Castaway Review - A Must-Play for Zelda and Rogue-Like Fans
Castaway is a pixel-perfect Zelda-like adventure with rogue-like mechanics and a nostalgic soundtrack. Explore dungeons, solve puzzles, and face thrilling challenges in this must-play indie game.
Castaway
Studio: Canari Games
Publisher: Canari Games
Completion Time: Approximately 35 Minutes | 3 hours completionists
Price: $7.99
Genre: Action Adventure, Survival, Zelda-like
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Good Game Lobby review of Castaway, a dungeon-crawling adventure with a Zelda-like visual style, rogue-like classic mechanics, and an enchanting soundtrack.
A Short Game with Big Ideas
Let's start off by explaining that this is a short game that only took me 35 minutes to complete. It's the Death Tower that unlocks when you complete the main story, with its rogue-like Tower Mode, that makes it a standout. But before we get into all of that, let's talk about the creator of Castaway.
Johan Vinet is the Lead Game Designer and composer for Canari Games. He started his Steam releases with Lunark, a sci-fi adventure game released in 2023. He has an affinity for pixel art that I gravitated towards, and his eye for design is clear from the way the games look, the typeface for logos, the color palettes, and more.
Crash-Landing into an Unforgettable Adventure
Okay, back to Castaway. Let's touch on the story and how you end up on this island, comparable to the island you wake up on in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. You are traveling through space, orbiting a planet with your dog companion, when a beam of energy from the planet takes out your ship. You take an escape pod and crash land on this beautiful island with your ship destroyed and your dog missing. You head down the pier and discover your sword, your main weapon, and your dog with equipment strewn about the island when pterodactyls grab your weapons and dog and fly away with them.
Now it's up to you to get them back and, more importantly, free your dog.
Zelda-Like Gameplay
You explore the island, taking out enemies and collecting health along the way. You start with the aforementioned sword and begin by exploring the beautifully designed island until you arrive at your first dungeon. Each dungeon has puzzles to solve, all leading to a boss fight and receiving one of your missing tools. The bosses follow the typical formula of being defeated three times before they die, increasing in speed as the music intensifies during the battle. You have three tools in total: your sword, your pickaxe for breaking stones, and your hook shot to push back enemies or access distant areas. You collect hearts around the island and build up your health to assist you in battles against the island's baddies. All of this is pretty straightforward for a Zelda-like.
One of my favorite parts of the gameplay is fighting enemies, and my favorite of them is a blue robot that shoots projectiles you can hit back at them. Another favorite is the spider-like enemies that release baby versions when they die. These baby spiders are quick, but nothing your hook shot can't handle.
Pixel Art Nostalgia with a Modern Touch
From what I’ve researched, Johan has worked with Pico-8 in the past, and it reflects in his games with a unique color palette matching the Pico-8 design seen in Lunark and Castaway. The title design, pixel characters, and environments all have a nostalgic look and feel but with a high-definition filter. I love when you get a new item, and it cuts to a still of the main character with a visual cue showing the newly discovered item.
Large areas with hidden keys are clearly marked with a key design on the ground. Enemies have the basic look and feel you'd expect, but some require new items to defeat them. The colors are bright and vibrant, with each area and dungeon looking better and better. I also love that enemies have a health bar. Why isn’t this a thing in all Zelda-likes? What’s your favorite Zelda game or Zelda-like? Let me know in the comments!
A Symphony of Nostalgia and Identity
You know what's amazing about a developer who is also a composer? They own the entire process. I sometimes put on the Lunark soundtrack when writing, and it was only fitting to do the same while reviewing Castaway. The sound design of cutting grass, hitting enemies, and falling into water feels familiar to fans of the Zelda series. The soundtrack, while reminiscent of Zelda and early Mario games, stands its ground with unique takes on those themes, giving Castaway its own identity. The intro song is a delight—take a listen:
The Tower: Replayability at Its Finest
The tower is a great way to wrap up the game. You use your escape pod to reach a new location with the tower. This part adds replayability and makes the $7.99 price point worth it. I spent only half an hour completing the main game, but I easily sunk another hour trying to beat the tower. I haven’t succeeded yet because I’m not the best at video games, but I’m working on it! Each level introduces new enemies or environmental challenges like spike floors. You collect coins to level up, and with each level-up, you have three choices to aid you in the tower: another heart, shield, food to heal, a magnet for better coin collection, or a blue orb that circles you to help fight enemies. This part of the game is one I truly loved. The stakes rise with each level, making your decisions that much more important.
A Must-Play for Zelda and Rogue-Like Fans
Castaway is a beautifully colorful Zelda-like that you’ll love—or at least I hope you will! I’m a bit biased since my favorite game series ever is Zelda, so anything that reminds me of it gets a Good Game Lobby seal of approval. The main story is short and left me begging for more of the world to explore, and the tower delivers with its rogue-like gameplay. If Johan Vinet ever revisits this world, I’d love to see larger dungeons, deeper RPG elements, or even co-op gameplay. Castaway has laid an excellent foundation for something even more ambitious. It’s a must-play for me and definitely one of my honorable mentions for 2024. It’s available on all platforms: PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, Steam, and Itch.io.
Looks cool. But 35 mins is really short!
I love how this appeals to the type opf Zelda games I grew up with. Very high on the list to play due to nostalgia. It also looks like it might be a bit different even. I kind of got over the Zelda hype since it became more 3D (sorry), so going back to something like Castaway offers looks fun.