If you ask me, designer Kellyn Beck should get a lifetime achievement award for the masterpiece that is Defender of the Crown. Released for the Commodore Amiga in 1986, the game wound up finding a home on a series of computers and consoles, finally coming to the Game Boy Advance in 2002. The version we’re going to be talking about, however, is on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

You play as one of four Saxons (Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Geoffrey Longsword, Cedric of Rotherwood, and Wolfric the Wild), fighting against the other Saxons as well as the endless hordes of Normans as you fight for control of England. The goal of the game is very basic: Outsmart your fellow Saxons, ultimately crushing them along with the Normans and becoming King. As you built up your forces (buying soldiers with the gold paid to you by controlled territories), and warded off attacks, you eventually were able to spread your forces throughout England, crushing all in your path.

Earning gold could be done one of a few ways: The first is to conquer adjacent lands and collect a tax, as mentioned before. The second option is to hold a tournament between yourself and one of your many rivals, where you would face each other on opposite ends of a jousting ring, as well as in hand-to-hand combat with a mace (and in later ports, archery). If you were successful, you would either win gold or a section of their land, depending on what option you chose before the tournament. If you lost, however, you would lose your gold or land and be shamed by your fellow Saxons.

The third and fourth options have you raiding castles. While you can simply try a raid to steal some of your rivals treasure, you are sometimes called upon to help save a damsel in distress. While saving the damsel sounds like a noble and promising idea, I assure you – it’s not. After fighting your way over the wall (which plays like a 2D swordfighting game) and through the main hall, you are met with this:

…eh, maybe she’s kind of cute… for 1194…

Territorial combat is where things get a little cloudy, but only a little. If it were terrible, I wouldn’t be talking about it as one of the greatest games you’ve never played, now would I? When you are battling for open territories, it often times boils down to the simple mathematical equation of “I have more than you do.” While an army of 20 knights will usually wipe out 50 soldiers without much issue, when you are coming at them with 250 soldiers, 50 knights and a half dozen catapults, it can go pretty quick. Also, the combat options “Flank, Charge”, etc., don’t do much to change the tide of battle. Castle defense, on the other hand, is pretty fun. You basically play as a man with a crossbow. You take shots at men who are trying to climb over the wall, and based on how many men are defending the castle, you will either see small bits of damage fall off when you’re hit, or huge chunks. It takes a little bit to get used to moving the crossbow up and down to hit the target as opposed to simply moving left-to-right, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty damn awesome.

Defender of the Crown was a marvel of achievement at the time, and looking back, may be the Godfather to the modern Real-Time Strategy. Sure, it didn’t have all the bells and whistles that most RTS titles do. In fact, it played a lot like medieval Risk. But the unit management, territorial disputes and overall brains needed to outsmart the rather impressive enemy AI are more reminiscent of a modern RTS than anything that had come out at the time.

By the time Defender of the Crown was ported to the NES in 1989 it had a good deal of buzz from the computer gaming crowd of the day. That buzz quickly turned to anger and resentment on their part when they realized how the game looked using the NES’ underpowered hardware. Really, when you compare the two…

..there is no debate that the NES version was graphically stripped. However, the NES version did have one advantage over the computer versions that left many PC owners envious: It was actually finished.

When Defender of the Crown was first released, the developers (Cinemaware) didn’t have enough money to put in all the features they wanted. Some of the features that were created but not shipped in the initial release were flaming fireballs, more locations on the map and more units to try and make the game more of the strategic affair.

Overall, the game has seen several ports over the years, winding up on the GBA in 2002. The franchise has also seen a lackluster remake and a marginally better sequel entitled Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown. Yes, the idea of playing as Robin Hood in an open-ended game sounds appealing, but Cinemaware… well, let’s just say that it’s easy to see why they ultimately went under. Either way, if you have this in your NES *coughROMcough* collection, pick it up. If nothing else, give the free, albeit extremely inferior, Flash version of the game a go. Either way, play this game as soon as you can.

You owe it to yourself, and to the amazing team that engineered the original.

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