Castaway Review - A Delightful Little Adventure

Castaway is a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve and knows exactly what it wants to be. Developer Canari Games markets it as a short but sweet experience you can complete in a few hours, but those few hours are packed full of wonderful fun.

Washing up on a beach of some forlorn planet, players take control of a nameless protagonist out to rescue his dog from a group of pesky pterodactyls. That's really the gist of the story, but it's all the background info you need to enjoy this experience.

Castaway's Island of Adventure.

Developer Johan Vinet explains Castaway as two mini-games in one, and that's a great descriptor. Castaway is split into two segments, the first of which is a brief island adventure, and the second acting as a subdued roguelite dungeon crawl through a perilous 50-floor dungeon.

The first portion of this adventure tasks players with rescuing their kidnapped companion. The island you explore is pretty small but very dense, meaning no enemy or obstacle is there to waste your time. Over the course of an hour or so, players gather new equipment to aid in their adventure, like a pickaxe and a grappling hook device.

Along with your sword, these items work exactly as you'd expect. Both the overworld and the three dungeons players explore take advantage of these tools to the fullest, often involving simple sokoban puzzles (aka moving blocks around). These are largely easy to understand and shouldn't inhibit your progress, but it's still gratifying when you solve a puzzle.

Venturing from the overworld into a dungeon will put your equipment to the test. Using your pickaxe can crack open rocks and the hook shot allows you to travel across gaps. Of course, Castaway's overworld and dungeons feature a few enemy types as well, and the combat is your standard one-button sword slash a la Link's Awakening.

At the end of each dungeon is a boss battle to shake things up a bit. On the base difficulty, even bosses will pose no threat to players with even a moderate amount of experience in 2D, dungeon-crawling games. Nonetheless, you can take things up a notch by increasing the difficulty to Unfair, which gives you one heart and that's it -- get hit, you're dead for good.

Conversely, you can test your skills with the Speedrun mode and, if you're finding things difficult, Invincible and Pacifist modes. The former is exactly as it sounds, making you impervious to damage, while the latter removes enemies altogether.

These modes are a really neat inclusion because the audience for Castaway is meant for all ages and by including such modes, you could hand the controller to a child and they would have a blast. It's such an endearing notion that this may be a kid's first game, and I'm sure they'd love it.

A Towering Challenge in Castaway

Of course, if things seem a little too easy in the island adventure, there's also a 50-floor dungeon to power through. This doesn't have a difficulty mode, so you're more likely to be challenged here than anywhere else. The goal is to get to the top and beat the final boss battle, but that's easier said than done: die and you're back to the foot of the tower.

You're still equipped with the usual equipment for the tower, but it does strip you of two of your four hearts, making the stakes a bit higher. Thankfully, there's a level-up system in place that allows players to improve as they climb.

Killing enemies on floors of the tower drops gold, and that's used to fund your new upgrades. Upgrades range from increasing your sword or pickaxe's damage to adding more health. Survivability was a priority for me, so I opted for more hearts as well as armor that would take a hit without taking actual damage -- it would remove my armor, but that'd replenish on the next floor.

The first few times you climb the tower, things can get a little tricky. Spike traps and cleverly placed enemies are in the way and you might even get overwhelmed by foes if you're not careful. I constantly weighed my options as I lost more health -- all level-ups offer the ability to heal, but the trade-off is not getting an upgrade to your equipment. Hard choices must be made!

This mode is purely combat-based, though, which might not be as fun for some. I would have preferred to see a few puzzles thrown into the mix since the island adventure ends so soon. Though it'll probably take two or so hours after a few attempts of climbing, it can feel a tad repetitive seeing the same floors and having it be 100 percent combat.

Floors are also bite-sized, though, so it's not a terrible burden at the end of the day. However, I did get soft-locked a few times by getting stuck on a tile and some enemies bugged into the wall, causing me to reset. That repetition can get frustrating, but it isn't a dealbreaker when the rest of the experience is pleasurable.

Castaway Review | Final Thoughts

Castaway is one of 2024's most charming games. The passion from Canari Games is quite evident in the final product, and though it's a short experience with only a few slight frustrations near the end, it's an adventure anyone can enjoy. Whether you're nostalgic for the past or want something to distract you for the weekend, Castaway's got you covered.

Castaway was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the developer over roughly 4 hours of gameplay. All screenshots in this review were taken by the reviewer during gameplay.