“The Keep” for 3DS

Can it "Keep" up with its brethren?

By Sean Perryman on October 19, 2014 at 5:38pm

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" I say to myself as the plane is filling up. I was trying vehemently to finish downloading this game before we pulled away from the gate, as I will soon lose access to the airport Wi-Fi. Just as the engines started, I was greeted with a downloaded game eShop game: "The Keep" by Prague-based CINEMAX (not to be confused with the premium content channel on your cable or satellite box).

As we lifted our way into the sky, I launched the application. Greeted with a nice-looking splash screen, I started the game. I found the tutorial to be insightful while not being overly preachy. They held your hand a little as they show you how to open doors, kill enemies, use spells, and throw objects. It seems to be well thought out and adequate to get you into the game safely.

After making my way through the tutorial level, I found myself standing in front of a rather harmless-looking enemy, some sort of rat-crab thing. I found myself unable to kill it immediately, and I died several times before I figured out what was going on. Whether this is my fault or a shortcoming of the tutorial, I know not.

Undaunted by this I pressed on. The game is beautiful looking; very reminiscent of the early "Ultima" entries but with a more complicated combat system. Generally when faced with an enemy, you can load your combat screen and swipe away. Swiping across different tiles produces a different swing, so be sure and experiment. You can go diagonal, vertical, or horizontal to produce attacks aimed at different parts of your enemies.

The spell system left a little to be desired, as runes can only be swiped over in a line. As an example, there is a fireball spell and and ice spell that use two of the same runes, but I haven’t been able to find a way to shoot them both in combat; it is one or the other. It seems that you have to line your runes up in order to successfully swipe over the; swiping in a pattern doesn’t seem to work.

The puzzles I ran into a fairly straight forward, usually consisting of throwing a rock through a gate to trigger a pad or finding a slightly hidden switch on the wall. I discovered some secret rooms along the way and found the game enjoyable as I dispatch enemies and gain power. I made my way through the first few levels like this and found myself engaged and enraptured with the content so far.

Then I came to the four trap doors. Not just any old trap doors mind you but the trap doors.

The guise of the puzzle is very straightforward; there are four trap doors in a line that you have to pass over to advance. They open and close automatically at different intervals. The first two are paired, and the second two are independent. If you get caught on one when it opens, you drop down into the next level and can climb a set of stairs to get back and try again. Easy peesy, right?

WRONG! Every morning of my vacation was spent trying to get through this puzzle without making any progress. Even the flight home provided no respite from this brutal timing challenge. From what I can tell, the first two doors and the last door are synchronized. It is easy to walk over the first two and on to the third, but I cannot get onto that fourth door to save my life. I even handed my 3DS over to my stepson and had him give it a shot with no luck.

Even with getting stuck on that puzzle, I still had a good time with the game. It is a great environment and story and is very easy to get sucked into. The meticulously crafted art assets in this game are apparent at every stage of the game, and the care the developers put into this game is evident. It's a shame I was unable to get farther than I did, but I can say with a certainty that I had fun getting there.

The Keep 7 / 10 Read our Review »

Release: 9/11/2014 [NA] 9/18/2014 [EU]

ESRB Rating: Teen

Publisher: CINEMAX

Genres: Dungeon Crawl

Full Game Details »