Sacred Citadel

If you're in the mood for a solid 2D brawler that will keep you and your friends entertained for hours on end, I strongly recommend you give this game a look. Sacred Citadel takes the genre in an exciting direction forward, proving that older genres still have a place in the industry. Seriously, check this one out. You won't be disappointed.

Sacred Citadel offers up a lot of fun for beat-em-up fans, with a surprisingly high amount of depth in its gameplay making replaying stages with each character type something you’ll come to enjoy instead of dread like it many other beat-em-ups.

There is a lot to love with Sacred Citadel, but I can’t help but think it could have been much more.

Fans may struggle with the genre shift, but Sacred Citadel is exactly what it set out to be: A pick-up-and-play side-scroller where button-mashing trumps anything resembling narrative depth.

It's feisty, fun and co-op friendly, so as pick-and-play brawlers go, there's little to complain about with Sacred Citadel. Make the trek on your own, however, and it's a slightly different story owing to a rinse-and-repeat sameness that's harder to deny when it's just you eyeballing the same old swarms of enemies over and over again.

Sacred Citadel’s obvious finale will leave you wondering why it shipped with a half-baked story. Thankfully, the enjoyable combat steals the spotlight, though it doesn’t come away unblemished.

Sacred Citadel is a sound beat 'm up with RPG elements. The game looks a lot like Castle Crashers but offers just a little bit more moves and variation with different playable classes. It's just a shame that your character will get overpowered later on, and the game loses all of its challenge.

There are a lot of things just not good enough in Sacred Citadel. The humor is terrible, and the enemies lack variety. But if you are planning a game night with some friends, there is still some fun to be had with this game. Plug some extra controllers in, switch your brain of and start mashing buttons.

Graphically it's a good looking title and the gameplay is sturdy, although does become repetitive. To fully immerse yourself into this experience, you really need to play with others.

The visuals and consciously retro soundtrack show a sense of style, but Sacred Citadel lacks the heart that defines the greatest brawlers. Use it to scratch an itch if you must, but if you’re new to action-RPGs, XBLA games like Castle Crashers and Guardian Heroes will prove far more rewarding.

A classical beat-em up to enjoy some time alone or with friends. Too bad for the weak and inadequately developed story, something that could have been the true value of the game.

I can’t help but think, though, that Sacred Citadel would have failed to maintain my interest had it not managed to induce such strong Golden Axe nostalgia.

An enjoyable but, at the same time, short and a bit repetitive brawler experience with a solid co-op feature.

Colourful but uninspired. [Aug 2013, p.87]

Sacred Citadel offers decent entertainment for a few hours, especially with some retro loving friends as company. But this really isn't a game that lasts, unfortunately.

It is a shame as the game has potential that wasn't really delivered upon.

A dispirited attempt at marrying the best of old-school brawlers like Streets of Rage with the obsession-inducing trappings of an action-RPG, Sacred Citadel had the potential to be so much more than it is.

Sacred Citadel is a throwback to the glory days of arcades and side scrolling brawlers, but sadly doesn’t really capture the magic of genre classics. It’s technically competent, but suffers from repetition and a general lack of diversity and uniqueness.

The folks who worked on it were certainly heading in the right direction – Sacred Citadel just doesn’t have enough polish or pull to really keep you coming back for more – an experience I’d rather had not given my bag of quarters up for.

Too few differences between classes and a low difficulty level, plus day one DLC, make this game really too expensive for its offer.

The good: The weak storytelling aside, Sacred Citadel doesn’t do anything wrong and ticks off every box in the fantasy-beat’em up manual that was written by Segas Golden Axe. Then again, it doesn’t do anything particularly right, either.

It's tough to recommend Sacred Citadel when there are so many superior side scrolling fighters already on the market.