Defender of the Crown (NES)

Defender of the Crown

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Year: 1989 Developer: Beam Software Buy: Amazon

Defender of the Crown is an RPG-styled game. The NES version is a faithful port of the popular computer versions. Since the game was also released on 16- and 32-bit machines, there are other ports of the game with better graphics. The game has gone as far as making its way to the Game Boy Advance. You pick a character and build up an army and must take over castles and territories and make the whole land yours. You can raid castles, go into jousting tournaments and tear down enemy castle walls to throw in Greek Fire and Disease.

At the time, Beam Software had a pretty bad track record, releasing games such as Back to the Future (NES) and Bad Street Brawler (NES), though the NES version of Defender of the Crown did a good job staying true to the computer ports; it has good gameplay, graphics, and sound. If you're looking for the game, you can probably snatch a copy for a few bucks. It's well worth your money if you're into these kinds of games.

Screenshots

The title screen. Tearing down one of the enemy's castle walls. In combat. The ending, which goes back to the title screen.

This page needs more screenshots.

Music

The music is ported from the computer versions. While Jim Cuomo originally composed the soundtrack, Neil Brennan, a programmer at Beam Software arranged the music for the NES version. While the game lacks credits, staff from Beam Software have confirmed Brennan doing the music to this game. Not only did Brennan arrange the music for the NES' sound chip but he also programmed the sound driver. The music also contains no drums and like most Beam Software games, the music is written at a tempo of 150 or larger increments of it.

Since the source files have been obtained for this game, the song names will also contain the source file names. In the music source code, Neil Brennan wrote a message to Beam Software owner Alfred Milgrom:

Dear Fred,
	I came in on friday night to do some new sound effects for
Defender of the Crown.  Unfortunately Howard's area boasted no functioning
Nintendo workstation.  I tracked down the system I had used previously
in another part of the building and moved it to Howard's area.  The sound
cable I had been using fell off in the process of moving Nintendos.
	Yes, fell off.
	When Craig had fixed the sound cable the Nintendo refused to
power up,  so we tried another Nintendo.  When we plugged it in to the power
supply Howard had been using it blew up.
	It would appear that Australian and Japanese Nintendos have different
power requirements.
	Some things in this situation bear noting:
		- Howard's area is such a total jungle of cables that we had
	almost no way of telling what power supply was connected where.
		- Equipment 'borrowed' from Howard's area never comes back.
		- How was Howard working on Nintendo games?
 Could you please arrange for there to be a PERMANENT Nintendo and Commodore
setup capable of playing sounds hooked up to Howard's PC from now on so that
I don't have to go through this bullshit.  It's costing you money and it's
frustrating me.
				Regards,
						Neil
P.S. Speaking of money, could you do something about the eternal battle
I seem to be having with Yvonne to get paid ?

This message alone, proves Neil Brennan as being involved in the sound for the game.

Recording

#	Title	Internal Name	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Theme	THEME.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	1:58		Download
02	Tournament Theme	TRNMNT.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	0:53		Download
03	Defeat	DEFEAT.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	0:51		Download
04	Finale	FINALE.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	2:08		Download
05	Robin Hood's Theme	ROBIN.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	1:05		Download
06	Fencing Theme	FENCING.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	2:17		Download
07	Princess	PRINCESS.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	1:13		Download
08	Siege	SIEGE.T	Jim Cuomo	Neil Brennan	1:11		Download

Credits

• Ripper: kingshriek
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Not Credited Composer: Jim Cuomo
  • Not Credited Arranger: Neil Brennan
  • Not Credited Programmer: Gregg Barnett

(Source: Verification from staff, source code; Game lacks credits)

Game Rip

Formats	Download	Size
	Download	5 KB

Audio Devices

Audio devices need to be detailed.

Releases

USA Title: Defender of the Crown Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released: 1989-06-?? Publisher: Ultra Games     UK Title: Defender of the Crown Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released: 1991-07-25 Publisher: Palcom

Links

• mobygames.com/game/nes/defender-of-the-crown - MobyGames.
• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587223-defender-of-the-crown - GameFAQs.