I’m venturing further into the Genesis library and Light Crusader was the next one on the list. It’s a pretty fun game and one that feels retro while still getting some unique mechanics in. It’s a game that was well made for its time and I had a good time in the present. It is fairly short so you’ll need to keep that in mind but it does a better job of being a big dungeon/maze than most of the newer ones that show up.

The game starts with a lot of people being kidnapped by a cult and so the main character heads off to save them. Underneath the castle is a 7 floor dungeon where these people are being kept. His mission, should he choose to accept it is to rescue them all and destroy all of the villains and monsters down there. The hero is equipped with a sword and has basic mastery over all elements. With these abilities at the ready he can handle these guys.

The gameplay style is mainly that of an overhead exploration game. The idea is to get to each set of staircases to reach the next floor. On the way there you will need to defeat the boss of the floor and solve a lot of puzzles to get there. The puzzles range from using boulders to fall into the right holes or trying to jump and hit different switches in order. They range from being extremely easy to sometimes being completely unknown. Some of these puzzles just felt like good ole fashioned button mashing to me. One of them for example was to hit 4 numbers in a certain sequence and I didn’t come across any hints in the game. So I just got cracking on trying every combo out until it worked.

If there were too many puzzles like that then it would have definitely hurt the game but fortunately that wasn’t the main focus. They would appear from time to time in the background but most of the game was about running and defeating enemies which is more up my speed. I also enjoyed the platforming puzzles because those tend to be run fair and square You can absolutely solve those puzzles just by deductive reasoning and without using any gimmicks or relying on hints. Those are the best kinds of puzzles I’d say. Since those represented the majority of puzzles in this game, I was all set.

Additionally this game has one of the better maps that I’ve seen. It was very detailed and easy to comprehend at a glance. I didn’t have to be wondering if I was looking at the screen right or anything like that. No, this was a map that would let me get to the end. The game’s length is fairly short as it’s only a few hours long. That said, it’s better to be short than to have had some forced length at the end. With this amount it felt like the game was running at full speed the whole time and never had to pause or try to buy some time.

We even got to squeeze in a classic boss rush as you have to save 8 wizards near the end and fight all of the old bosses there. That was pretty fun. Each boss has a very different gameplay style to them so there aren’t any clones here. Additionally, the final boss has a pretty cool design. It makes for a very impactful climax with a lot of color and depth to him.

The only area where the game is a bit weak is with the hitboxes. For most of the game they don’t even make much sense. There will be times where you know that you hit the enemy but nothing happens and other times when your blow seems to fall short but you land the move. I don’t think it was lag or anything like that but instead it just felt like for some reason the hit boxes were added to odd areas. Eventually you just get used to the difference and adjust accordingly but for a while there it definitely ends up feeling weird.

The soundtrack is solid here. No tunes that I will remember by the end of the week but they still work well enough with what the game is going for. Likewise the graphics are pretty good. Perhaps not out of this world good but they are clear and it is always obvious what is happening on screen. The art style is appealing too so I really have no issues there.

Overall, Light Crusader is a pretty good game. I definitely had a solid amount of fun with it and this would be a good template for how you should do a platforming puzzle game. It’s a genre that would definitely be difficult for most titles to pull off after all. It takes a whole lot of engineering and quality of life features but this game was clearly up to the task. There are even different collectibles and rooms that I didn’t get to explore so there’s even a bit of replay value here. If you have the Switch Online then you should definitely check it out. The experience is a very memorable one and while you might be annoyed at the short length if you had paid for it, that’s the perks of getting it through the Switch Online. If they ever wanted to bring this franchise back I would say there is a lot of potential there.

Overall 7/10