Crypt Stalker

Fun 2d platformer, its not very long (I died a quite a few times on certain levels) but that means it doesn't overstay its welcome. Even at full price its worth playing through.

Really mixed. I mean just playing 10 minutes of this and ready to put it down. Parts of the game perfectly capture that old school feeling of sluggish and slow control input and gameplay but then you hit your first set of lifts and the screen speed goes super turbo while your still moving like a broke legged 2 bit gimp on their way to insta death.

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 th…

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.

Cool.

Great artwork and controls, recommend it!