Crawl (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Steam)
Crawl is a pixelated, crazy action rouge-like game (reminiscent of Vs Pac Man) where one player explores and the others control the monsters, taking a turn at being an explorer if they manage to kill him. While an explorer, players level up experience and gain gold. Gold can be spent at a shop to improve one’s items and abilities. While monsters, players gather up “rage” and can spend it to upgrade their monsters. The first person to level their explorer up to level 10 and make it back to the start will warp out of the dungeon and “win” the game. Working well with up to 4 players on the same console, Crawl is another great multiplayer title on the Switch (Switch version reviewed here.)
The game starts with one player as the explorer and all the other players are ghostly spirits. As one might expect, the explorer player pretty much always wants to destroy everything in sight. Meanwhile, the ghost players are trying to kill off the explorer. The primary way they do this is by finding a summoning circle and summoning forth one of their three monster aspects. This monster is then directly controlled by the player in an attempt to kill (or at least weaken) the explorer character. If a monster dies, the explorer gains experience and the monster player is consigned to being a ghost, no longer able to directly fight the explorer. However, the ghostly player can possess items or (better yet) traps to damage the explorer. Ghosts can also gather globs of spirit material, when they gain enough they can hatch a small slimeball to harry the explorer. While not very effective, slimeballs do count as a creature, and if there are any creatures on the screen at all the explorer cannot leave the room. In this way, even slimeballs are nice as a delaying tactic, preventing an explorer from gaining more gold from exploration.
When one ghost/monster player kills the explorer, the game pauses (and shows an extremely pixelated graphic of the explorer spewing blood) and the player who dealt the killing blow becomes the new explorer. At this point in time, players can spend any “rage” they’ve gathered to upgrade their monsters. Players begin the game with the possibility of controlling three basic monsters. They can upgrade each of the three along a sort of “tech tree” by spending rage. Thus you could slowly level up all of them or specialize so that one of your monsters is particularly powerful. Meanwhile the explorer player (after upgrading their monsters as wel) goes into action and has the option to visit the explorer store. Here they can buy new weapons, spells, or enhance their bonus abilities.
The explorer and every monster has a basic attack and a special attack. Both attacks have a short cooldown, with the basic attack needed a cooldown after a few uses and the special attack needing a cooldown after each use. Combat is fast and frantic, with missiles and explosions happening all over the place. It is controlled chaos but that just adds to the enjoyment of the game.
When an explorer manages to reach level 10 (or higher) and warp out of the dungeon, play moves to a boss battle. Here the explorer battles a sunken statue in a typical boss fight, with the other players attacking with the arms and head of the monster. When an explorer finally eliminates the final boss, they win the game. The other players are also given a ranking based on their relative performance. Each time you finish the game, new monsters, new monster upgrades, and/or new weapons and abilities are unlocked for use in future games.
Verdict:
Nintendo has traditionally been a go-to console for local multplayer games, making Crawl a great fit for the system. There is plenty of chaos occuring at any given time, but better players will still tend to come out on top. Even if a player rarely gets to be the explorer, there is plenty of enjoyment just ganging up on the main character. The more you play as a monster/ghost the more powerful your monsters become, so the odds of becoming the explorer character also increases. I have few gripes about the game, the primary one would be the graphics. Yes, they’re pixelated and that lends the game a great retro-feel (and probably saved money on making the title – it runs just $15) but I wonder if the pixels may have gone a bit too far. With all the action on screen at times I find it hard to keep track of who/what/where I am. While sometimes frustrating, it is not a game-killer since the game is designed to be controlled chaos at any given time. I love local multiplayer games, as playing together with friends in the same room is a great way to game. Crawl provides this in spades. Combined with the portability (and portable multiplayer abilities) Craw is a natural fit for the Switch and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for local multiplayer games.
Kid Factor:
There are a few warnings about the maturity level of the game. I suspect this is primarily centered around the “blood and guts” involved in the game. While combat tends to have lots of red splotches running around, the primary culprit would be the cut-scene occuring after each explorer death. A pixelated guy is knocked prone and spews out a copious amount of blood. A bit overkill? Perhaps, but in its favor this is still extremely pixelated graphics. They may be a bit gross but I doubt they would be giving anyone nightmares. As for gameplay, no real reading is required (perhaps a little bit when shopping) and players will perform reasonably well just mashing the buttons. Combine this with the cooperative nature of the ghosts, the game should be fine for anyone old enough to wield a controller (although gamers should be comfortable with the unequal treatment they will receive whenever they play the explorer character.)
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