{"id":24402,"date":"2024-04-22T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T00:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=24402"},"modified":"2024-03-25T13:06:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T13:06:27","slug":"crypt-stalker-switch-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/22\/crypt-stalker-switch-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypt Stalker (Switch, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When I was a kid during the NES heyday, Castlevania was huge!\u00a0 Most of my friends either had it or rented it a lot, same with the sequels.\u00a0 Simon Belmont from Castlevania was even a character in the Captain N cartoon (albeit a bit silly).\u00a0 I was never a big fan of Castlevania myself.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t really into the horror themes and Simon Belmont controlled like he ate a big breakfast before deciding to kill Dracula.\u00a0 But I did get the Castlevania Collection<\/strong><\/a> a few years ago (mainly for Kid Dracula).\u00a0 So here comes a retro styled game that was definitely inspired by the Castlevania series.\u00a0 Crypt Stalker has you playing as a female undead slayer, who beats up baddies with her whip and gun.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.<\/p>\n

Your character can run and jump, and use a whip as a short ranged attack.\u00a0 You can press another button to switch to your long range gun weapon, but you have limited amounts of ammo so you\u2019ll want to use that one sparingly.\u00a0 Similar to Castlevania\u2019s candles, there are orbs you can hit to collect power-ups like health, whip and gun upgrades, bullets, and bonus points.\u00a0 Levels are mostly side scrolling, with some vertical sections here and there, with a boss at the end.\u00a0 One thing I do like about this game is that your character moves a bit more nimbly than Simon Belmont.<\/p>\n

The main game has two difficulty levels.\u00a0 The easy mode makes enemies easier to defeat and you take less damage.\u00a0 But they also remove some of the level parts, so it feels a little bland at times.\u00a0 But still, I\u2019m glad they put it in there.\u00a0 The regular mode is very hard, but at least you can choose to have unlimited lives if you want.\u00a0 They also included a black and white handheld version of this game.\u00a0 I thought they would just change the graphics of the main game, but they actually changed the resolution and level layouts, so it\u2019s really like a new game.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a \u2018lost sequel\u2019 with new levels, but they could\u2019ve just added them to the main game and no one would\u2019ve been the wiser.\u00a0 You can also do challenges for the main game as well.<\/p>\n

There are a few problems with this game.\u00a0 First of all, it lacks some of the charm of the game it\u2019s trying to imitate.\u00a0 And while I do think your character controls a little better here, knockback when you get hit is still just as bad.\u00a0 And you know how in the original Super Mario Bros., you can scroll the screen to the right but not backtrack to the left?\u00a0 The same happens here, and it\u2019s 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\u2019s annoying.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure die-hard Castlevania fans would find more faults with this game, but as for me, I didn\u2019t think it was that bad overall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crypt Stalker is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, and Language.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice any blood or language, but you do hit enemies with a whip and gun and they just explode when defeated.\u00a0 When you lose all your energy, you just fall over.\u00a0 I played games like this as a kid and I turned out OK.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.\u00a0 Younger gamers may find it too difficult, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid during the NES heyday, Castlevania was huge!\u00a0 Most of my friends either had it or rented it a lot, same with the sequels.\u00a0 Simon Belmont from Castlevania was even a character in the Captain N cartoon (albeit a bit silly).\u00a0 I was never a big fan of Castlevania myself.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24404,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402\/revisions\/24404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}