Join The Club
Despite my best efforts, I was born in 1993. That means there's a whole era of videogames I more or less missed out on: all those arcade, Commodore, and Atari classics that turn people who were there glassy-eyed with nostalgia. I want to get nostalgic about having 16k of RAM too! How do I plug this Amiga into an OLED television from 2022?
Well, I don't have to (I will one day, though, just you wait: my 23-pin D-sub to HDMI adaptor is patent-pending), because the lords and ladies of Black Tower Basement studio are gearing up to release Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns this August 13. It's a sumptuous remaster of a much-loved 1986 Amiga strategy RPG that is scratching all the Crusader Kings regions of my brain.
Oh, and the devs are bringing a whole new roguelite mode with 'em too, which is lighting up all the other regions of my brain—the ones dedicated to thinking about cool dice animations.
Merry old England (and merry old Wales) is in a bit of a state. It's the High Middle Ages and the king has died, and the land's lordlings would just love to fill his now-vacant brocaded slippers. But none of them will succeed, because you're going to beat them to it.
Pick from one of four Saxon warriors—I recommend Geoffrey Longsword just on account of the name—and off you go, working to unite old Albion under your banner by forging alliances, conquering territories, competing in tourneys and, if you're lucky, maybe soliciting a bit of help from Robin Hood.
Oh, and I gotta say, Black Tower's done some lovely work with this one. The remastered art style is painterly and nostalgic without being archaic, but if you're a Defender of the Crown OG, have no fear, the original game's graphics and music are still present and correct in the game's Retro Mode, which faithfully reconstructs the Amiga version, right down to the first-person jousting, with just a few quality-of-life enhancements to make it a bit easier to handle.
But what's this about a roguelite mode? Well, thanks for asking. In addition to the Remastered and Retro modes, different takes on the original 1986 Defender of the Crown main game, Black Tower Basement has gone and made something entirely new: a separate, card-based Kingdom Mode.
This one adds a dash of modernity into the game's 1986 gameplay mix: a run-based deckbuilder that sees you take on procedurally generated campaigns, conduct sieges and, crucially, roll a lot of very well-animated dice. It seems like the kind of thing you could accidentally put hours into, as you besiege holding after holding and bring more and more of England under your banner (at least until one of your foes hard-counters that deck you've put so much work into).
I'm excited to get my hands on this one. It really does feel to me like a 1980s take on Crusader Kings, right down to boosting your shot at the throne with a well-made marriage. It's a mix of strategy, RPG, and adventure that I'm honestly impressed devs could squeeze onto the hardware of the mid-1980s. If you fancy a trip back in time—in more ways than one—you can wishlist Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns on Steam.
