When I was a kid during the NES heyday, Castlevania was huge!  Most of my friends either had it or rented it a lot, same with the sequels.  Simon Belmont from Castlevania was even a character in the Captain N cartoon (albeit a bit silly).  I was never a big fan of Castlevania myself.  I wasn’t really into the horror themes and Simon Belmont controlled like he ate a big breakfast before deciding to kill Dracula.  But I did get the Castlevania Collection a few years ago (mainly for Kid Dracula).  So here comes a retro styled game that was definitely inspired by the Castlevania series.  Crypt Stalker has you playing as a female undead slayer, who beats up baddies with her whip and gun.  While Castlevania games had a more Victorian horror theme, Crypt Stalker is more Egyptian, with levels set in the desert and pyramids, and enemies like mummies, Anubis monsters, and hopping bugs.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Your character can run and jump, and use a whip as a short ranged attack.  You can press another button to switch to your long range gun weapon, but you have limited amounts of ammo so you’ll want to use that one sparingly.  Similar to Castlevania’s candles, there are orbs you can hit to collect power-ups like health, whip and gun upgrades, bullets, and bonus points.  Levels are mostly side scrolling, with some vertical sections here and there, with a boss at the end.  One thing I do like about this game is that your character moves a bit more nimbly than Simon Belmont.

The main game has two difficulty levels.  The easy mode makes enemies easier to defeat and you take less damage.  But they also remove some of the level parts, so it feels a little bland at times.  But still, I’m glad they put it in there.  The regular mode is very hard, but at least you can choose to have unlimited lives if you want.  They also included a black and white handheld version of this game.  I thought they would just change the graphics of the main game, but they actually changed the resolution and level layouts, so it’s really like a new game.  There’s also a ‘lost sequel’ with new levels, but they could’ve just added them to the main game and no one would’ve been the wiser.  You can also do challenges for the main game as well.

There are a few problems with this game.  First of all, it lacks some of the charm of the game it’s trying to imitate.  And while I do think your character controls a little better here, knockback when you get hit is still just as bad.  And you know how in the original Super Mario Bros., you can scroll the screen to the right but not backtrack to the left?  The same happens here, and it’s especially bad on the handheld version because you can ride moving platforms but if they go back, you might get pushed off the screen and into a pit, and that’s annoying.  I’m sure die-hard Castlevania fans would find more faults with this game, but as for me, I didn’t think it was that bad overall.

Kid Factor:

Crypt Stalker is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, and Language.  I didn’t notice any blood or language, but you do hit enemies with a whip and gun and they just explode when defeated.  When you lose all your energy, you just fall over.  I played games like this as a kid and I turned out OK.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find it too difficult, though.

Tags: Game Reviews