Crystal Catacombs

A pixel-art action roguelite that plays like a metroidvania although it is very flawed. the most glaring flaw is it is repetitive and withholds any cool power ups to make it actually interesting. I played this game for about twenty minutes and did not get a single item drop. Are there items? I assume so. There is an inventory. There is a weapon quick select bar on the top of the screen. But nope. Same crap starting sword with its same crap range for the entire twenty minutes I played it. This is like if one of the older castlevania games refused to put any throwing daggers or axes in any of the candles for the first three levels. Of course the game is going to utterly fail to maintain my interest if it doesn't let me do anything interesting. Twenty minutes is a long time for an action game. I don't think it is too much to ask to do something but a single basic sword sweep during that time and haven't seen anything like that outside of coffee break flash clicker games from the year 2000. I will give it one thing - the enemies have some really neat designs.

+1

If the controls were fixed this would be a great game. In particular, if you jump and then swing your sword your character continues on its path - you cannot change direction in mid air. This makes the game feel unresponsive and so is hard to recommend.

Crystal Catacombs ist ein 2D Action- Plattformer, mit gewissen RPG-Elementen. Das Spiel bedient die Retro-Pixel-8B-Bit Nostalgie-Schublade und will eine Hommage an Klassiker wie Metroid und Castlevania sein. Also grässlich genug sieht die Farbauswahl definitiv aus um mich daran zu erinnern wie erleichtert ich damals über meinen ersten VGA-Monitor war. Das Spiel arbeitet, soweit ich das sehen kann mit weitgehend zufallsgenerierten Level und hat einige interessante Features die es zu einem grundsätzlich recht anständigen Plattformer machen. Allerdings finde ich die Steuerung (mit Tastatur) zu schwammig um wirklich genau "damit zu arbeiten", und ich habe den Eindruck das das Spiel das Balancing der Gegner zu unserem muckeligen Helden nicht vernünftig auf die Kette bekommt. Da ist meiner Ansicht nach noch einiges an Patchbedarf. Grundsätzlich aber ein so räudig aussehender Retro-Plattformer das alle 8-Bit Fans vor Freude sich das Blut aus den Augen wischen und begeistert stundenlang hüpfen, schießen, hüpfen und Schmerztabletten wegen dem Sound einwerfen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqnsM5wjdxc

Just wanted give a thumbs up. This game has many bad reviews saying the Jump function did not work. Stating "you cannot control your character while air born". That seems to have been fixxed. I played on both controller and key board and I was able to manipulate the trajectory of my jump mid flight. Even Pressure sensitivity was working on the 360 controller. For anyone else who doesn't know what that it is, because you play on some other controller. It means, If you tap jump lightly you go a little high. If you press jump as hard as you can like your life depends on it and hold down on it down like you are trying to stop a load from popping off, you go higher and gain more hang time. It is difficult. It does feel like a Vania type game no doubt. hanging from the walls, cheese killing sprites from behind some vector that prevents you from being hit. It is difficult. It will fit nicely into my home arcade system. Hope this helps for any one looking to purchase this in 2025

Graphically, it was great... that is about it. The game was broken, no questions there, look at other review they will say the same. If you came across an enemy it was an almost guarentee that you would get hurt. I would have quit after 10 minutes of playing but I FORCED(HEAVY EMPHASIS) myself to play the game for a full hour. The game was boring, nothing made sense, there were areas that had no seeable purpose. To say this game is bad is an understatement. The only rating I can possibly give this game is a 2.5/10. The reason it was rated sooo high is because you can play the game(Though barely) and the artwork was actually quite decent. The devs needed to actually play the game before they released it.

If someone would have put more than 10 min in the game it could have been actually decent but no its absolute trash the music is ok also not that good the game isnt worth 0.10$ and they want 8€ here on steam f off

Complete trash.

Digging through my pile of shame day 1: Crystal Catacombs CONS - looks ♥♥♥♥♥♥ - plays ♥♥♥♥♥♥ PROS - decent 16bit soundtrack

Awful jumping.