Review | Dark Crypt

LifeisXbox’s Dark Crypt | At first glance, this game reminded me of Crypt of the NecroDancer because of its movement and art style. Dark Crypt is developed by Daisy Games and is a turn-based puzzle game. In this game, you play as someone who believes in a prophecy that says that there’s an ancient evil that slumbers deep in a crypt. It is said that upon awakening this evil, it will consume the earth with its dark shadow. It is your goal to prevent this from happening.

ℹ️ | Bradley played Dark Crypt for 8 hours on PC. This game is exclusive for PC (Steam & Itch.io).

What we liked!

• The story | I personally really enjoyed the way the story was told; it was dark and mysterious – told through a journal system. You play as someone who’s trying to save the world from an ancient evil that lies deep in a dark crypt. Every few days the main character writes his experiences in his journal while slowly draining the ink of his pen. He writes how he feels, what he thinks, the discoveries he makes, … The further you progress in the game, the more he starts to slowly lose his mind. There’s one thing he doesn’t forget though, he needs to go keep going, no matter what obstacles lie ahead.
• Powers & enemies | This game had a few powers that help you with progressing through the crypt, and enemies that… well… prevent you from going forward, logically. Very early on you learn how to teleport, at first it sounded like this would make the game a lot more difficult, but it was implemented surprisingly well! There are some more powers and items, but I won’t spoil them just yet! When it comes to enemy variation, there are a lot of them. One can look diagonally, the other moves back and forth, there’s even one that just stares at a wall, and so on,… I do, however, wish the game had some more powers.
• Art style and sound | The graphics in this game may look simplistic, but I did enjoy looking at them! Every level gave me unique vibes, some even had completely different color schemes. One issue I had is that enemy highlights sometimes blended in with walls, making it hard to see the path. When it comes to sound there wasn’t too much to it. However, I did enjoy the 16-bit Beethoven songs in there!

Somewhere between

• Lack of “The reflection” | At one point in the game you come across a reflection of yourself. He copies your every move and always stands in your way. This was a very fun yet difficult feature and did get me thinking for a while. It was a little disappointing that it was only seen in 1 level, it could’ve had a lot of potential in my opinion.
• Difficulty Curve | The point of this game is to complete the levels in as few steps as possible. This is optional, however. The first few floors (= chapters) were fairly easy, but the game started becoming more difficult at floor 3. I did in fact enjoy the extra challenge, but what disappointed me was the last chapter where everything was suddenly so much easier. Even the last level was extremely easy compared to previous levels.

What we disliked

• Nothing | I enjoyed every minute!

How long to beat the story | Approximately 7 – 8 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 9 to 10 hours
Similar with | Crypt of the NecroDancer

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