Sacred Citadel Review (PC)

As a self proclaimed hero of less favourable RPGs Barrie’s on a mission to a Sacred Citadel.

Anyone who knows me will attest to my love of Role Playing Games, even ones that don’t get much love from the general public. Now the Sacred series has been no different, I think I have owned all versions of the original Sacred right through to the ‘Gold’ release, and Sacred 2 on the Xbox 360 is one game I have been meaning to return to for a while. And now with the up coming Sacred 3 not too far away SouthEnd Interactive and Deep Silver have delivered us Sacred Citadel, a prequel of sorts for Sacred 3. But beware, this side scrolling action game is a far cry from the Sacred games you may have played in the past. Bad for RPG fans wanting a fix back in Ancaria, but good for anyone who is looking for a ‘Golden Axe’ style brawler.

 So as mentioned this is not even close to a fleshed out RPG, the closest you have to RPG elements are the distribution of skill points at the end of each level and the ability to pick up weapons,which immediately replace your existing ones, dropped by enemies. The use of health potions is also included. Right, so now we are clear that this isn’t a RPG in the proper sense, lets concentrate on the solid little side scrolling brawler we do have here. We are still located in the world of Ancaria and have characters from Ancaria to battle with and against. The story is pretty limp and quickly forgotten as is the case with most action arcade games and the lack of ability to remap the keys in the PC version make me think this was a quick port from console, so the controls take a bit of getting use to.

The look and sound of Sacred Citadel is up to todays standard for this level of downloadable title, with some nicely realised enemies from the world of Ancaria. Sometimes you will find yourself attacking enemies at the wrong depth on the screen due to the size of them making it hard to gauge the exact location, but that is quickly resolved by moving up or down the screen. The Boss battles are particularly impressive and really ramp up the difficulty from the standard hack and slash you encounter through the normal levels. Using any power ups, or combos you may have learnt really pays off here, if you are lucky you may even have a mount or war machine to help you out when the going gets tough.

I have to admit to finding it hard to really get into Sacred Citadel, despite it being a pretty decent game. Maybe we are spoilt these days with so many reasonably priced downloadable games and Triple A titles that are now at bargain bin prices . A game really has to shine to get a decent amount of people interested. It seems this sentiment is all too common for so many games these days, I guess this is a good thing from a gamers point of view but the poor old game developer really has to up his game to get noticed. I think many RPG fans will pick this up solely as the prequel to Sacred 3, and many will bore of it just as quick. The market group which may appreciate Sacred Citadel the most is the old school games who grew up in the Golden Axe era. Because at its core there is a really decent side scrolling action game for up to three players.

Released 17th April for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.