old England - the aim to oust Prince John and return King Richie to the throne as the eponymous Bob Hood.

Unfortunately, we've a long wait for the final game - well over a year. Still, you could always download the old game on your favourite Amiga or Atari ST emulator.