Crypt Stalker
Crypt Stalker is full of those nail biting, heart pounding, stress inducing gaming moments when no one knew what an analogue stick was and you couldn’t recover health by hiding behind a wall. (Instead it was done by eating chicken found in a brick wall!) If you wish to relive those golden moments in video gaming then this game might be for you. Time travel might not currently exist but this game will hopefully bring you back in time to where somehow birds do massive damage.
Your task is to fight through nine action packed stages, filled to the brim with demons that you’ll need to slay with your trusty cyber whip, (or blast them with your side arm, your choice.) However it doesn’t stop there, within these worlds there lies dangers that you’ll need to navigate past, from raising hot magma to walls crushing down on you. And after you’ve managed to survive to the very end, defeat the evil demon overlord, you’ll have to do it all again but in glorious monochromatic handheld mode. (This mode contains four all new levels to really test your skills)
Also included is a few extras such as challenges, a boss rush and that otherworldly “sound test” mode that you only ever see in vintage retro games.
- 13 massive levels to conquer, each with it’s own dangerous traps to dodge!
- Huge end level bosses to completely destroy with your demon slaying whip!
- Including both console and handheld versions of the game.
- Boss rush and extra challenges.
- Actual 8-bit graphics that follow strict limitations from that era. (Even included is fake flickering for that extra nostalgia hit!)
- Listen along to a chiptune soundtrack while banishing those demons back to where they came from!
- Extras and Steam Achievements to, umm unlock!
Written in Engrish for that extra layer of authenticity
Every ninetieth solar eclipses is the time where the demons open up the portal to our world.
Every time the portal is at a different crypt. This time it’s located in the desert, inside the pyramids of the damned.
Trained stalkers take on the task of defeating the said demons before they unleash hell on the Earth.
Today’s task has fell upon Gladys, one of the descendents of the,
Crypt Stalkers…
Game Discussion
Steam User 0
A loving send-up to Castlevania with pretty decent stage and action set-piece concepts and art design that is nonetheless hampered by both technical hiccups and baffling design choices. I hate to do as many comparisons as I am about to, but in a game that wears its inspirations this openly on its sleeve I think it can be forgiven.
Where Castlevania featured deliberate movement Crypt Stalkers has you glide along smoothly and quickly, which can often be a boon (while platforming), but can also result in some of the more precise trap navigation and attacking being more difficult than it should be. Your whip is about a hair shorter than you would like it to be as well, although it is rather forgiving in it's wind up swing protecting you overhead.
Enemy variety is a bit basic, reusing most of them throughout the adventure. All this wouldnt be an issue, except I cannot say that I died from actually losing health more than once or twice, and those times were due to iffy trap placement. Instead you will be knocked back into bottomless pits,, or else die due to the jittery scrolling of the vertical portions of the game not being able to catch up with you. At one point I died in one of the agonizingly slow ratchet-scrolling levels when the death barrier on the bottom of the screen ended up being much higher than I anticipated. I also had to restart level 8 once due to getting caught in the scenery, and I'm fairly sure the level 6 boss can only be beaten by absolutely cheesing it as it otherwise does not give you enough time to react to it's instant-kill move. Most other bosses and most stages are inexplicably fairly easy, even well into the late game.
Pick it up if you are curious and if it's on sale, but I can't give this an untempered recommendation
Steam User 0
Excellent retro-inspired game. I enjoyed the aesthetics and gameplay.
The difficulty level is challenging but fair. Be prepared to play through a level a few times until you master all of the traps. I had to put on infinite lives for the last few levels because they were too brutal for me.
There is a good amount of modes and bonus content here.
This game is worth playing if you enjoy NES Castlevania.
Steam User 0
Great artwork and controls, recommend it!
Steam User 0
Only for the most masochist and perseverant
I don't have anything against stiff controls in platformers, in fact it's my favorite type of platformers. I don't have anything against a bit of difficulty either, but some of the levels here are a bit too long. The game itself is not very long, it can be finished in a couple days, but it will require a lot of repetitions, specially on level 8.
If you are not a platformer athlete, you will probably not enjoy the last levels. If you are, the game is, okay, and the simplicity is quite welcome.
The graphics look cool in screenshots but you are forced to play in a small window or it looks awful.
(follow my curator page GenXPlayers for more retro and indie reviews)
Steam User 0
Cool.