Cryptark One Hour Review

In space, garbage takes you out
Cryptark Review

Drifting through the frozen annals of the cosmos, the twisted wreckage of adventures long forgotten stand as a monument and an opportunity for the brave. These monolithic space hulks would continue to slumber except for a few privateers willing to risk life and limb for profit. Cryptark is the new procedurally generated adventure from Alientrap games, out now on PlayStation 4 and PC. Initially a Steam early access game, this 2D shooter puts players in the shoes of a futuristic salvage agent, sifting through the hulking wrecks of alien star ships.

Cryptark & it’s interesting combinations

A mix of traditional procedural dungeons and twin stick shooters, Cryptark pits players against a 2D gauntlet of monstrosities. Automated defenses, security systems, and an array of robots all form an aggressive welcoming committee for aspiring privateers as they make their way through an innumerable combination of maps with traps.

Whether it is in campaign, rouge, co-op, or excavation modes the goal of Cryptark is to blast through obstacles and destroy the core at the center of every wreck you enter. Surrounding each of the cores are a series of objectives of varying difficulty. Larger, more valuable dungeons can contain teleportation traps, used to relocate objectives and enemies, or internal alarm systems which cause utter chaos when tripped. However, not every target needs to be destroyed to eliminate the central core. This provides players with a choice. Race through the mess of metal and take down the core or complete all available side missions for more gratuitous rewards.

Successfully dispatching the central core, quelling any internal resistance, and meeting any of the various side objectives presents players with substantial remuneration. Blazing around space in an armored astronomical garbage mech is an expensive business and this currency is essential to your continued operation. Four customizable weapon turrets are paired with several additional inventory slots, allowing players to add health packs, door keys, or other useful items to their configuration. Weapons, additional armor, reloading, and health packs can all be purchased prior to launch and all cost cash. Failed runs and pilot retrieval also penalize players with a significant recovery cost, meaning crashing is generally to be avoided.

Cryptark 3

Keeping your ride out of the scrap yard is a surprisingly satisfying experience once you get down to the business of exploring dungeons. Controls are responsive and condensed to movement, aiming, firing, and utilities. A single button is used to interact with environmental objects meaning that every active option can be mapped directly onto compatible gamepads. With a Playstation 4 launch for this title, controller support is extremely well tuned. While some shooters can feel decidedly skittish with controllers, Alientrap manages to avoid things becoming uncontrollable or descending into a labyrinth of radial menus.

Assuming you manage to make it through the opening mazes of extraterrestrial traps, some level of progression does exist in Cryptark. Dungeons offer privateers the opportunity to uncover advanced alien tech, unlocking new weapon load outs and the more exotic challenges may even contain ancient tech and artifacts, allowing players to unlock shiny new mechs with decidedly fancier decals and much bigger guns than a bog standard rental job.

Beyond your mech’s paint job, the rest of the game’s aesthetic is a pleasant mix of nostalgia and craft. Similar to shooters like Rise & Shine, Cryptark mixes hand crafted assets with a definite nod to the same retro nostalgia that influences many other rougelike experiences already on the market. The inclusion of fully voice acted components between missions gives the game a little more soul to it than the average dungeon grind.

This is how Cryptark manages to stand out among its competitors. I it finds a nice niche, creating a twin stick dungeon crawler, builds easily accessible dungeons, and the derision of my employer has not made me grin in quite the same way before. Mechanically this is, as expected, fairly repetitive experience. Although I genrally enjoyed myself and the procedural construction of space wrecks is good, I couldn’t help feel that it struggled to escape the same issues that all procedural rougelikes have to tackle. It struggled to keep me truly invested in my pilot.

Plusses
  • interesting blend of shoter and dungeon crawler
  • great asthetics and voice acting
  • Overal well designed controls
  • easily acessible
Minuses
  • can get repetative
  • lack of engagement
  • saturated market with better competitors available
Our 1-Hour Review Score

7/10

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.