You play as Pluto, a mischievous cat – which is a bit of a redundant statement if we’re honest – that has died and been assigned to an eternity of custodial work. As a result, Pluto enters the afterlife with nothing more than a broom and a bit of a grudge against the Afterlife Guardian, Kendra.
Crypt Custodian begins without much of a clear goal. As you start to wander the grounds, you’ll come across other spirits that have been cast aside. Of course, there are monsters roaming the grounds and trash strewn about the place, so there’s no shortage of clean up that needs to be done.
The first stop for all the cool cats will be the local watering hole. There you will find a surprisingly friendly barkeep, Marla. Besides being a friendly face, she offers several upgrades that will be useful later. There is also a jukebox nearby where you can play sweet tunes and, even more importantly, a special machine that places markers on the map to help find any items you’ve missed in rooms you’ve explored.
The map is fairly big. There is plenty to explore, several different areas and characters to meet, and a well-balanced amount of collectibles to find. There are a ton of different abilities to unlock too, several music discs, upgrade points, and photos to find. Music discs are purely for fun, but the upgrade points and abilities obviously make a huge improvement on your combat abilities.
Crypt Custodian uses a fairly unique system for unlocks. There isn’t a hard set cap for how many upgrade points there are, as it’s possible to find them and purchase them eventually. Once you have upgrade points, you can use them to assign different abilities. Each ability costs a certain amount of points, but as long as you acquire more points, there is no set limit to how many abilities can be used at a time.
There are different difficulty settings, but even on hard mode, Crypt Custodian isn’t overly challenging. And with the power to assign so many abilities at a time, it is possible to make Pluto incredibly strong. As a metroidvania there are also plenty of general movement abilities to unlock. While all of them are useful, a couple are more gimmicky and don’t have much use in many areas of the game.
Back to things to find though, and the photos are actually one of my favorite things to come across. Almost every character you meet has a photo set that you can find; just three photos each, but these photos tell a little story about their life and how it came to an end. Crypt Custodian doesn’t tackle the topic of death head on, but it also doesn’t completely ignore it. These photos give a little background on the many characters you meet, providing a glimpse into who they are.
It is the epitome of what collectibles should be in video games. It’s the small details and additions like this that make games great. Getting the little things right goes a long way in providing a memorable gaming experience, and Crypt Custodian knocks the small details out of the park.
It also knocks other stuff out of the park. Right away, when starting the game, the controls feel tight and responsive. Movement feels the way you want it to, and the graphics and music set the mood perfectly. There is even a neat little animation that occurs whenever you make a near miss on a jump; a dust cloud in the shape of Pluto appears. When the developer takes time to add those kinds of details into a game, it’s usually a safe bet that the rest of the game has been given the care it needs to be good.
There are some puzzles to solve, but the majority of the gameplay is focused around exploration and combat. There are several rooms that will pit you against waves of enemies that need defeating to progress. New abilities can also be unlocked by taking on “curses” that are offered by various statues. These range from mild inconveniences like being followed by spikes, to real challenges such as needing to defeat 15 enemies without taking any damage.
Your main attack is a simple sweeping attack with your broom (pun intended), but you also have a special ability that can be swapped out. Spinning attacks, special spike attacks, and more can be unlocked as you play. And many areas will have a boss fight that you need to clear to progress, and these can be fairly challenging, but with a little persistence they can be overcome.
There are a couple puzzles spread throughout Crypt Custodian, but these are typically simple and don’t hold the game up too much. The only one that bothered me was one where the solution was in the background of a room that was next to the puzzle room. It was the only puzzle that took place in another room and it completely threw me off at first.
Along those lines, Crypt Custodian shouldn’t take any longer than ten hours to complete in its entirety. There is a boss rush mode where overachievers can choose to fight every boss in the game again, but with new restrictions in place. Beating the bosses in the boss rush mode is also essential to filling out all the achievements.
Crypt Custodian is a great metroidvania. It has fun exploration, enjoyable combat, cracking collectibles, and an incredibly chill soundtrack that makes for a mellow adventure that will keep you coming back.
