Crusaders

This article is finished  Logo made by Exotoro Crusaders is an upcoming fighting game on the Nintendo Switch by Epsilon Productions, marking their first original game. It is set to be released by 2020.

Gameplay
Crusaders has a weird gameplay style. Mainly that there are two types of specials you can preform, and B is a guard button. So yeah, you have two types of specials. You got normal specials (Special A) and you got heavy/EX specials (Special B). They are only used for the neutral and side specials, so yeah. Also Special B takes some away from your super meter but not much. Oh yeah, the super meter. It functions more to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage To The Future. You can build it up to 10 levels, but there are four levels of Supers which leads us to the super meter. There's a super meter in this game. You activate it by pressing ZL, ZR, or both. However, there are 4 levels. Level One requires one bar and is the weakest, but a good Combo Reset starter. Level 2 requires two bars and can be deadly if preformed at the right time. Level 3 requires three bars and is the most used due to it being a easy Combo starter and nothing else. Maybe it's just more powerful than Level 1? Then there's Level MAX with 5 bars and more, so now it's not limited to like 5 bars and that's the only bar you can preform it on. It can ONLY happen if the enemy is at 25% or lower, and it's cinematic.

Story
Yeah, there's not much. General Zachary Weber wants to take over the world using robots and the fighters in this game, besides his ally, are trying to stop him except for one who just wants to overthrow him with spooky magic that is never truly explained what it can really do but also has another ally at his side who uses the same spooky magic. But the worst thing Captain Z did was raise taxes on Aspen (a fighter we will get to soon.) There is no unique story mode for each character, they just fight these dudes to get to Captain Z. However there is a cutscene right before that goes into the fight between the character that has a fighter in the cutscene. But then it just goes in the order your about to see below until the ending part, which is kind of odd because there's a character where that is his beginning fight so he has to fight them again and you can play as Captain Z and his ally so when he gets defeated his story mode ends. But that's pretty much the story but lets go to the characters.

Characters
There are six characters default, while six more are unlockable. Four out of the six are unique, while the other 2 are clones.

Clone Fighters (Unlockable)
Crusaders doesn't hide the fact that these two characters are clones, so they just outright say it. They are considered Clone Fighters, kind if taking the Echo Fighters concept, and puts a gray filter so light you probably won't even notice it the first time.

Online
The Online mode is separated into a few parts. Ranked, Casual, and the variants with tag teams. Well it's online, but I should talk about the tag teams. You can have 3 members in a tag team, with one special thing. If Sca'v'aada is on your team, your team will get a boost in defense when Nija'ca curse activates. And by that, you will get a good ol' Shaman Gabor shield. One huge critism to the online mode though was that there was no ranked mode which can be hectic. That's pretty much it, though.

Arcade
Believe it or not, there's an arcade mode. It's the same as Street Fighter 2's single player mode, where you just go around fighting people because it's your job. You do get a special cutscene explaining their origins, or at least it's why they are in this game. Beast Sca'v'aada and Oni Gabor are the only ones that don't have a cutscene.

Didja and Aspen
Didja and Aspen's special cutscene is where he just messes around Aspen's room (really it's a basement), as Aspen tells him to quit due to him planning some sort of fighting ring. Didja keeps on doing his thing, as Aspen grows bored. At night, Aspen remembers that he has to pay his taxes. He notices it's higher than usual, and finds out that Captain Z's army as rose the cost to pay them. Aspen decides he wants to get his taxes back to normal, so he take Didja along to stop him. Yes, they are only wanting to stop them because of taxes. I know, it's stupid.

Brandon
This is a cutscene where he just sits in his bed doing nothing except humming Wily Fortress 1, until he gets a call (multiple calls since he has so many phones he keeps at once) from his friend who's outside of Captain Z's fortress. He says to come there immediately under every circumstance so Brandon does that. He gets up, only to bonk his head on the ceiling. Well, he doesn't even notice though. Anyways, he puts his regular clothes on and decides to drive there.

Quentin
So remember how the last two were fairly tame? Yeah, this opens up with Sca'v'aada drilling his finger into Quentin's arm. He mainly talks to him about defeating Captain Z for a high reward and trying to force him to teach him the ways of Median Mode to revive the great Gabor. He accepts trying to defeat Captain Z, but says no to the Median Mode thing which causes Sca'v'aada to drill harder into his arm. Sca just gives up and forces him to go and defeat him or he will die, which Quentin runs away to defeat him immediately after he says that.

Sca'v'aada
You'd probably expect Sca'v'aadas opening cutscene to be the same as Quentin's opening, well no you wouldn't but it's different from his ok. So it opens up with Sca'v'aada looking out on the horizon on the walls of the Ring Of Nija'ca with him wondering if Quentin will come back in one piece. He decides he won't come back in one piece but still stays there until he hears screaming from below, where Captain Z himself and his soldiers are taking his followers hostage. He decides to, still, look at the horizon as he captures every other person. He didn't seem to mind but then one of Captain Z's soldiers threw a ball on his back which causes him to jump down and initiates the first fight of his Arcade Mode, Captain Z.

Eline
It opens with Eline painting for a little in Misty Mansion until gunshots are heard, where she freaks out and runs out of the place for her to see that the battle is actually far away as a wounded soldier is crawling away. She merely face palms as the soldier calls his friend. She goes back inside to paint for a little (again) as she hears a knock on the door, to where she comes to the door and opens it to only see Brandon. At this point, Eline was getting annoyed already and decided to summon Moon Man to try and kill him off. Brandon doesn't respond to this nicely and then the first battle of her story mode initiates with a fight against Brandon.

Captain Z
The cutscene begins with Hector running up to Captain Z to educate him on this new source of he found called "Nija'ca." Captain Z, fairly curious, decides to let him talk about it by nodding his head. He tells him it's the sign of the manticore and has the power to destroy the universe as we know it. This is a fairly inaccurate description if this was to Sca'v'aada, but Captain Z said enough and asked where the place where most people study it in very loose english. Hector deciphers what he said despite him knowing german so Z didn't need to do that, but he said near Grande Cascade de Gavarnie. Captain Z already makes his plan, and then goes into this futuristic aircraft that can trap people easily. He drives the car and heads somewhere around there for him to find Sca'v'aada on the walls of where he kept his followers, unguarded, and so Z captured ever single member and one of his soldiers thought it was funny to throw a ball on Sca'v'aada's back. This did not make him happy as he jumped down and dashed towards him to initiate a battle between him and Sca. Trust me this will become a trend now.

Gabor
So when every follower of Sca'v'aada got captured, one dying old man was able to stay where he was. Now they Z and Sca were battling on the surface, the man went to a shrine and started to summon someone. He put some weird bones down, as he started saying this code which probably summons him. After he finished his soul was LITERALLY dragged out of his body as the bones came together to make an actual body, as it stood up on it's own. The mans soul became everything else even his clothes as it made Gabor. This confirms one thing, that the Gabor we see is not the same Gabor that Sca'v'aada admires. He noticed that he has a stick with some bags that has beans in it where he decided to shake it. This caused those magic pellets that he always uses in his moveset, to where he goes out and (get ready) climbs on the sides of the waterfall hoping he doesn't fall. Wow, what genius IQ there Gabor. Anyways he obviously falls and in panic he shakes the thing about 10 times. A portal spawns which leads him to Bloom Battlegrounds in a gang fight. He kills them all pretty quickly with his pellets, and then Psi strikes him through his heart with Mu leading up behind turning mutant and slamming him to the ground. You'd expect him to be dead after his heart being stabbed and all of his bones, but he shakes it off as nothing. A battle initiates between them, but with you having 25% of your health gone due to what happened before.

Sweeper
This is an interesting one, as it demonstrates some stuff she can do. Sweeper is in Final Space, as the robot flying Final Space sends coordinates to the earth on Universe 1120-B (aka the universe that Crusaders take in). She freaks out and tries to get it to not do that, but it's too late as it programs it in and sends it to the ship. She lands and she's between the battlefield that Eline saw from a distance which is Captain Z's human soldiers versus some other force. She has no side so she merges herself with an enemy and goes kaboom (this takes after the first fight of Eline). Every soldier dies, so she has the power to control her explosions. She sees something in the distance and it's Didja & Aspen with Aspen creating an ice path above ground. Aspen creates an ice baseball bat and whacks her with it, which causes her to point at him which creates a extremely big beam which they dodge. Then the fight commences with Sweeper vs Didja & Aspen.

Psi and Mu
Psi and Mu just rest on a cherry blossom tree, which everyone else doing gang fights. Some group decides to tease him, as Mu goes and threatens them by becoming Mutant. They back off, as Mu goes back to normal and be with Psi again. The only thing you can hear is wind and people screaming in agony. Until Mu sees something (which is Gabor) crashing out of the sky, where he picks Psi up and carries him to the sky. Psi tells him to divebomb now and he does as Psi gets dropped and stabs the mysterious thing in the heart while Mu turns mutant and smashes him into the ground probably breaking all of his bones. Psi is fine and Mu turns back to normal, as the thing gets up fine and grabs the knife out of his heart. It's revealed to be Gabor and the first fight commences between them as Gabor only has 25% of his health gone.

Hector
Hector is the same as Captain Z up until he plans stuff, where he goes to his lab to work on this universes Canyanot. After the ship leaves in Z's cutscene, Oni Gabor appears in his lab like he's from the future. He just goes toward at him, as a fight with Oni Gabor happens with his health being cut in half. But here's the only one with an ending, Oni Gabor explodes as Hector decides to drive just a futuristic aircraft to help Z fight against Sca'v'aada.

Ending
Just a thing to note here, you have to be in a duo with someone. So you can pick whoever you want to pick as your second character, but canonically everyone is fighting at once. Alright you may continue

Alright so whoever has fought will end up in Captain Z's lair with him and Hector waiting for you where you fight them as a duo. After you are done, Captain Z will run away dragging away an unconscious Hector with him and Z accidentally says that the generator is in the bottom floor in loose english again. This ends Z and Hector's story mode by the way. If you are playing Sca'v'aada or Gabor, after that you will become a duo and transform into your clone selves. After this, every other character has to fight a gauntlet of unfinished robots that are clones of your characters activated by Z in hopes of stopping you, where the clone duo (aka Oni Gabor and Beast Sca'v'aada) fight a big robot that has Aspen's moveset with the ice being replaced with Nija'ca. This is also where their story mode ends, as the others finally reach the generator where clone duo are in their forms so you have to fight them. They actually die easily as they are weak against you. Gabor fuses with Sca, creating something called The True God which it's moveset is a mix between Oni Gabor and Beast Sca'v'aada. You fight against that which is actually pretty hard that you'll die on your first time. As they are defeated and the body begins to melt away, Gabor jumps out at the last moment saving himself as he goes through a portal back in time which explains Hector's first battle in his Story Mode. Anyways, the ring is still on Sca so he can't handle it and distorts reality into this really absurd version of Final Space as your character looks at the core completely made of The Dream. Sca'v'aadas empty body lays as the rings go around him creating the pure version of Nija'ca that was Gabors Level Max super. It wasn't The Dream, it wasn't the power of going lightning fast, it was this. The final boss, which is The Lion's Pride, represents the greed of more power as it plays you like a puppet. The ring is the greed as Sca is the puppet, but that doesn't call for an hard boss fight. So after you defeat it, a glass effect happens to where it cuts with a smoke effect to Sca is laying on the ground unconscious right next to Captain Z with an eye and arm lost. Along with that, Hector is dead with some violin playing in the background. It then goes to black as it explains what happened. Eline, Aspen, and Psi make the group Crusaders to help worldwide supernatural threats with Psi learning some magic to make him more like Hit. Psi trains a bee named Killer, with him explaining that Mu permanently turned into a mutant bat. Didja, without a place to call his own now, joins Quentin to work with the company that he's partnered with who also works for Crusaders. Eline now hosts her own painting display to show what her things can do, as it's kinda a mix between a zoo and a painting gallery. Sweeper finds her people again and convinces them to live on the earth which does good for the community there. Gabor is second in control of the clouds as the gods up there thought he has a second chance, and he's doing great at his job. Brandon continues to fight on the streets, but decides to do it for championships now. Even Dan Hibiki shows up to demonstrate an example of what's happening with him. While all they get happy endings, some don't. We cut to an underground place where Sca is being hooked up to this machine as Z appears before him with a new arm and eye. "Guten tag, Sca'v'aada," Z said to him as he became furious at him already. "Ich habe nie erwartet, dass du aufwachst." That translates to him never expecting him to wake up as he tries to fire a blast at him, which doesn't work and causes the machine to extract it. "Jedes Mal, wenn Sie Ihre Magie benutzen, extrahiert die Maschine sie." Which means the machine extracts his magic and gets even more furious at him, now trying to get out. "Auch wenn Sie nach Ihrem linken Auge fragen. Ich nahm es, weil ich mein Auge verlor, damit ich bekommen konnte, was ich brauchte." And that translates to he took his left eye because he needed it. Sca struggled more with Z walking away to a door, to where he tried to do his Level Max and caused a big shock to him. It was so much that the position he got shocked in, it stayed like that with his eyes whited. "Servus," as Captain Z closed the door and stays for a little bit after he closed it where it's just dark. Then the credits roll, with it saying "The End?" With a few seconds forward, with Sca'v'aada staying where he was with it then saying "5 years later." The End starts to fade out as it zooms in on his right eye as his whited out eye finally went back to normal.

Eternity
This mysterious robot who is revealed to be Sweeper, traps you in this alternate universe to where you can only fight these things called Shadow Soldiers which resemble Merkava from Undernight In Birth mixed in with some Voodoo Vince vibes but has Psi and Mu's moveset without Mu so you can probably imagine that. Pick a character and go into this nightmare where it's just you and a horde of enemies after you. Anyways, it's just Abyss Mode from Rivals Of Aether if it only had one enemy on screen at a time. It tenses up already when you hit 20 enemies where they start to become harder but yeah that's it, it only serves to unlock Sweeper.

Stages
There are 11 stages total playable, because one is just a variation of it so it's technically 10. These have stuff happening in these stages that are unique to every single one.

Trivia

 * Didja is voiced by the same person who did Helix in ARMS.
 * Since Captain Z is so weak, the robot that assists him actually holds the mini-gun to get a higher angle for him then just to the ankle.
 * Brandon is recorded as 3 Meters tall in the game due to his parasite growing his height a bit too much. That's roughly 9 feet and 10 inches.
 * Sweeper's name originates in the canon of how many people she killed trying to find a way to defeat Mirror Man to get revenge, but she doesn't get the answer due to no one knowing who Mirror Man is so she just kills people for sport to an outsider's view.

Polls
How good was Crusaders for you? 5/5 4/5 3/5 2/5 1/5