Crypt Custodian Review: In The Right Place At The Right Time

Timing is everything. Usually, this has a bit of a negative connotation for video games. I hear many stories about people playing a game that they didn’t love at the time because they just weren’t in the right headspace for it. Oftentimes, after another try down the line, those same people end up loving the game. It’s strange how the mind can work.

You don’t often hear someone say, “I played that video game at the absolute perfect time in my life.” But once in a while, the stars align, and when they do, magic happens.

This is what happened for me with Crypt Custodian. This is a game about a cat who dies tragically, and upon entering the afterlife, is sentenced to clean it for all of eternity. The game takes a difficult concept with animal death and turns it into something humorous and quirky.

I just so happened to truly dive into this game right as I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life with my dog Chester. In the build-up to that terrible day, and in the days after, I found myself unable to play anything except for Crypt Custodian. The game forced me to face the truth of what I was dealing with. Yet, its levity also made it strangely comforting to play. It was a game that was vital to my personal healing process as I explored its strange and whimsical world. Because of that, Crypt Custodian truly holds a special place in my heart. It’s a game that was in the right place at the right time.

But that’s not the only reason I love it. Even if I had zero emotional attachment to this story, I’d still say this is one of the strongest Metroidvanias in a year packed with them. Solo developer Kyle Thompson knocked it out of the park with his project Islets back in 2022 (my #10 game of that year), and he has taken his game to another level with Crypt Custodian. Thompson went in a different direction this time by going with a top down perspective instead of the classic 2D Metroidvania style, and it ends up being a fantastic decision. Whether you are dealing with loss right now or not, this is a game well worth playing.

Now THAT’S What I Call A Metroidvania

2024 has kind of been the year of the Metroidvania, at least for me. This is the 7th one I’ve played this year. And while I’ve really enjoyed many of them, I feel like every single one has disappointed me in some ways with its Metroidvania elements. Every one of them has either had a map that is practically linear, exploration that didn’t feel particularly rewarding, or terrible fast travel. And a few have had all of these issues in some capacity. I am happy to say that Crypt Custodian is easily the best game I’ve played this year when it comes to Metroidvania elements.

This map is DENSE. It is gigantic and constantly branching. There are secrets tucked everywhere and anywhere. I really loved how varied and rewarding the exploration ended up being. The main currency in the game is trash, and as a custodian, you find trash almost everywhere you go. In any section of the map, you can hit some trash on the map, hear a satisfying crunch, and suddenly, you are a bit richer. Currency has almost unlimited use when it comes to the upgrade system, so I was happy to hit trash anywhere I went, and it never stopped feeling rewarding.

Of course, there are more meaningful rewards like special attacks and upgrades hidden in plenty of other spots on the map. Because Crypt Custodian is a top down game in a pretty open space, most of the upgrades in the game aren’t too terribly hard to find if you are observant (none of the somewhat annoying hidden walls that are extremely prevalent in most 2D Metroidvanias). But they are often hidden behind platforming and puzzle challenges that use all of your different abilities in clever ways. I always found these to be a fun and rewarding challenge.

And best of all, it’s never too annoying to go back to a challenge if you don’t have the right abilities yet. Fast travel points are relatively generous here, and you can fast travel to any of them whenever you want. So, I never felt annoyed with backtracking, which made the exploration way more fun. Crypt Custodian truly nails all of its Metroidvania elements, which was a sight for sore eyes for me.

Killing And Cleaning In The Afterlife

But Metroidvania elements can only take you so far if the core gameplay doesn’t feel good. If you played Islets, it’s no shock that Crypt Custodian nails just about everything here as well. While you spend a surprising amount of time just exploring and vibing, you still spend a fair amount of time in combat.

Much like Islets, bullet hell/shmup elements are integrated into the combat to excellent effect. Enemy attack patterns are usually revealed a second before they attack, so you have time to dodge them. You can dodge most attacks with either your dash move or your jump. The dash move takes about a second to regenerate after each use, so you can’t overuse it and need to be strategic about it, but you don’t have to manage an energy bar or anything. Jumping can be very effective as a dodging method, but if you use it too much when the bullets really start flying, you can end up in bad situations. My only complaint here is that some attack patterns were a bit confusing to dodge because the top-down perspective made it unclear if jumping over it was possible or not. But otherwise, finding ways to avoid damage among nicely varied enemy attack patterns is easily one of the biggest strengths of the game.

Dishing out the damage ends up being just as satisfying thanks to really excellent sound design. There is a “crunch” to the combat here that helps keep it enjoyable from start to finish. Outside of the basic attack, you also have a ground pound type attack, a ranged attack, and a dash attack. You can also equip one special attack out of several options.

Admittedly, there could be a bit more depth here. While there can be a satisfying flow to go from a ground pound, to a dash attack, to the basic attack before transitioning to a special attack, in practice you end up button mashing the basic attack more than anything. The ranged attack could have been a nice way to mix things up a bit more, but it is terribly awkward to use and not as effective as I would have liked. In my eyes, the real fun in Crypt Custodian is dodging attacks and looking for that opening to attack. So it isn’t the end of the world, but it falls a bit short of where it could have been.

All of these elements come together for boss fights that I found to be decently satisfying, yet also a touch short of reaching the highs that they could have. Crypt Custodian features 13 bosses, and I think only one or two of them took me more than 5 tries. While they are well designed, most of them only take something like 90 seconds to 2 minutes to beat. While it’s nice that no bosses are particularly frustrating, I found myself a bit disappointed by this. A couple of the more intense boss fights are some of my favorite moments in the game, and I just didn’t get a chance to feel that level of intensity with the vast majority of these fights.

It’s odd in particular because exploring the overworld can actually be quite a bit more challenging than the boss fights. I really enjoyed the difficulty balancing when I was just exploring the world and trying to reach my next objective. There is no way to heal outside of save points, and sometimes you encounter quite a few enemies with a lot of attacks on your way to each one. I can’t tell you how many times I breathed that perfect sigh of relief and satisfaction every time I reached a save point because I was pretty low on health. That gave me the bit of challenge I craved from this game, but it also made the decision-making on boss fights a little more strange to me.

Sometimes, that relief at hitting a save point wasn’t just because of the combat, but because health can get low from platforming challenges too. You will do quite a bit of platforming in Crypt Custodian. The game’s map is separated by tons of floating platforms, so you have to jump constantly to move around. As mentioned earlier, there are quite a few platforming challenges and occasional puzzles attached to finding rewards, but they are also attached to progressing in the main plot as well. These also have a nice difficulty balance much like the overworld combat. While the traversal skills you obtain as you progress through the game aren’t anything crazy (you will navigate the vast majority of platforming challenges with a basic air dash), the challenges presented to you remain pretty varied throughout, and the controls are responsive and satisfying. The platforming and puzzles were both nice ways to mix the action up. They do their jobs admirably.

Sometimes You Kind Of Want To Be Sad

The story in Crypt Custodian is also something I would also describe as admirable. While the story in this game isn’t particularly deep or filled with many twists or turns, it does have a satisfying hook. There is also a lot of clever and quirky writing throughout that usually found ways to put a smile on my face.

Visually, the game also found some ways to make me smile. I love the character designs, and the animations help enhance the combat quite a bit. The environments are the one pitfall. They are a bit boring and don’t change much outside of the color palette, but that never bugged me all that much.

When it comes to the production values, the true star of the show here ends up being the music. I don’t think I could ever listen to any song from this game in the car or anything, but it is incredible background music. It single-handedly delivers a vibe that fits the game perfectly. I think part of the reason I couldn’t put this game down while I played it is because the music just fit my mood in such a perfect way. It’s sad (you are in the afterlife, after all), but it’s really chill, and occasionally, just a touch hopeful. This is easily my favorite soundtrack this year that isn’t catchy in any way, and it’s a big part of why this game is so special.

Listening to that soundtrack again created a bizarre feeling for me as I wrote this review. It makes me remember some of my last moments with my dog, as we played this game while he laid on top of me for several nights. I remember how I played it through tears for a few nights after he was gone. But also, I remember healing. And most of all, I remember the good feelings that you get when you know you just played one hell of a video game. Yes, Crypt Custodian is special to me for reasons beyond its mere quality as a video game. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that this is an absolutely fantastic experience for anyone. If you like Metroidvanias, this is one of the main ones you should be playing right now. That is high praise when you look at how many games we have had in that genre this year. It appears as though two straight Kyle Thompson games will make my year end top 10 list. His games have become must-plays for me. And with this one in particular, I’m truly grateful that I got to experience it.

Score: 9.0/10