Familiar but Fun, CRYPTARK Enters Early Access
Another week, another promising roguelike shooter on Early Access. If you’re anything like me, you may feel like we’ve pretty much reached total saturation of the genre, but it’s hard to turn away from it entirely when so many appealing titles keep coming out. This week’s entry into the ever-growing collection is CRYPTARK, from the developers of the pretty-excellent platformers Apotheon and Capsized. While its previous two titles kept players more or less on the ground, CRYPTARK launches them to the stars as they take on the role of a mech-suited space scavenger for hire. It’s well-worn territory, but CRYPTARK packs in enough flair to make it noteworthy and instill a bit of hope that the final version will transcend its weary premise.
Right out of the gate, CRYPTARK inspires comparisons to an earlier roguelike space shooter, Galak-Z. Released this summer for PS4 and still preparing for a PC release, Galak-Z does have a lot of superficial similarities to CRYPTARK, but at this point it has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Combining a retro-cool '80s anime narrative with fun ship controls and an engaging cast, Galak-Z was a manic Saturday morning cartoon come to life. CRYPTARK doesn’t have quite as much personality, but it’s not a total flatline either. A couple short animated introductions start the game off with some good, light-hearted momentum. Players meet their extraterrestrial employers, who charge them to recover a series of increasingly dangerous derelicts on their way to snatching the titular CRYPTARK ship. They’re also introduced to a few members of their ship’s crew, all of whom have small but interesting bits of personality shining through, especially the sly captain. They serve mainly to orient and guide players through the game, but they could go a long way toward improving CRYPTARK if they’re developed more for the final game.
CRYPTARK bears a passing resemblance to Galak-Z in the way that both games progress as well. Each has playthroughs divided into several short sections leading up to a final confrontation. In Galak-Z, these smaller chunks take the form of “episodes,” while CRYPTARK uses the conceit of capturing different ships to serve as its levels. But where Galak-Z sends players out into the solar system to chase down enemies through asteroid fields and vast swaths of space, CRYPTARK shuts them inside decaying but still heavily guarded spaceships. It’s a much more confined experience, and it starts to brush up against the limits of the roguelike formula. Every ship is procedurally generated, and the lack of strong level design can lead to some pretty unsatisfying outcomes. The challenge that any ship presents depends on how it popped out of its algorithm, so some encounters will take place on tiny vessels cluttered with enemies while others play out in sprawling structures with blind alleys or on nearly impregnable flying fortresses. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It does ensure that every heist will play out differently from the one before it, but more often than not it leads to a final or penultimate level that’s just brimming with baddies and the only real challenge lies in whether you’re able to mow down wave after wave of enemies. Most of my playthroughs ended with my mech bouncing off the walls as explosions from a dozen different sources sent me tumbling through a ship’s corridors and getting pinned to a wall before succumbing.
There’s a lot of room here for CRYPTARK’s developers to make something that requires more strategy and forethought. It goes against the grain of the genre, but CRYPTARK seems to be crying out for more traditionally designed levels. Since you can see the ship you’re about to board before leaving your own craft, it would be a perfect fit to have ships built with intention that require different approaches, rather than devolving as they usually do into run and gun finales. To be fair, these last-ditch shootouts can be exhilarating, but a slower build to them would only add to their force. For the same reasons, CRYPTARK would benefit from a bit more variety in the tools that players can acquire. Stealth fields, decoys, or any other more tactical gadgets would add a layer of much-needed consideration to how each ship is tackled.
That being said, there’s already a lot to like in CRYPTARK. The equipment that you can salvage from enemy ships is decently varied, though it still consists more of different weapon types than utility pieces or defensive gear. The controls are responsive and firing off your weapons feels appropriately weighty. Each ship provides a unique challenge, decked out in different sets of subsystems, from repair facilities to drone factories. The method to destroy each system is slightly different, with some firing back at you and others making you deal with a variety of defensive tricks. Choosing which systems are essential to take out and which may yield the most interesting rewards is a great but underdeveloped part of the game.
All in all, it’s a fun game and it’s likely to get better as the developers gather feedback. Early Access has certainly hammered out worse kinks than those present in CRYPTARK and there are hints of a much deeper game already showing through its familiar exterior. We may not need yet another roguelike space combat game, but we may just get an exemplary one in CRYPTARK.
Right out of the gate, CRYPTARK inspires comparisons to an earlier roguelike space shooter, Galak-Z. Released this summer for PS4 and still preparing for a PC release, Galak-Z does have a lot of superficial similarities to CRYPTARK, but at this point it has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Combining a retro-cool '80s anime narrative with fun ship controls and an engaging cast, Galak-Z was a manic Saturday morning cartoon come to life. CRYPTARK doesn’t have quite as much personality, but it’s not a total flatline either. A couple short animated introductions start the game off with some good, light-hearted momentum. Players meet their extraterrestrial employers, who charge them to recover a series of increasingly dangerous derelicts on their way to snatching the titular CRYPTARK ship. They’re also introduced to a few members of their ship’s crew, all of whom have small but interesting bits of personality shining through, especially the sly captain. They serve mainly to orient and guide players through the game, but they could go a long way toward improving CRYPTARK if they’re developed more for the final game.
CRYPTARK bears a passing resemblance to Galak-Z in the way that both games progress as well. Each has playthroughs divided into several short sections leading up to a final confrontation. In Galak-Z, these smaller chunks take the form of “episodes,” while CRYPTARK uses the conceit of capturing different ships to serve as its levels. But where Galak-Z sends players out into the solar system to chase down enemies through asteroid fields and vast swaths of space, CRYPTARK shuts them inside decaying but still heavily guarded spaceships. It’s a much more confined experience, and it starts to brush up against the limits of the roguelike formula. Every ship is procedurally generated, and the lack of strong level design can lead to some pretty unsatisfying outcomes. The challenge that any ship presents depends on how it popped out of its algorithm, so some encounters will take place on tiny vessels cluttered with enemies while others play out in sprawling structures with blind alleys or on nearly impregnable flying fortresses. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It does ensure that every heist will play out differently from the one before it, but more often than not it leads to a final or penultimate level that’s just brimming with baddies and the only real challenge lies in whether you’re able to mow down wave after wave of enemies. Most of my playthroughs ended with my mech bouncing off the walls as explosions from a dozen different sources sent me tumbling through a ship’s corridors and getting pinned to a wall before succumbing.
There’s a lot of room here for CRYPTARK’s developers to make something that requires more strategy and forethought. It goes against the grain of the genre, but CRYPTARK seems to be crying out for more traditionally designed levels. Since you can see the ship you’re about to board before leaving your own craft, it would be a perfect fit to have ships built with intention that require different approaches, rather than devolving as they usually do into run and gun finales. To be fair, these last-ditch shootouts can be exhilarating, but a slower build to them would only add to their force. For the same reasons, CRYPTARK would benefit from a bit more variety in the tools that players can acquire. Stealth fields, decoys, or any other more tactical gadgets would add a layer of much-needed consideration to how each ship is tackled.
That being said, there’s already a lot to like in CRYPTARK. The equipment that you can salvage from enemy ships is decently varied, though it still consists more of different weapon types than utility pieces or defensive gear. The controls are responsive and firing off your weapons feels appropriately weighty. Each ship provides a unique challenge, decked out in different sets of subsystems, from repair facilities to drone factories. The method to destroy each system is slightly different, with some firing back at you and others making you deal with a variety of defensive tricks. Choosing which systems are essential to take out and which may yield the most interesting rewards is a great but underdeveloped part of the game.
All in all, it’s a fun game and it’s likely to get better as the developers gather feedback. Early Access has certainly hammered out worse kinks than those present in CRYPTARK and there are hints of a much deeper game already showing through its familiar exterior. We may not need yet another roguelike space combat game, but we may just get an exemplary one in CRYPTARK.