This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.

Crimson Keep is a dungeon crawler with an emphasis on progression and a visual style reminiscent of early-era Elder Scrolls titles. Indeed, between the battle stance and the placement of the health bar, you might think you’re playing a low-res Skyrim mod. The gameplay is strong, if precise, though there are a few 'glitch gremlins' that rear their ugly heads to prevent this from being a truly stellar experience.

You’re given three options for classes and left to progress as far as you can, upgrading your gear and avoiding death to make it down to the titular Crimson Keep. You can choose between Brawler, Witch, or Drifter, the latter of which serves as the game’s hard mode, starting you off with no weapons and a weaker character.

Once you are past a quick tutorial (which you unfortunately have to sit through for every playthrough), you’re thrust down a hole into dungeon-crawling goodness. The combat requires exact collision detection to hit, but once you’re in the swing of things, it’s satisfying. As you kill enemies, you’ll level up and access unique power-ups and passive benefits, all of which will aid you in making it to the end. If you die, that’s it: you’re back to the start. You’ll also pick up a host of loot from the monsters you slay, which range from cartoonish and laughable, to pretty grim and gory.

While the retro visual style is great, the same can’t be said for the voiceover work, which is just awful. Many characters have voices that just don’t match their appearance and it’s the only aesthetic element that lets the game down. This, along with the odd textural glitch and overly long loading screen, make it sadly unpolished.

Overall, however, Crimson Keep is good fun. Its gameplay is enjoyable, its graphics are fit for purpose, and its replay value is high.