Rendercode Games has previously released games on the Xbox 360 Indie games platform, with success of games like Avatar Karting 1&2 and Assault Ops, and even the original version of CoTSK. Several years later RenderCode has brought CoTSK to the new ID@Xbox Platform complete with achievements!

 

The premise of the game is you are a knight trapped in a creepy dungeon, trying to find escape you traverse each randomly generated map to hunt down keys that will allow you to reach the boss of that level and move on to the next. Each map is randomly generated. Every time you play you will be in a slightly different level than before, paths, monsters, chest, and keys will all be different from the previous. Now there isn't too much of a wide variety, when the game randomizes the level there is only so many different variations at play. Halls will lead to different rooms, enemies will be slightly different than before.

 

Overall the gameplay is pretty run of the mill. I enjoyed my time playing but one thing that bugged me was the clunky jump mechanics, see when you find a key often time you will need to jump a small lava gap to reach the pedestal, problem is that jumping is almost non existent, with the incredible height of what felt like 4 inches I often found myself dying trying to jump the small gaps and dying on the level. The gaps themselves are actually quite small, it's just the lack of a proper jump is what was causing trouble. Besides that gameplay is pretty easy. All the enemies have a simple AI to battle, you can pretty much strafe back and forth to avoid all attacks, while you move forth you can just swing your sword to hit them then back up to avoid the counter.

There really isn't much if any of a story here. Just simple gameplay that you can pretty much pick up and play. The incentive to bring you back for more is the progression system, each enemy killed and level completed earns you more XP and in game currency to purchase better equipment and improve your stats such as health and strength. One thing I liked is that the game doesn't force you to play non stop, even after just a few hours of gameplay I already created a unstoppable dungeon crawler.

 

Now you are probably wondering about achievements, luckily Rendercode compiled a very easy list of just 21 achievements. For the 7 levels of the game there are 3 different difficulty achievements tied to each. Unfortunately these are not stackable, meaning you cant just play on hard and unlock the achievements for normal and easy.

 

Obviously starting off with easy then upgrading your character along the way would be your best bet, then afterwards you won't have any trouble tackling Medium or Hard. With a Gamerscore value of 1000, you can expect to acquire all achievements within about 6-8 hours, maybe less depending on your knowledge of the games mechanics.

When it comes down to it, CoTSK is a good value. Simple but fun gameplay, easy achievements and pick up-n-play accessibility. For $2.99 you get your moneys worth(which is not a bad thing). All I recommend is don’t go into this game expecting a AAA adventure. Crypt is essentially trying the capture the fun of old school dungeon crawlers and does a good job of it. Not perfect but good.

 

Final Score - 6/10

 

Now a little but on how I score games, obviously on the 1-10 scale. In this case I scored the game a 6, which in my eyes means that the game is not amazing but it's not bad either. I don’t think I will ever hand out a 10 unless said game was truly revolutionary.

 

Written by John aka YoDz

 

Twitter@AkaYodz  Xbox: YoDz

 

John@nastymastadaddy.com

 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review

You can purchase Crypt of the Serpent King on the Xbox Store Here

 

Release Date - Wednesday‎, ‎December‎ ‎21‎, ‎2016

Price - $1.99

Download Size - 1.17 GB

 

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