Quick Look: Cryptark

This looks really familiar, didn't Austin play it once?

Ahh, this game!

Edit: Bought it.

@aishan: There is an unfinished of this game on the site with Austin and GBEast crew.

Getting some Target Earth and Rive vibes here - except with money management and extreme difficulty.

Maybe I'll just play Target Earth or Rive.

I thought this sounded familiar. There was an Unfinished back in 2015. Hot damn!

I wanted to like this game a lot but for me it just felt like a much less interesting version of Galak-Z.

Maybe I should just play Galak-Z again.

Wow, the art style really changed since the Unfinished video. Maybe they changed it in response to Galak-Z, but I really think the art they went with is VERY hard to read because everything is so dark and muted.

The character designs and animations reminds me of Metalocalypse, weird.

I picked this game up when it was in early access and had a good time with it. It's pretty hard so if you're in the mood for an easy roguelike this one might be a pass. Personally I love the setting and the overall aesthetic they're going for.

Ben Pack: video producer.

Bought this because of the Unfinished QL from Austin and I've really enjoyed it through Early Access. Definitely difficult to play, but it's made easier by taking a buffed up loadout (managing the bonuses to the new ships), playing with a controller (easier to hit weapon and equipment buttons) and learning to love a 'shield-block to melee-attack' technique which swiftly deals with pesky enemies that are otherwise bullet sponges.

isnt this just galak-z with less anime v/o?

omg I love those alien portraits

I adore the vibe of this game. I also love that you can see the crew on your own ship, giving you some sense of scale.

Edit: While playing this this morning I though 'man, this seems like it would be extremely Austins shit'..... Turns out I already watched him play this 2 years ago hahaha.

Edit 2: Ok just unlocked the teleport mech and you have to teleport with x while aiming with the right stick at the same time..No thanks.. No remappable controls on ps4 either.

Also sometimes the core doesn't seem to react to non explosive damage or a wall spaws next to one side so its impossible to destroy if you dont happen to have a weapon that fires through walls, thats a bummer.

AND enemies often (And projectiles sometimes) go through locked doors or debris that you cant go through.

The visuals have a lot more depth now compared to that Unfinished video austin did. The game looked a lot flatter back then. The darkness of the game looks quite a bit worse in this video than when playing imo. Still not ideal though and it definitely was easier to distinguish stuff back in the Unfinished , I wouldn't mind some more color/brightness.

Fun story! The fishy guy with the turtleneck is voiced by Jerma985, a former YouTuber and current Twitch streamer. He's a pretty chill, funny guy!

~you saw me...

2 years has passed since the Unfinished?

It took that long in early access?

I've had this on my wishlist since they showed it on giant bomb but it looks awful graphically I remember it having an awesome art style what happened?

This game is pretty fun but there are intense moments where hazards, enemies and ship layouts produce a level that seem nearly impossible and require high level of twin stick skill and 2D navigation that would be a ceiling for some people. Calling this game hectic is an understatement.

Also I haven't seen the video yet but to the people who are talking about the games visuals changing there are several option setting that change the lighting(changed a few times during EA) and visual quality on what seem like 2D objects(not sure if it's full 2D) in the world.

Overall my experience with this is good but if the dice rolls snake eyes and I get a ship with radar jammers(no layout), 4 redundancies back ups and multiple cores alternators(Core shuffle ever minute) this to me is pretty much an impossible task.

Thankfully there is a more roguelike(limited starting items) mode that I played more often that has no timers so I felt that was easier to deal with and you can sort of take your time with.

There's video proof that it isn't pacman on this very site, Ben.

@white video games are hard yo

Making video games is really, really, really hard.

Man, I like the setting, I like the difficulty, I like the gameplay, and I like the look, but something about this just isn't grabbing me and I can't put my finger on why. Perhaps if the ships had more variety (visual or otherwise) to avoid that "seen one, seen them all" vibe, or maybe if you were knocking ships over for a narrative purpose beyond just getting paid (and there may very well be, but my limited hands on plus these videos haven't really highlighted that aspect), I'd be more into it, but as it stands I'm kinda bummed out as this SHOULD be right up my alley, but I'm just not feeling it.

Anyone get deeper into this and can tell me if the ship variety goes nuts (full biomechanical/organic, radical gameplay changes, etc) or if a narrative really starts picking up?

I swear enemy designs were much easier to see in the early access. Really hard to see now that they seem to be animal skeletons.

https://youtu.be/Qc5WUECoJTQ

This game looked so much nicer and easier to determine feedback now it's just a shiny mess

@steveurkel said:

I didn't even realise that the Unfinished from 2015 was the same game until someone mentioned it. Somehow adding all the lighting effects makes the whole thing look older and less polished. The art is actually really clean and well done, but now it has the look of an old game with an"HD texture pack" and an ENB lighting mod.

I really liked the way this looked back then and I wanted to give it a go when it came out of Early Access, but seeing the visual overhaul has kind of killed a lot of that interest.

@mvhvtmv: @steveurkel: @kdr_11k:

I can see where you guys are coming from with the lighting effects. The good news for you is that you can choose to play in "low detail mode" in the graphics options which gets rid of all the lighting effects. Here's a screenshot I took of the game in low detail mode just now:

I would have liked to have taken a comparison shot, but you can't switch between high detail and low detail when a game is in progress.

Is there a way to switch the colors in the map and minimap? As it is, my mind wants to read the green as traversable space, not the black. I didn't immediately parse the map because of this.

@lestephan: It's an imperfect solution, but you can rebind controller inputs on the OS level in the PS4 settings. You just have to remember that whatever the game describes as "X" is actually "R3" or whatever you swapped it to.

Alas, I'm not seeing any way to change this in the options.

Ben, I saw you use those keys on meaningless doors. You can't deny it.

Man, I have real trouble seeing what's going on in this game because of the colour scheme.

Picked this game up after this quicklook and having a blast after ~5 hours played! Definitely recommended.

as pointed out by previous commentators, you can put it on "low detail mode" which pretty much isnt low detail, its just more clear and bright.

Man, I'm still having a really hard time telling this and Duskers apart.

Both look neat, but like minutes after watching/reading something about either of them I can't remember which of them it just was I saw.