CRSED: F.O.A.D.

Genre: Third-Person Shooter

Players: 99 Competitive (Online), 99 Team Competitive (Online)

.

Review:

CRSED is a Free-To-Play online-focused Third-Person Shooter in the increasingly crowded subgenre of Battle Royale games. Originally released on PC in 2018 and gradually ported to other platforms in 2020, this game was released on Nintendo Switch in 2021. To set itself apart from other games in the genre, CRSED’s hook is that players have mystical superpowers based on the character they choose.

So let’s start with the bad news first – CRSED’s graphics are absolutely atrocious on the Nintendo Switch. Everything looks like it’s been slightly pixelated and then smeared with vaseline, especially when the player or camera are moving. It’s not that this game would have been a visual feast even without these visual flaws, but with them, this is a game that will make your eyes hurt.

It’s a shame too, because if it weren’t for that issue, CRSED would actually be a pretty entertaining Battle Royale game. There’s a good variety of weapons, a decent selection of vehicles, a good balance between stealth and combat, varied terrain, and while I got killed a lot in this game, I felt like every death was earned by not checking my surroundings properly or simply getting outgunned in a fair fight. This game even has some pretty decent optional gyroscopic motion control for players who prefer that.

But I just keep coming back to those terrible, terrible graphics. They don’t just make this game an eyesore, they literally make the game harder to play, obscuring your vision in a game where you absolutely need to be observant of your environment. If it weren’t for the horrible graphics, CRSED could have very well been one of the best free-to-play online shooters on the Nintendo Switch, and the closest thing Nintendo Switch owners currently have to a version of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds on the platform. As it stands, this is a fun game that hurts to play and just keeps feeling like it would be much, much better on any other platform.

.

tl;dr – CRSED is a free-to-play online-focused Third-Person Shooter with a Battle Royale style of gameplay that’s very reminiscent of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. It’s actually a pretty good entry in the genre too, with excellent mechanics and a good amount of variety. However, this game is absolutely crippled by its terrible, terrible graphics on Nintendo Switch, which make the game painful to look at, and actually hurts the gameplay by making it far more difficult to discern where enemies are in the environment. If you can play this game on any other platform, it may be worth a try, and there’s still fun to be had with it on Nintendo Switch, but only if you don’t mind your eyes hurting after playing it.

Grade: C+

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Port/Remake

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Lee, Andy Miller, Stov, u/wonderponder, Johannes, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, and KC. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}