Crusade of Destiny

At a glance, Crusade of Destiny looks quite graphically rich, especially if you have a nostalgia for N64 era sharp polygon edges.

In an age where colourful 2D games still dominate the smartphone landscape, it still sometimes feels a bit of a novelty to be enjoying full, expansive 3D environments.

When you look a bit closer, though, the sheen starts to come off. The muddy textures, low draw distances, deceptively small environments, and lack of detail all drag the experience down.

The gameplay follows a similar trajectory, even now that we’re giving it a second look with Xperia Play controls.

Crusade of Destiny is an action-RPG, and it’s fair to say that some of the people who worked on it may be familiar with the Zelda series.

You’re a simple farm hand recruited by the queen of the land to join a fight against an ancient evil.

The gameplay doesn’t veer too far away from the genre’s traditions, focusing on the slaughter of respawning beasties, the collection of loot, and levelling up to increase your skills and tackle tougher foes.

As we said back in March, it’s a competent RPG, but one that doesn’t really stand out.

The touchscreen controls worked well in Crusade of Destiny, and the Xperia Play gamepad improves on them for the most part.

Walking is bound to the D-pad, and the various attacking methods are now on the face buttons, meaning you have less chance of slipping. The L and R triggers cycle between magic and non-magical weapons.

Oddly, the game hasn’t removed all the functions from the touchscreen, and while focusing on enemies with a finger on top of them is hard to replicate on the gamepad, binding camera movement or inventory control to the touchpads and D-pad respectively would have been a far more logical step.

Reverting to touchscreen on these occasions feels odd, but not fatally.

All in all, the Xperia Play update is a nice but unessential augmentation to a slightly above-average RPG. The loot ‘n’ level-up formula remains satisfying, but Crusade of Destiny is in most respects an uninspired entry to the genre.