Dead Cells

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This is a 2D rougelike game from 2018, which was kinda the golden age for indie games. I remember hearing a lot of hype for this one, but I didn't like the art, and rougelikes didn't appeal to me (the main idea is that you start over when you die with very little progress saved). But then I played Hades and loved it, so I wanted to give this one a chance.

It's great, and I think I really do like roguelikes now. There is something so addicting about starting a new run, thinking each one is going to be the one. I would definitely play this game way too late into the night, thinking I'd caught lightning in a bottle each time and needing to see it through. The combat and platforming are super satisfying, and there are all these little extra goals and challenges to keep you engaged. It's a great formula and I think they were really the ones to popularize it.

The only downside, I think, is that Hades is just a bit better in basically every way, and so often I just wished I was playing that. This one had perhaps a bit more build variety and more interesting weapons, but in terms of art, story, and progression, I think Dead Cells comes in second.

One other nitpick I'll mention is the weird difficulty. There is not a ton of progression or ways to get permanently better, so you're basically just trying to increase your skill. I like that. But I kinda had things figured out by like my 6th run, and got to the final boss and had him down to 1/4 health before dying. But then it took my like another 15 runs to catch that magic again. There was essentially no major challenge between the start and the final boss, but it took an hour each time to get to him, so essentially I was just doing 60 minute run-backs to the final boss who was very hard and sometimes I stood no chance against if I didn't come across the right weapons. It was just kinda annoying, taking all that time to fight him each time, and having nothing to do but slowly prepare by ensuring I got every health bonus and weapon upgrade. It made it a little monotonous.

Anyways, that's a lot of negative for a game I loved. Not sure I could truly recommend it when Hades exists, but this one is shorter and cheaper, and of course very good in it's own right.