Crypt of the Serpent King review

Reviewed on: PC

PLEASE GET ME OUT OF THIS MAZE!!!

You know when you wake up in the middle of the night after a nightmare in which you find yourself in totally random, senseless situations? Feeling that post-waking disgust that only makes you want to go back to sleep and forget what happened in the previous dream?

That is more or less what happens with Crypt of the Serpent King, a game from Spanish developer Rendercode Games.

What is this game about?

For starters, you are thrown into a maze with no explanation. You don’t know whether you are a hero fighting against the tyranny of a scaly king or a terrorist wanting to cause chaos in the kingdom of Who-Knows-Where.

Anyway… Since you started and have the weapon in hand, let’s go to the end.

Your goal is to find keys scattered around the mazes in order to unlock the gate that releases the duel with each level’s boss. Throughout the maze are scattered various enemies that give XP, essential for increasing your resistance, strength and agility. The combat is boring and basically consists of you learning the little variety of movement of each of the little monsters. It is so boring that when you get close to the end you will choose to dodge each one of them and end this disturbing dream as soon as possible.

The available weapons will be familiar to admirers of the medieval era. There is a little sword, spear, mace and even bows to attack from a distance. To unlock them all just use the gold you collect all the time.

To help your life there are a bunch of chests available around the map. In the chests you find little snacks that heal you, gold and arrows. There are lots of chests scattered around and you will surely end up dying only through your own negligence.

The graphics are not cool and look very artificial, however the developer’s choice to go for something that is not based on 90s games is to be praised. The sound effects and music, on the other hand, please quite a lot: they were well made and are the best thing in the game.

Now the main thing, the gameplay: Stiff, choppy, tedious… I don’t know if the lack of polish was intentional, but if they had refined it properly we would have a slightly more fun game. In the end, what makes a game really GOOD is that you want to play the same title because it simply makes you feel good. Unfortunately that is not what happened here and I played it as a sacrifice, but the good news is that CotSK is quite short and you will finish the adventure in under 2 hours.

Is it worth buying?

If you are nostalgic for the genre or an achievement hunter, yes. The game is very cheap and ends up costing less than a coxinha (a Brazilian fried snack) with a soda. Now, if you don’t identify with any of the options I mentioned, pick a tasty snack, which will be more worthwhile.

FUN: 3
AUDIO AND VISUALS: 6
MECHANICS: 4

Review made on the Steam version kindly provided by Rendercode Games