PixlBit

I’ve made it no secret on this website that I’m waiting for some forward-thinking developer to reinvent the classic beat ‘em up genre and bring it into the 21^st century. While some games have come frustratingly close, I’m still waiting for that one shining example of the modern side-scrolling brawler. It’s become clear to me that it’s going to be a long wait, but games like Sacred Citadel at least tiptoe in the right direction.

Sacred Citadel attempts to merge the classic tabletop RPG with the arcade action of the brawler -- exactly what I’ve been asking for when it comes to newer beat ‘em ups, and Sacred Citadel puts in just enough of the role playing stuff. Characters gain experience points and level up, giving the player a couple points to assign to typical stats such as strength and dexterity. Enemies drop weapons and armor throughout the course of the game, and any gold found in the field can be spent on even more gear or life-saving potions.

Sounds pretty great, right? It’s not bad, but it doesn’t go far enough. At every point, Sacred Citadel comes up just a bit short of being innovative or doing something really special.

To begin with, let’s take a look at the playable characters.They fill specific roles that you would expect to see when you’re sitting around with your buddies rolling those d20s. You have your warrior (Damage Per Second), ranger (ranged attacks), mage (ranged DPS), and shaman (party support). They all have their own moves and special abilities, but in practice they all end up feeling almost identical. Imagine my surprise when I rolled a ranger after beating the game with the warrior and found that I could equip most of the same weapons. The only difference was I had traded my two handed weapon for a bow, but with enemies rushing forward constantly I always ended up using melee attacks anyway. It’s a far cry from Sacred 2, the complex action RPG that this game is based on.

As characters level up they learn special moves that require a bit of timing on the controller, which cuts down on the mindless button mashing that these games can fall prey to. Again, these special moves end up behaving the same for each class. The special attacks are definitely useful, as they allow a character to control the battlefield by juggling enemies, attacking the enemy behind them, pushing them away, or stunning them to get some breathing room. I employed these moves heavily during my playthrough, but there were plenty of times when they simply didn’t work, even if I was focusing on nailing each command.

The failed special attacks proved to be a very minor problem, because the enemies are devoid of intelligence, even when compared to the brain trusts that were Andore and Two P. Most enemies run in, begging to be slaughtered. They rarely employ any defensive maneuvers, and more often than not they just sit there getting the life pounded out of them. Developer Southend Interactive must have realized this, but instead of making the enemies smarter they simply increased their life bars. This results in enemies that take a beating and ask for more, and my patience wore thin as I hacked ‘n’ slashed like a madman at foes that wouldn’t stay down. It doesn’t help that each act introduces only two to three enemy types that get recycled over and over, and the boss fights are typically just larger versions of regular enemies with ridiculously long health bars.

To make sure those huge health meters drop as fast as possible, I would advise picking up the best loot possible. I absolutely love games with weapons and armor to pick up, and I got really excited when I realized that this was a feature of Sacred Citadel. Again, this is a missed opportunity that isn’t leveraged for all it’s worth. The weapon designs are all very cool, and most of the swords and small hand axes I picked up during my adventure looked unique and more powerful. The armor, on the other hand, was a total disappointment. Even though I probably equipped around twenty sets of armor during the game my appearance only changed twice.

The game also features a crystal system. These are very rare items that boost various attributes for a limited amount of time. In a weird implementation of this system, crystals seem to equip themselves at random. I tried to save them for boss encounters, but more often than not I would find that the game had already used them up without any input from me. The crystals can be purchased in town along with better weapons and armor, but the amount of gold I retrieved in levels was always far less than the increasing costs of gear in each act. I think that’s because the levels are meant to be played over and over, either to complete various challenges or to battle through with a friend in multiplayer  For a solo player who doesn’t repeat missions,  any items in town are prohibitively expensive.

About that multiplayer: I can confirm that Sacred Citadel has local and online co-op of up to three players. I can confirm this because I’m asked to start a local or online game, and I see slots for two other players to join me. However, I never found anyone online to play with. I would have hosted my own game, but instead of being drop in, drop out co-op Sacred Citadel won’t start until at least one other player joins the game. It makes for a frustrating experience when trying to bring others in, so I’d recommend having a buddy come over for classic couch co-op or making sure you know someone that owns this game before planning to play online.

Sacred Citadel is a rather lovely game to look at, sporting a crisp, animated style. It doesn’t resemble its Sacred 2 source material at all, but the characters are large and nicely detailed. The screen fills with enemies and special effects with no noticeable slowdown or framerate issues, but the audio routinely skips and glitches out. The soundtrack isn’t anything to write home about anyway, but every time I’d hear the music skip my teeth would grind just a bit.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Sacred Citadel has some rather shady DLC available. The proper game has four acts, but there’s not much of an ending to it. As I understand, this game is supposed to be a lead in to the upcoming Sacred 3, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Jungle Hunt DLC (which adds a fifth act to the game) was cut from the main adventure.

I love a good beat ‘em up, and Sacred Citadel is just that. It feeds the need I have for walking to the right and beating up on various thugs, and some of the RPG mechanics are on track to really move the genre forward. It’s just a shame that the dumb enemies, limited amount of moves, and cookie-cutter characters hold it back. Even with those negatives, Sacred Citadel is one of the better examples of a modern brawler out there.