Welcome to our review of Rift Keeper, a roguelite game that is out now on Nintendo Switch!
Loot epic gear as you progress through the dungeons. Find new weapons and accessories, grow your power! Embark on your journey, travel through rifts and restore the balance as the Rift Keeper in this handcrafted 2D roguelite platformer with challenging, fast-paced action gameplay.
Duty called and the Rift Keeper woke up from his deep slumber. The little town he was summoned was silent as if it’s the end. He opened the church’s rusty old door and four old men wearing red robes greeted him with a grim smile. One of the priests stepped forward and said, “The Gates are open”.
I went into Rift Keeper expecting a challenge but it was mostly a challenge to keep playing. Rift Keeper is mostly plagued by its controls and it did ruin my gameplay. I also have some things to say about the color schemes…
Let us start with the clunky controls that feel anything but smooth. Rift Keeper plays rather slow and for a game where you are either fighting or moving around, with the fighting part at least 70+ percent of the time, you are faced with slow attacks and they did get on my nerves more than once.
Jumping up and down just felt like there were some slight delays and while the game did do what I want, it just lacked that smooth feeling. It kinda felt like being stuck with the flu and your body just has that little delay, that feeling of sluggishness is all too present.
As a roguelite, the game did shine more than its controls, yet not perfect. Getting killed did not make you lose all your progress and as it was clear you will need all the money you can grab, it was a nice touch that you did not have to restart from scratch.
Now, regarding my previous remark about the color scheme. I own a v2 Switch with the better battery and so-called better screen, but I have to say that in handheld mode Rift Keeper was just awful looking. Often way too dark and at times uncertain if I was facing some sort of trap or just a background thing… The inclarity here, it was actually very annoying and often led me to die.
Rift Keeper was not such a fun experience and in its current form, sadly not a game to suggest either. So many better games out there and with the switch library becoming more and more potent, games like Rift Keeper risk the chance of being “just another roguelite title you are not going to be buying”.
In conclusion, Rift Keeper tries hard to be a fun game but the issues encountered made it anything but a good experience. Even with currently having over 200 GB free storage on my microSD card, this game is getting removed as chances of me revisiting are below zero anyway…
