Crypt Custodian

My first few minutes with Crypt Custodian felt immediately familiar in the best way: tight controls, a cheeky premise, and that specific itch-scratch of spotting a blocked path and mentally bookmarking it for later. Solo developer Kyle Thompson has now made three metroidvanias in four years, and this third one is his most confident yet. Shifting from the side-scrolling style of his earlier work in Islets and Sheepo, Thompson went top-down this time, and it was the right call. The perspective opens up combat and traversal in ways the classic 2D format just could not support. The core loop is exactly what the genre demands: explore a sprawling afterlife built from floating islands and drifting bogs, unlock movement abilities by defeating bosses, then backtrack with your new toolkit to reach everything you mentally filed away. Air dash, clone abilities for switch puzzles, in-air dashing for bigger gaps - the ability rollout feels well-paced and each one genuinely changes where you can go. Fast travel is generous. You can warp to any unlocked point from the map screen without needing to be standing on one, which keeps backtracking from turning into a chore. Combat sits somewhere between a top-down Zelda and a lite bullet-hell: Pluto swings his broom, dodge-rolls, jumps over incoming projectiles, and charges up one of eight special attacks you unlock and swap at shrines. The upgrade system, around 32 passive modifiers you equip using points earned through exploration and challenges, gives you genuine build choices. Stack the exploding-on-death modifier with an attack-speed boost and the combat sings differently than a pure tank build. The broomerang ability does exist but is slightly fiddly on a controller, and outside of specific boss encounters the enemy variety can start to feel like reskins of the same archetypes. Those are real criticisms. The world's distinct areas, a bioluminescent fish graveyard, a devil-branded broken amusement park, moonlit swamps, are cosmetically varied but structurally similar, and a handful of critics noted the map's scale occasionally works against it. Where Crypt Custodian stands out most unexpectedly is in its writing. The other ghosts you recruit are not quest-givers, they are characters with backstories told through collectible photographs, and some of those stories land harder than you would expect from a game with cartoon cat animation. Pet owners should be warned: the emotional gut-punch is real. The difficulty sits in a comfortable middle range on normal, with three selectable difficulty levels and optional curses (one-hit health limits, heavier projectile patterns) for players who want the challenge turned up. A boss rush mode and a randomizer unlock post-credits for anyone chasing completion or replayability. The hidden story content behind the true ending is genuinely opaque without a guide, which is worth noting if completionist frustration is something you want to avoid. Crypt Custodian is the kind of game that reminds you a single developer with a clear design vision can out-execute most mid-budget studios on feel alone. It does not reinvent anything. What it does is polish every element of the top-down metroidvania formula until everything clicks, wrap it in a 1930s cartoon art style that moves with modern fluidity, and then quietly make you cry about a ghost cat. It runs around 10-14 hours depending on how thoroughly you explore, which is exactly the right length for what it is.

Alex · Scout Team

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