Hello! Nintendo just dropped four new Sega Genesis games on Nintendo Switch Online and, would you believe it, they’re all bangers! We’ve got Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Landstalker and The Revenge of Shinobi to play for hours on end and… whats this? Crusaders of Centy?

Released throughout 1994 and 1995, Crusader of Centy (AKA Soleil and Ragnacenty in Europe and Japan respectively) is a top-down action game for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive in the UK/Japan) by Nextech. It revolves around a silent protagonist named Corona as he explores the fictional kingdom of Centy in order to train and become a hardened warrior, before questing to improve the world he lives in and put an end to a war between its humans and monsters. If you’re unfamiliar with this one, it’s an Atlus published (in the US) game that was a part of the Sega of Japan’s Mega Role Play initiative, which was a promotion designed to help boost sales of the Mega Drive in Japan. Basically, Sega knew that RPGs were sorely unrepresented on their 16-bit console and decided to dedicate a year to dropping high profile titles in the genre. It’s sorta like Nintendo’s Year of Luigi, sans the Luigi.

Anyway, I’m gonna cut to the chase here and defer you to an in-depth video on the game that I produced for details on why you should check it out. But this is what you need to know:

If you’re a Legend of Zelda fan, you need to sit down and give this game a go. It’s a briskly paced, charming adventure title that was basically built from the ground up to be Sega’s answer to Link’s adventures through Hyrule and, while it has its flaws, is a top notch game. On top of that, it’s also a hell of a looker, runs at a nearly spotless 60 frames per second, and prioritizes combat in that oh-so-Genesis sort of way.

Seeing as there isn’t much in the way of Zelda-likes on the Genesis and Nintendo isn’t pumping 2D adventures for Link anymore (if I remember correctly, his last one came out like ten years ago?), you can’t go wrong with this. It’s a refreshing take on the Zelda formula and is one of the titles that, in it’s own way, helped codify the Zelda-like as a genre. If you ask me, games like Crusader of Centy walked so that stuff like Oceanhorn, Tunic and Eastward could run.

Also, kudos to Nintendo and Sega for putting this out there! An original Crusader of Centy/Soleil/Ragnacenty cart can fetch a high price on the used market these days so this is a HUGE win for preservation, even if it’s locked behind Nintendo Switch Online!

Seriously, give this one a go sometime. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you’re still on the fence, also consider checking out my video on the game over on YouTube