Game Review: Crawl (Switch)

Crawl is dungeon crawling game where you can complete against yourself or your friends. This game was originally released in 2014 on Steam and developed by Powerhoof. It’s part of the retro wave, and is done entirely in 8-bit. The game gives you the nostalgia of early NES titles like The Legend of Zelda, Phantasy Star and Dungeon Master. Crawl is a role-playing game where you assume the character and ‘hack-n-slash’ to gather items and experience. Once you get to the dungeon boss, it will either by controlled by a CPU or your friend. You can either continue on, or if you’re defeated, you switch roles! How did this title fare? Let’s enter the dungeon!

Gameplay

There are two ways to play this game- either by yourself or with friends. You can crawl the dungeons, collecting items and killing monsters, until you untimely demise. However, you can also haunt and kill your friends until you regain humanity. I definitely prefer the multiplayer version of this game. There’s something exciting about chasing down your friends and trying to kill them! Gamers with no friends, don’t fret, playing the solo mode is equally as fun. The dungeons are randomly generated, so each play-through is unique. The game can prove to be challenging, but like the old-school games before it, replayability is the joy of this game. You can win this game by reaching level 10 and defeating the last dungeon boss.

Graphics

This title plays right into gamers nostalgia, and there is nothing more popular right now. I don’t think Crawl could work with modern graphics. The whole set up relies on the 2D pixelated graphical style. Crawl could have come out thirty years ago and would have fit right in. The game mechanics are very smooth and remind me of 2014’s Shovel Knight. The game is not beautiful, but it’s effective.

Entertainment

This game offers classic local multiplayer fun! While the solo mode is good if you’re alone or on the go; you’re going to want to play this one with some friends! I suggest inviting some of your favorite buddies over and wasting hours trying to see who is the best. The best part is who never know what’s coming next, so it’s easy to take back control from another player. When playing in single-player mode the enemies will you hunt you, so it’s very easy to die. However, for me, that’s what made me want to jump back in and play more. The games has endless replayability in both modes. Crawl is also very accessible. It’s very easy for nearly everyone to pick up and play. The controls are quite simple and I found myself preferring to use a single joycon. Crawl is perfect for the Nintendo Switch. It feels like it belongs on the system. Whether you want to play on the TV at home, or in tabletop mode on the go; this game plays great!

The Good