Dead Cells

I really like the parts of this game I like. I really don't like the parts I don't like. Hard combat, I like (Sekiro, Bloodborne, Dark Souls) but in those games, permanent loss (of souls, or whatever) doesn't usually cause you to completely lose an hour. A boss can be very hard, but because you can try multiple times in quick succession, you can get better without too much frustration. Critically, you can usually make a few mistakes and survive. The combat in Dead Cells is very well-done for the most part, but you are punished WAY too much for a single mistake. A perfect run three levels in can be cut short by one second of bad luck, on top of the other obstacles: -Malaise (get hit too many times in a run and die, regardless of your health) -Constantly teleporting enemies at high levels -Builds that work well throughout the rest of the game are not effective against bosses -Unlike e.g. Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, you can't customize and become very familiar with your build. Runs are random, which is fun - I loved that aspect of Binding of Isaac, for example - but at high difficulties in Dead Cells bad RNG will end your run. -Some weapons and skills are objectively WAY better than others. -Massive enemy damage scaling at higher levels. -High difficulties REQUIRED to unlock all content Any one (maybe two) of these would be fine...altogether they make the late game not-fun. I loved the level design and varied routes you could take. The music is fantastic. Exploring and finding new zones, enemies, items, and secrets was a LOT of fun...until around difficulty 4. Then it very suddenly became a massive chore. I'm still going to find out what is behind the max-difficulty-door at the end (well...the achievements interface spoiled that, but still), but what would have been a 4-star game has since dropped to a 3 because of how fast the fun vanishes. The game would have been much more fun if it didn't punish you SO heavily for one mistake. It's still worth getting on sale.

Sank a lot of my hours into this game, and while it's clear this game is really good, there are some incredibly frustrating elements to it's design. First off, the daily runs. For me they are not too interesting besides being somewhat different than the average playthrough. What is incredibly frustrating is, and the worst "feature" of all versions of the game, is the fact that they are platform locked by galaxy, and as the game is sold on linux, players on this platform are locked out of 2 cool blueprints that are locked behind game completion. This is not a new problem, people complained about it since the start, but hasn't been fixed (It shouldn't be too hard to either let people play without scoring on these platforms or simply add them into the game for players screwed by the platform locked client). The other one is bad balancing. I know it's unfair to say this since they are working on it all the time but unlocking new items should be exciting and rewarding yet it's almost always a punishment. Even with the new "item tanks" added at the start, the player is screwed most of the time if they unlocked too many things since most of the items are either too slow or too weak to deal with the enemy mix on higher difficulties (maybe it's another story if you play "campy", but if you want to be a bit faster, most weapons are a no go). This game is really something i should love since i sunk into way more than a 100 hours, but i don't because of those 2 issues.

The mechanics of this game are good overall. This is mainly an intense action game with "rpg" elements: Many weapons/special abilities, perks (ie, mutations) that you unlock early on to synergize with whatever equipment you stumbled upon and a "level-up" system that forces you to figure out the right balance between damage output and hit points. Sometimes, I felt the control could be just a tad more responsive, but overall, the action in this game is solid. There is a big variety of enemies across stages that will force you to adapt to their patterns. However, at the difficulty I played at, the bosses felt a little spammy: You don't need to figure them out well, just avoid at least half what they do and out-damage them with what you got. Given that you have to restart from the begining when you die and each game is not super short (ie, you can't instant-retry a boss until everything is perfect), this design decision makes sense, although it makes the bosses less satisfying than the stages themselves. The game has a collector's feel to it (you have tons of stuff to unlock) which works well in the beginning (adds an element of wonder), but by the time you've clocked in 20-30+ hours, you'll wish you could unlock the whole thing already. Some aspects of the game are slightly masochistic: the curse chests that you'll feel you might give you an edge, but that will kill you if you make a mistake, the health fountain between stages that you need to remember to activate and that you'll curse yourself if you forget to, some of the interesting skill/weapons in the survival/tactical trees that don't really have well matched mutations, the shields in the survival tree that require insanely good timing to use properly, etc. Its a game that managed to make me frustrated, yet kept pulling me in for more. It is an addictive time sink that might not always leave you completely satisfied when you leave it. I've now managed to pry myself away from it and am relieved that I did.

Wow. I've played over 3000 games in my lifetime (Commodore 64, Amiga, Nintendo, Atari, Intellivision, etc), and I must say this is one of THE most refined, smooth, playable, dynamic, and scalable "RogueVania" style games ever. I've been playing for months and it never gets tiring. It always feels like a new game every time.

As in other reviews said, it has great graphics and controlls. But I feel that it lacks long time motivation, compared to other (pixelart) ARPGs .. I finished the game with 2 of 5 Boss cells and it really lacks motivation now, as there is really nothing you can do besides beating the game on the other 3 harder difficultys. The levels feel redundand now - and since you cant keep your equipment its starting from scratch every run. You could also take the daily challenge on consideration - but that didnt feel to attracting either. Sure, you can upgrade your forge and find new blue prints - but it doesnt feel like the greatest enhancement. Many weapons appear below average. And if you add a narrow weapon choice (due to viability/power) to the rather repetative levels, its really not that entertaining anymore (60h in). Should have spent my money on something - but that for me, other seem to like it.. But to be fair, it seems that the developers keep the game updated with patches - from what ive seen, there is a beta for 1.5 atm