Core Keepers Nintendo Switch is Stardew Valley Impressive

When I reached out to review Core Keepers on Nintendo Switch, I had no reason to want this game. In fact, it wasn’t even on my radar. Then one of my fantastic YouTube viewers, Menin, suggested I play the game and even sponsored a stream that allowed us to give away a copy while I played. And. I. Got. Hooked.

Core Keepers will have you exploring the caves…worlds…biomes…well it will have you exploring. As you explore you’ll collect better ores which let you craft better items, which lets you dive deeper into the world, which lets you find bosses, which…well you get it. The loop of Core Keepers, however, is incredibly addicting, and you never feel like you are stuck in one spot for too long. It didn’t take long to upgrade my crap tools to copper, and it wasn’t that much later that I found iron and tin veins and began upgrading my gear again. The flow is perfect, dumping new items and new opportunities at you around every corner.

Whether going after bosses, clearing out space for a base, or simply exploring to find new items, there is a lot to accomplish here and it’s all really fun. Even when I’m simply enlarging a specific area to build a bigger base, the fun doesn’t seem to stop. See, you never know what you might find, even when you are just hacking out some dirt. Chests are littered around the map, and once you can craft or find keys, you can open them up to get the treasures inside. That’s a load of fun. It’s just as much fun as traveling out from your base and finding new enemies, new items and more.

Need to get from A to B really quickly? When teleporting or using a portal isn’t an option, you can build a network of minecart rails. It sounds like a lot of work, and it can be, but once again it was all so engaging that I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was just doing the same thing over and over again.

I said it in the title, and I mean wholeheartedly – this game is easily as addicting as Stardew Valley, and while it probably won’t get the same amount of love as that game, it is an experience you should invest a good amount of time into. If you love survival games, crafting, farming, etc. than Core Keepers is something you’ll want to snag, and quickly!