Cleaning up the Afterlife | Crypt Custodian Review

Do you like Metroidvanias? Do you like playing as a cat? Would you wanna play a Metroidvania as a cat? Of course, you would! Play as a cute kitty who finds themselves sent to clean up trash for the rest of eternity in Crypt Custodian by Kyle Thompson.

The Adventure

Take on the adventures of Pluto as he is forever banished to sweep outside the palace of Kendra, the Afterlife Overseer on a power trip. A few broken statues leave you needing to rally a ghostly group of new friends to bust out of the underworld.

Your only weapon: your trusty broom.

Your goal: find the Crystal Mirror.

Don’t worry, you can upgrade your brook to become the most deadly weapon around. Buy some fun buffs from the local bird at the Sinner’s Inn, or solve a tricky puzzle in the wild and earn one. So, can you just use all the buffs you get? No, to balance out the effects, you have to earn Spirit Points to equip each special ability.

Search every nook and cranny because you’re searching for things to improve your combat and collectibles. The Sinner’s Inn has a shiny jukebox, but only one track on repeat all day, pick up some new music on your trip. If you happen to come across any random vases, make sure to break them open. Collect all 20 lost kittens and return them to their mother for prizes. A photo is worth a thousand words, or so they say. So how about three thousand words per friend? Make sure to look around for photos telling the story of how your new friends lived and died.

Explore several unique to slay a plethora of monsters. Each new area has monsters to torment you (watch out for the ones who throw fire…). Along with those fun monsters, fun puzzles are littered all over the place. Challenges will have you fighting hordes of enemies while you're trapped on a single platform. Others will need you to ping an orb to hit specific towers.

Even if you're banished to being the underworld’s custodian, you still should make time to meet new people. According to doctors, you should have ten friends when you’re adventuring in the afterlife, so that is how many friends you must find. Some you will have to help (basements are scary and tablecloths are a necessity for a dinner party), and some might need some help getting over the past (strong feelings make people do crazy things). Say, if you and ten friends teamed up, do you think you could overthrow the evil mastermind keeping a rare mirror all to themselves?

So, what’s up with this special mirror? Well, as we are all stuck in the afterlife, we miss the loved ones we left behind. Wouldn’t you want to check on them? Make sure they are okay. This Crystal Mirror does just that! The Crystal Mirror allows spirits to spend time on Earth and see those past friends. The living might not be able to see, hear, or touch the spirits, but the spirits can rest easy after the visit.

In typical Metroidvania fashion, the map is covered in a linear progression. You will explore areas, get hit with a roadblock, and then get the answer on the other side of the map. This can trip up a lot of people like me (poor memory + obliviousness is a horrible combination). Crypt Custodian must have thought about this part of the player base and put in one of the best things I’ve ever seen. In the Sinner’s Inn, you can buy two very important things. One is a token that shows the location of one special item you’ve missed. This can be a challenge, spirit point, cat vessel, power-ups, jukebox discs, or photos. This is great for those who are trying to hit 100% or if you just need a little help with finding that last picture to see what happened to your new buddy.

The Ending + Post Game

Once you have your gang of new friends has assembled, it’s time to break in. The clean, pristine palace you were expecting is nothing more than worn-down rooms piled high with trash (the same trash that gets thrown outside that you have to clean up). Luckily, the Crystal Mirror is easy to steal. Sadly, you can’t leave without a fight. Face off against Kendra, the egocentric frog keeping everyone below them. Slay the toad and run for the hills (or in your case, the Crystal Mirror).

Turns out, all of you “bad ghosts” were only not as good as little old Kendra. The palace, reserved for only the good ghosts, was ruled and inhabited by Kendra, the sole guardian of the realm.

The credits roll to the sorrowful yet heartwarming pictures of everyone getting to spend one last night next to those still among the living.

Your quest is not finished yet. Someone has to deal with a sulky Kendra and nobody else is gonna do it. Hunt down three thousand words worth of Kendra’s past in order and talk some sense into her (if you talk to the other ghosts… you might become friends).

Other than Kendra, everyone else is up for celebrating their short but special time with their loved ones on the other side. Seeing everyone come together is the best part of the charming game. Seeing your hard work pay off more than you could have thought is worth every second spent lost and confused.

I could not think of a more perfect entry-level Metroidvania to have someone dip their toe into the genre. These games can be intimidating due to the incredibly large maps and needed backtracking. Even though this map is large, the item and location tokens help massively reduce confusion.