Crusader of Centy GENESIS

Crusader of Centy is Nextech’s 1994 top-down action-adventure for the Genesis, released in Japan as Soleil. You play a boy named Alex who wakes up transformed into a wolf-like creature and sets out to reverse the curse, gaining a rotating cast of talking animal companions along the way, each granting a unique ability tied to its species.

Its top-down structure and combat draw an obvious lineage from A Link to the Past, but the animal-companion system — swapping partners to solve different puzzle types rather than collecting permanent items — gives it a distinct identity. Released late in the Genesis’s commercial life, it stands as one of the system’s last major original action-adventures.