Cathedral

Cathedral is a game that packs a lot of exploration in its action and platforming design, as well as many metroidvania elements and a healthy mix of adventure, combat and puzzles. Along with the quality of its level design and visual presentation, this is a game that will provide an involving experience for many players looking for a tough and demanding experience.

Cathedral is a welcome addition to the Nintendo Switch library. It was a lot of fun solving the puzzles and finding my way around the cathedral and surrounding areas.

A typical but well made metroidvania game, with a very large map and elevated difficulty that will appeal to all fans of the genre.

There may be little original content in this adventure, but Cathedral collates a lot of classic gaming principles to wrap them up successfully in a retro-inspired Metroidvania tale. There’s plenty of ground to explore. Can you handle one more knight?

Cathedral is a pretty good Metroidvania-style game that can be difficult at times, though that tends to come with the genre. That said though, the game looks great and for fifteen dollars, I’d say its definitely worth picking up. As for me, I’ll definitely be taking another trip through the game down the road.

As a simple and intuitive retro-style Metroidvania, Cathedral does a great job of presenting an enjoyable game world to explore.

Cathedral is tailor-made for players lusting after a serious 8-bit old school-experience with a minimum of modern bells and whistles. It’ll surely test one’s reflexes and nerves, but with just a few tweaks to the design and some marginal improvements, this could have been a real classic.

You won’t find anything new here, but if you like old-school metroidvania games and you have already played all the big ones, Cathedral is not a bad choice.

Cathedral's real sin is that there's not much to make it distinct from other Metroidvanias on the system. It nails the retro look and the need for exploration. The lack of handholding is refreshing, and the combat is rather good, especially for the boss fights. It doesn't have anything else to pull in players, aside from the fact that the world you traverse is absolutely huge. If you're a genre fan who wants something new yet familiar to work with, Cathedral is the right game.

Cathedral is a nice tribute to the 8 Bit era. It does not innovate at all and it can do something boring but in general it is a well executed product.

Even though Cathedral may not be the most original, it is undoubtedly an example of a game that understands the genre well. Fans looking for a straightforward and challenging experience will absolutely love what Cathedral has to offer, whereas those who are looking for something more unique may not find what they want. Whether you enjoy the tried-and-true nostalgic experience or not, Cathedral’s non-linear world is filled with hidden areas, shortcuts, and treasure chests that will give players hours of happy exploration.

In the end, I have very mixed feelings about Cathedral. I appreciate the style and concept, and even find the game fun a lot of the time. But all that is put at risk by questionable design and unbalanced difficulty. If you’re not afraid of a little pain, you’ll likely have a lot of fun. Those that are adverse to annoyance will need to decide if this game is worth the price of admission. That said, I do hope that developer Decemberborn AB is able to use my critiques to make a more balanced Metroidvania in the future. Because rough spots aside, there’s a lot that I enjoyed here.

Cathedral is a fine Metroid-like in terms of level design, but I just can’t shake the feeling that it doesn’t hit the balance between exploration and combat—the latter so often gets in the way of simply enjoying the former. If you’re a big fan of the genre and are itching for a fresh take, Cathedral is a fine choice that, for the most part, gets it right. Just expect to get tired of fighting your way through every room.

Cathedral is a well-made and enjoyable action-platformer that’s sure to please fans of the genre, as it showcases lots of strong level design, tough difficulty, and plenty of rewarding secrets. Even so, there’s a sense that something is missing here to take the experience a step higher, as it’s the epitome of ‘just’ another entry in an already crowded genre. All the same, we’d give Cathedral a recommendation to anybody who enjoyed Shovel Knight (or its many imitators) and is looking for something to hit that same appeal. Cathedral very likely won’t be your favourite action-platformer, but it’s got more than enough going for it to be worth your time and money.

Given how many other games aren’t just being inspired by metroidvania platformers of the past but also taking them in interesting new directions, it makes it difficult to recommend Cathedral. It’s fine to play if you’ve already played all those other games, but if you’re into the genre and you haven’t, then the best Cathedral can do is sit at the very end of your backlog.

Cathedral is basically 10 to 15 hours of decent exploration, with some decent upgrades to find, which will help you fight some decent boss fights, while enjoying the decent retro audio-visuals. Sadly, that's the best thing this has to offer: a decent time. In a sea of similar games, there's little reason to spend any time in here, unless a collector of all things metroidvania.

Cathedral is a competent metroidvania, made by a team that clearly loves the genre and knows well what makes it tick: it’s got a huge, detailed map to explore, full of secrets to find and upgrades that give you fun new ways to navigate the space. But it’s also an unremarkable game in a saturated space, and one that gets in its own way to often. Cathedral is an enjoyable enough game that will scratch that exploratory itch if you’re the sort of person who can never get enough Metroid (guilty!), but it won’t have much appeal beyond that niche.

If you've ever enjoyed a Metroidvania before, then you'll probably enjoy Cathedral. The fewer of the genre that you've played the better, however, as the lack of original creativity will wash over you easier with less experience and fewer points of comparison among Cathedral's peers. Otherwise, it's a perfectly competent example of the genre. It's just a pity that the Metroidvania genre, in particular, is so over-saturated that we just didn't need more of it.