For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to xyzbilliu's Crusader Of Centy (Genesis) maps.
Welcome to the world of Crusader Of Centy. A world that has had monsters inhabiting it, perhaps since the beginning of time. Despite humans dominating the light-covered surface, monsters continue to survive in the depths. A boy, becoming a man, receives a sword on his birthday, and goes to hunt monsters. Sure, it sounds like the start of any fantasy adventure game, but at least in this one, you can get your Dr. Dolittle on!
Crusader Of Centy is blatantly influenced by The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past. But though perhaps just one of several Zelda clones of the era, this is a fairly decent one. It predates the Zelda games that also feature time travel and animal partners, and this game also has a Sonic the Hedgehog cameo! And being that this is a game about being able to communicate with animals, the animal partners play a big role in combat. Does PETA have anything to say about that?
Though there are only nineteen areas, some of these areas are actually fairly large. And there's some variety too...from the Place Of Peace to Black Night, the Tower of Babel and back in time, xyzbilliu has got the whole world of Crusader Of Centy covered. xyzbilliu previously received the Mapmaker Of The Month honour in July 2009 for Beyond Oasis, another great-looking top-down adventure game on the Sega Genesis that deserves more attention.
So to recognize the effort put into this crusade of mapping relatively obscure adventure games, xyzbilliu's Crusader Of Centy maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for June 2010.
