Crypt Killer

Did You Know?

• The players are guided by Galazon, the spirit of travels, who resembles a floating head.
• Enemies include mummies, skeletons, fish-men, and gargoyles.
• The player character uses a shotgun to fend off enemies.

Gameplay

Up to three players move through levels on fixed paths, as most light gun shooters do. At certain points, they pick between two routes. The start screen lets them choose any of six levels, each with three areas and a boss zone. At each level’s end, a boss guards the Eyes of Guidance needed to continue. Players can temporarily boost their weapon by finding hidden guns—like a Gatling gun, grenade launcher, a stronger shotgun, and an automatic—behind breakable objects. In console versions, each life gives three bombs that clear all enemies on screen. Every time two Eyes of Guidance are collected, an ending plays, though Galazon urges players to finish all six levels. All endings start with placing the Eyes in a statue. The eye’s color—red or blue—depends on the path chosen at the end of Act 2 in each level. The color pair decides the outcome: a blue first eye and red second eye gives the Normal/Good Ending, where the player shoots a skeleton and finds real treasure. Both blue eyes produce the Behind-The-Scenes Ending, showing monsters are stunt men and actors. Both red eyes lead to the Bad Ending, where the player finds fake treasure and is killed by all bosses. A red first eye and blue second eye yields the Legendary Sword Ending, where the player finds a legendary sword and becomes its wielder.

Reception

A Next Generation critic praised the arcade version's ending but stated that aside from the free-moving, hand-held sawed-off shotgun with pump-handle reloading, the game blended in with other laser-gun shooters with little distinction. The Saturn and PlayStation versions received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with critics deriding the heavily pixelated and blocky graphics, lack of scariness in enemy appearance, numerous cheap hits, and the player character's overdone acrobatics causing nauseating perspective shifts. Lee Nutter of Sega Saturn Magazine remarked that more fun could be derived from the Virtua Gun by pistol whipping oneself with it. A sidebar on seven Saturn light gun games showed Crypt Killer had the lowest rating from that magazine. Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly defended the game for its unique mythical theme, but his three co-reviewers gave firmly negative assessments. GamePro noted the action never intensified to the point of hysteria like Area 51. GameSpot's Jeff Kitts found the poor quality especially unforgivable given Konami's prior light gun game Lethal Enforcers.