Deus Vult! Review of Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade 2004
While there is relative silence and eternal postponements in the industry, I decided to remember the past. More precisely, to catch up. I was looking for good Action/RPGs of the past, and came across a game not related to the RPG genre. But she was easily able to attract my attention. The game is called Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. In Russian translation – Templars: Crusade.
The game is similar to the original Resident Evil. At first, when I saw the camera in the game, I remembered classic Japanese survival horrors. The gameplay also evokes certain memories. Unless firearms are replaced with swords, axes, bows and maces. And the atmosphere here is no less gloomy, but not from the very beginning of the game.
Walk to Hell
The plot immediately makes it clear that something is wrong. The hero is told that the bishop who should have his beloved died several years ago. And a friend who dies under strange circumstances gives us a note with the text “God’s man is the devil.”. Despite this, the first chapters of the game seem like a fantasy action game. We fight crazy monks who don’t offer much resistance, and get to know combat system of the game.
The combat impressed me. Especially the animation of a character with a weapon. The hero’s movements look very realistic. Finishing off prone opponents with a sword, turning around – it’s hard to imagine what impressions this would have made on me in 2004. But even now I remember the animations. By God, even in ELEX the animations look worse, even though the game was released in 2017 (with all due respect to the creators of Gothic).
Taking a high position does not give superiority in battle. It’s a pity
To be honest, I can’t imagine how a modern young gamer could start playing this game. For those who didn’t catch the first parts of Resident Evil, such a camera and controls will be an extremely intimidating factor. But, if you caught the first parts of RE, and also remember what Dino Crysis is, everything will be clear here. Surprisingly, changing a firearm to a sword looks very good. Mainly due to implementation. Gameplay in the game works as it should. Battles with some opponents look very cool, like some kind of duel. Alas, this does not apply to demonic opponents.
The levels in Hell with the first www.nonukcasinosites.co.uk/review/mega-casino/ person camera look just like Painkiller!
When fighting with people, the player feels that the enemy has been hit. It immediately becomes clear that he is wounded, and the combo can be continued. Therefore, hostile knights and Saracens try to block the blows. But if you hit a demonic creature, you won’t feel such a feeling. The blows cause damage to large hellish creatures, but they will not give a certain microstun. Therefore, doing a combo against them is useless – the demon can strike at any moment and knock him down. The best tactic here is to block and special strike when the enemy opens up. Fortunately, most of the game had to fight with people. Therefore, in the end, the gameplay gave me incredible pleasure, albeit partly due to some kind of nostalgia. But the significant minus for me was keyboard control.
Chaotic actions
It’s worth telling more about it. The character moves on the arrows, hits on Q and W (fast and strong, respectively), block on E, and R – apply. Overall not bad, definitely not at the level of the Resident Evil 4 port. Problems start when special blows and prayers are involved. Something incomprehensible is happening here, reminiscent of memes about playing Invoker in Dota 2. A special attack is a combination of the TAB key and one of the character’s action keys (QWER). Prayer – the same (space + Q, W, E or R respectively). As you progress, combo attacks will open – combinations of a regular and heavy strike. And when you perform a combo, you think about making a special attack that breaks through the block, and before that you used a prayer of healing – everything starts to go wrong.
I never managed to find out the secrets of the Saracens.
You start pressing buttons chaotically, and in order to activate the necessary skill, you need to remember which prayer or blow is tied to which key. And these blows and prayers also open as they pass. Only a little later. For example, the last prayer becomes available very close to the end of the game, so I never really used it. But the prayer of healing, which is given first, will be on your machine from the middle of the game. This also applies to a special attack that penetrates a block. Perhaps the problem is just me, but I kept getting confused with the keys. Either doing the wrong special move (which is not scary – stamina is restored automatically), or confusing prayers (which is more critical, because the hero’s magical power is not restored automatically). Even after beating the game, I can’t confidently say that I’ve mastered the controls. The game was also released on PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. I think the controls were a little more convenient on gamepads.
Mace, sword… what’s the difference??
Perhaps, another disadvantage I would like to point out is the meager diversity combo attacks. The game has three types of melee weapons: swords, axes and maces. And all combos are the same for any weapon. This is very strange, because in the developers’ last game, Enclave, there was a greater variety of weapons and attacks. On the other hand, this can be justified by the fact that we are playing as a crusader who learned to wield a sword and adapts his skills to the weapons he comes across.
When finding a new weapon, the character replaces the old one with it
The game has the ability to shoot with a bow. When using it, the camera switches to first-person view, and it becomes impossible to move. This convention is justified by the incredible power of the bow – a hit to the head immediately kills even an enemy wearing a helmet. It’s just not always possible to understand when you hit the nail on the head and when you didn’t. Sometimes it seems like there it is – a direct hit to the head, but the enemy continues to come at you. And if the enemy comes close to you, it will become almost impossible to hit your head. But still, it’s better not to underestimate the power of the bow. It can help defeat a quickly boring enemy if used correctly.
Up close the textures are not impressive. But the water looks good
It’s difficult to evaluate the graphics now, in 2020. For me there is 2 types old games. In the first type, the graphics do not stand the test of time: everything is too clumsy, angular – it’s not comfortable to play. In the second type, the graphics are outdated, but still look adequate – in the locations it is clear where to go and how one differs from the other, the textures do not hurt the eyes, and there is nothing to complain about other than old age. I consider the Templars to be the second type – everything looks good, the graphics are still good. But the cutscenes in the game are created in low resolution (looks like 360p). They stand out from the background of the game itself with a rather mediocre picture, but there’s nothing to be done about it.
“Jackal” bishop in “jackal” quality from the cutscene
As a result, I can safely say that completing the game was a pleasure. It was nice to go back in time and play a knightly action game, not burdened with a fantasy theme (albeit with a large share of the supernatural).
No one attacks the character while praying
Even though the game did not become popular, I think it was a worthy and interesting project for that time. For a one-time passage – just right. The game will not surprise you with its intricate and intriguing plot or incredibly deeply written characters. But the gameplay is at least interesting. The unusual combat system, together with animation made using motion capture, does its job, and everything is played cheerfully for that time. I recommend a try for all fans of knight action games.