Crossed Swords is a adventure game with a third
person perspective. Actually, it is sorta first and third person. The
best way to describe it is think of the view you have in Punchout and
you get an idea of the perspective. You have to travel from one
predetermined location to another, all the while battling different
creatures. Think of it as Final Fantasy on rails. The graphics are very nice and everything is
well drawn, as you would expect from a Neo Geo game. The fighting system
is pretty simple, with a few choices and that is all. One of the biggest
problems with the game is that once you conquer it, you will not have
any desire to play it again. A little variety and a good dose of
branching story would have increased the playability. But they chose
looks over substance and this was the end result. To its credit, it is a different type of game
and considering the Neo Geo is sorely lacking in variety, it gets a nod
for that alone. We are talking a system with half of its games being
fighting games. That alone is a good reason to own it. One nice feature it does employ is the ability
to have have two players at the same time. This adds to the game as I
always like a two player game, especially a two player cooperative game.
You and me against the world mentality makes for a fun time. This
strongly adds to the game. But once again, you will not want to play it
too many times, so it will be a few fun nights and then to the shelf for
good. I must applaud SNK for trying something
different and attempting to add some variety to the Neo Geo lineup. With
a few additions, they could have had a winner on their hands. The Neo
Geo really could have used a good role playing game, but this one isn't
it. Guess when you make games with the intent of being arcade games, you
have to follow a certain formula. Too bad as this game has potential and
a cool name!
This is just a review of the arcade machine. If you are looking for the
actual arcade machine, you may want to check out ebay. Click below to
see if you can find this game. 
Crossed Swords
One of the games I always wanted to play
on the Neo Geo was Crossed Swords. Not because it looked like an awesome
game. Not because of stellar reviews, but because I once did a comic
book called Crossed Swords. So I had a certain affection to the name.
Well, I tried the game and the best I can say about it is that it has a
great name! The rest of the game is average at best.