Crimsonland (Nintendo Switch) Indie One Shot

 

Aliens? Mutant lizards? Giant spiders? GUNS?! Crimsonland packs all of these into the game and it's not subtle about any of it. This top-down, dual-stick shooter is beautiful, bloody, and incredibly addicting. 

The game spans out over sixty missions and a handful of survival modes where you only have one purpose : re-paint the ground with the blood, guts, and bones of your enemies! Well...okay you have to survive wave after wave of attacks...but still. Each mission tests your skills as any number of enemies will try and chase you down.

You've got dozens of guns to choose from, which unlock as you progress through the game, but you'll always start each level off with a pistol. Killing enemies will drop guns for you to swap out with, and they'll also drop any of a number of power-ups that can help you lay waste to the hordes. These power-ups are an amazing help, as they'll send out waves of attacks that can take out tons of enemies in a single blow. 

You'll also unlock perks to use as you level up. On the top of the screen are two bars, a green one that fills up as you kill enemies, and once it is full you're done with the level. Below it is a smaller blue bar that fills with each kill you get as well, but this one fills much faster. Each time it fills, you gain a level and the game freezes to allow you to pick a perk that lasts for the rest your current round. These perks can do anything from making you shoot or reload faster, make you run faster, switch weapons, give you a telekinetic power that will drag the in-level powerups to you automatically. 

As much as it sounds like the game might lend you a helping hand at every corner, it does everything but. If you step in the wrong direction, or miss just too many shots, you'll find yourself trying to claw your way out of a corner, praying that something drops a nice power-up for you for some breathing room. 

A perfect showcase of how one level can go in this game. A few enemies, then dozens, and then the blood-stained remnants of the battle that was

In addition to the main quests, there's a survival mode that will pit you against an endless wave of creatures, just to see how long you can survive for, complete with leaderboards of your friends and people all over the world.

Crimsonland was initially released a few years ago, but has only just recently been released for the Switch. With full support for up to four-person co-op, this game is a must have for your Switch library. For me personally, this is a hard game to put down. Usually when I die repeatedly on a level in a game, the nerd rage takes over and I have to set everything down for a little while. Crimsonland delivers a bloody sucker punch that, even if you're stuck in a loop of dying, you'll want to keep pushing through everything no matter what. 

Rating : 8.5/10

Developed and Published by : 10tons LTD.