Crypt Stalker (Nintendo Switch) – The test

There are games so striking that they give their name to a genre. We thus find the doom-like, the zelda-like, the mario kart-like, the GTA-like… But what is the point of copies if you can play the original? It is this thorny question that we will try to answer below with Crypt Stalker which is available on theeShop at the price of seven euros.

Whip the coachman!

Crypt Stalker is therefore what we can call a Castlevania-like. It is an action platform game in which our hero moves left, right, up and down, looking for the exit in two-dimensional hostile environments, filled with monsters, enemies and traps. The first Castlevania was released on the NES in 1986 and it laid the foundations for a genre to which it left its name.

Here, the story takes place on a metro ticket. Demons attempt to invade Earth at certain auspicious times like eclipses, and the “Crypt Stalkers,” fighters trained from generation to generation, keep watch and are always ready to fight. Today, it’s Gladys who is doing it.

Crypt Stalker offers two game modes: a first NES console type and a second called “Handheld” identical to the first but with Gameboy graphics. Both look very similar, but the Gameboy version is much shorter like back in the day. In the main game, the developers have planned a normal mode where you resume at the last level covered if you die, and a casual mode where there is no saving and in which you have to go through all the levels of the game. 'one milking.

In Crypt Stalker, our heroine is armed with a whip and a secondary weapon, a pistol (laser or not) with limited ammunition. She goes on an adventure to try to neutralize the famous invading monsters. Like in Castlevania, when she is hit by an enemy, she has a small backward movement. The game takes place in Egypt, in pyramids in particular, the enemies are mummies, very fast dogs that run across the screen, bats that fall from the sky and attack our heroine, and of course bosses .

Bosses and bumps

The world of Crypt Stalker is divided into several levels: the desert, the pyramids, the river, the lake of fire, the mines and the gardens. And inevitably, as in many games from the great 8-16 bit era, there are end-of-level bosses that must be defeated to access the next level. For each of them, you will have to find their pattern and their weak point to succeed in beating them.

Certain passages require you to use the whip like a lasso by grabbing a hook to swing and cross a pit filled with spikes for example. In certain places, you have to use platforms that go up and down to progress in the level. There are also places to dig to collect objects and find your way through the adventure. Likewise, certain blocks in the game hide bonuses such as additional life or ammunition. The game resembles the first installments of the Castlevania series in many ways.

Graphically, Crypt Stalker is a homage to games from the 80s so it doesn't look very good. Large sprites, repeating blocks of scenery and very similar backgrounds but which change color depending on the level. Surprisingly, it's the Gameboy game that does the best. Musically, it's sound mush as the said consoles of the 80s knew how to offer us. The music is shrill and repetitive but we can't expect less from a game of this type.

As a bonus, the game offers small challenges such as crossing a level with a timer of a few tens of seconds, with only one life, without weapons, without a whip or with a limited number of jumps. In all, eighteen very quick challenges which bring a little something extra to the game.