Defender of the Crown EGA is a re-release of the original Defender of the Crown released in the late eighties by Cinemaware. The advanced Extended Graphic Adapter version was released one year later. The only difference is that the EGA version supports sixteen colours instead of only four.
Aside from the graphic display, the game play is identical. The game is partially a strategy game and partially an action game, requiring a minimal amount of hand-eye coordination to play. The setting is feudal England where the English king has been killed and Norman and Saxon factions are now fighting for control of the crown of Britain.
The user must start in his or her home territory and expand the holding’s lands, taking over the holdings of other lords to do so.
The strategy portion of the game is set up similar to a Risk board with players being able to attack only territories that lie adjacent to lands holding their armies. Players must defend and hold the territories they already own while amassing enough military might to push onward into enemy lands. The action portion of the game revolves around the actual battles. The user must run large siege weapons to weaken castle defences before storming into the castle itself. There are also simple fight scenes and jousts that require some physical skill as opposed to strategy.
There are also several subplots,
add-ons and mini games. The player can view the pictures of damsels held in enemy castles and rescue them from their evil captors. Then the fair maid’s picture will be portrayed in a window on the screen to remind the hero of his good deed. A single hero could save many young maids from such a fate in one campaign, especially given the fact that castles were sometimes taken and retaken numerous times before the game came to an end. Gamers also have the chance to meet up with the fabled hero, Robin Hood, and convince him to aid you in your quest to unite the lands.
Defender of the Crown has some merit as a historically accurate game. Many of the holdings were actual British territories at one point, and the landscape of Britain is fairly accurate. The military is also depicted accurately, with mounted units being worth more in the heat of battle than foot soldiers and so on. This is also a factor in the board game of Risk. Players have to utilize some micromanagement skills, but not to the level of other strategy games or simulators, such as Caesar or the KOEI series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Managing taxes and minor diplomacy is about as involved as Defender of the Crown will get. Still, it is a very rewarding game that can be completed within a few hours, and can be played again and again without instant boredom.
