It’s not often I review games close to their launch day. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever covered a game close to its launch date. Three reasons for this. Firstly, video games take time to play and depending on their length it can take up to two to three weeks until the title is beaten and I got full thoughts for the review. Secondly I am not your average reviewer. I’m independent and pay for each game I review out of pocket, so don’t expect me to get any review codes in the future. Thirdly, since I am an independent reviewer I can’t spend my money wildly. I’m not the type of person to cover everything new and hip, so I’d rather cover what interests me than force myself to play games I’m not comfortable with. Yet here we are with a game that only came out a few days ago and it might be one of my favorites of 2024. Rivaling The Lost Crown as my Game of The Year, but we’ll see about that if I ever manage to play Nine Sols. The game we’re discussing of course is Crypt Custodian by solo dev Kyle Thompson.
Heard about it from a Bytesized review on Second Wind the other day and it drew me in. The art looked nice, there was an adorable kitty on the title, and the gameplay reminded me very much of Hyper Light Drifter. A classic styled action adventure game that I adore, and got me and many others to kickstart a new subgenre called Zeldalike. Man, we need to start creating better genre names otherwise we’re gonna start referring to JRPGs as Personalikes or some other stupid crap I made up on the fly. I don’t want to detract from the main topic of this review, but just as a good reminder I’d like to let you all know I adore Hyper Light Drifter. For how it manages to evolve the design of classic games like A Link to The Past, and stands on its own feet for how it tackles exploration and world building without speaking a word. It’s one of the first examples I can think of when it comes to games as an artform, because it shows how even simplistic video games can still have a good feeling of depth to them. Many games of its type have come out since release like Tunic, Unsighted, Death;s Door, etc. However, despite loving these other games none have quite hit the same height for me as Hyper Light Drifter. That wasn’t until Crypt Custodian.
It’s made by the same dude who made Islets and Sheepo. Two other games with animated visuals and running on the same engine, GameMaker. I have not played Thompson’s previous games nor have I ever heard of them. From what I can tell he’s been cracking away at it for years and his most recent game is his most ambitious project to date. Crypt Custodian is exactly what I have been wanting for years now, but coming out at a time I least expected. 2024 has been an alright year for games honestly. It’s great, but not the knock in the park 2023 or 2024 were. We've got another safe year for gaming where it’s ideas we’ve seen before but explored better, and I’m fine with years like. People complained 2021 sucked, but we got titles that served as new heights for genres like Inscryption and Ender Lilies. This is exactly what Crypt Custodian is to me. A game that doesn’t do anything new or innovative, but takes pre-established ideas and refines them. To create an experience that does a lot more right than wrong, because it roughened out the edges and knew what it wanted to be. There’s a difference between playing it safe and understanding what made it work. This is the second description. I love this game. I want anyone who reads this review to play it right now. Let’s talk about Crypt Custodian and why it deserves your attention.
Story
We witness an adorable black cat fall into the afterlife. Now capable of walking on two, picking things up with its hands, and speaking to others of all things. This is Pluto and they’re about to be judged for their life. Pluto was a lovely kitty. Being born alongside two other strays, getting adopted by a nice couple, and providing them comfort everyday. That wasn’t until they ran out into a busy street and got hit by oncoming traffic. Yep, nothing wrong to see here. Pluto was a great cat and Kendra, the guardian of the animal afterlife, was about ready to let them enter the Palace. What’s basically the equivalent of heaven to animals with all the luxuries they could possibly desire. Sadly though Kendra denies Pluto access to eternal peace. Early Pluto had to use a broom to clear out obstacles blocking her way, and some of those objects were stone statues of Kendra. So the guardian of the animal afterlife sends Pluto to the wilds where they are to spend the rest of their lives cleaning up rubbish forever. The trash heap never stops and Pluto will just have to suffer for the rest of their life. That’s what you think at least, because it turns out Pluto begins exploring the new world as if it were a grand new adventure. A kitty adventure.
They quickly make friends with other animals who were subjected to become cleaners much like Pluto and one of them, Grizz, is hatching a plan. Grizz wants to break into the palace and steal a magical mirror housed within it. This mirror allows any animal spirit who interacts with it to be transported back to earth as a spirit and spend one day with their loved ones. They won’t be able to interact with their loved ones, but they’ll see how they are doing with them no longer around. Pluto misses their owners very much, and seeing how they have nothing else to do besides clean forever they decide to help Grizz. A total of ten friends are needed to make sure the plan is a full success, so off our little Kitty goes. Explore the afterlife, grow stronger, and become the greatest kitty kat adventurer the great beyond shall ever see. Tally ho my feline companion!
Gameplay
Crypt Custodian plays very much like the games it’s trying to imitate. It’s a classic style action adventure game where you explore the world, fight enemies, uncover secrets, grow stronger, and go to where you think you need to be. I say that, because there’s a hint of metroidvania when it comes to the exploration and progression. Certain areas cannot be accessed unless you have the power to do so, and the game will not always tell you where you need to go next. That’s up for you to decide. You control where the kitty cat goes and decide if the kitty cat can handle it. The combat is fairly straightforward. Slashes can be performed in quick succession, special attacks that are charged by being aggressive, and dodge rolling to get away from danger but this dodge roll has a cooldown you have briefly for to recharge. This dodge quickly upgrades into a dash, and what separates Crypt Custodian from its contemporaries outside of Unsighted is that you can jump. You can jump over attacks and away from enemies, but jumping is not just subjugated to combat. There’s a lot of platforming in this game and the world view very much reminds me of Bastion half the time. With some areas being platforms suspended high in the sky as you gaze down below.
There’s plenty of character upgrades to unlock throughout your journey. A boomerang to deal damage from afar or activate switches you can’t reach, and then an ability to teleport to your spinning boomerang wherever it reaches. Summon a clone to walk on platforms you can’t or burrow into the ground and bypass certain barriers. The game looks simple but with time transforms into a fun beast that’s enjoyable to mess around with. Zip through the world and get to Point B. You’ll also get upgrade points and perks, and these function very much like the charm system in games like Hollow Knight and Unsighted. Where each perk takes a certain amount of slots and you have to decide what perks you rock onto the field with. Each perk changes up your playstyle and with the right combination you can forge the ultimate kitty cat warrior. A dash that can hurt the enemies you go through. A spinning barrier that hurts foes close to you. Attacks with further distance, increase damage at full or low health, bursting when you take a hit, and much more. It’s fun and for some battles I had to think about what I was bringing. If you die during combat you get booted back to the last checkpoint, in this case a well, that you rested at and have to traverse back to where you were last. Explore and you’ll find the resources needed to get stronger. Some are locked behind challenges you can attempt to conquer. A few being curses to walk around with.
You’ll open up shortcuts that loop back into previous areas you explore giving this wonderful sense of interconnectivity. At the end of each area there’s a boss fight and these bosses will test your skills, the powers you wield, and whatever you learned in the area you were just in. These fearsome creatures may take multiple attempts to understand seeing how they like to switch up their attacks a lot and you only get four hit points with a fifth extra one being a perk. Practice is all it takes and eventually you will get them down. Besides that there’s nothing much else for me to say. Run free my fuzzy friend! Cause the chaos you were created to make in the first place!
Thoughts
Crypt Custodian is not a very original game, but it’s a very well made one. Not every good game needs to be innovative to be extraordinary. Hollow Knight is my favorite game ever made, but a lot of people can admit that it’s not very original. Yet, it’s been praised for its world and design. Crypt Custodian is this again. A game that doesn’t do a whole lot of new things, but a lot right. I beat this in what I’d say eight hours and never during my runtime did it get boring, repetitive, unfair, unfun, or frustrating. It was fun to play and I think part of the reason for this is how each area is designed. Every area has a unique gimmick and just when you think one area starts to overstay its welcome you encounter the boss, beat it, and move onto the next. There’s a neon-lit area where every time you dash the enemies and platforms shift about, so you have to think about what you want to phase in and out of reality. There’s an area where once you activate a gas generator the rides turn on and you use them to ride around. An area with platforms you have to operate and machines that need to activate to keep buttons weighed down. It’s fun level design and never got lost during my journey. Locked pathways are labeled as locked and all it can take is an overview of the world map to see where you haven’t explored yet. Even if you do get lost and you don’t know where the next area is you can always spend a little bit of your currency to get a major map marker plopped down. That way you know how to progress the story.
I like combat a lot as it’s both methodical and twitchy. It’s a nice evolution of the combat I love in Hyper Light Drifter and in some cases I’d argue it’s better. Attacking is swift and I like how dodging has a cooldown. Meaning you can’t just spam it and you have to think about it carefully before pulling it off. Dodging isn’t terrible though. It responds correctly and the cooldown for it is brief, so you aren’t punished for using it. Enemies always telegraph their attacks and they give good indication of what they are going to do. If not just wait from afar and you’ll quickly get an idea of how to deal with them. Bosses on the other hand take a few tries, but it’s really satisfying when you finally nail them down and land the last blow. The combat is fun and fair. It can get a bit difficult at times, but never to a point where it pushes you beyond your boundaries and you get frustrated having to deal with it. I love it and there’s enough room for flexibility and player expression. I love how character builds and perks are handled. Perks slots, otherwise the upgrade points, are found in the wild and can equip a lot of perks by the end of the game. The perks you get actually change how your character functions allowing me to strategize at times. I equipped a small rotating shield and faster attacks, so I could punish enemies up close and rapidly. It’s fun and offers a lot of room for a game which is honestly pretty simple looking at it.
Explorations always nab you fun rewards to new perks, kittens in jars you can rescue, and these photographs you can get of characters. The photographs don’t add much mechanically, but they work like the memories in Psychonauts. Just small tidbits to the side characters’ past and make you care more about the world and narrative. Speaking of which, the narrative is great. There’s not much to speak of, but it’s very endearing for what you glean of it. Charming, wholesome, and the ending will leave a lot of players sad. It’s in the realm Spiritfarer is in being about death, loss, and learning to accept it. As sad as it may be, life has to go on, and you learn to say your last goodbye to your loved ones before they are gone for good. Combine this with the soundtrack which is probably up there for being one of the best OSTs of 2024. Knowing when to act chill and carry you through rainy or empty environments, or kick things into full gear and deliver a bopping tune that eggs you on to keep fighting till you have no spirit left. It knows when to be awesome and when to be cozy. A term I’d never see myself applying to an action game. To me it feels like they combined Hyper Light Drifter with OneShot. Two best indie games of 2016. I wouldn't be surprised if those two were influences.
If all of this doesn’t sell you on the game it’s the art style. Everything is hand drawn & animated. It’s not the smoothest animation in the world, but it’s well stylized. It’s impressive they go to work to begin with and that you have to appreciate. In an age where big companies are trying to make more games look realistic as possible, which makes games more expensive and draws out their development time longer than they should, I'm happy with this. Games that are smaller in scope, go for a distinct look, and deliver in quality. Crypt Custodian is a masterpiece for every single thing I described above. It is wonderfully made, a joy to play, and will leave you with a heart of happiness and sadness at the end. I have no complaints and can’t recommend it enough. Thompson and whomever else worked on this game deserve a pat on the back as it’s easily one of the best games of 2024. I give Crypt Custodian a 10/10 for being incredible.
This critique was written by the single man at Review on. Stay tuned for more content and feel free to check more reviews out over at my site
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