Dead Cells is a deliriously good time whatever console you play it on, but the instant-on, play-anywhere nature of Nintendo Switch is a particularly comfortable fit for a game played in short, frenzied, fatal bursts. Monster-tussling never gets old, but there’s less variety and ingenuity wrung from the core acts of traversal: running and jumping. Routine and disruptive, these unimaginative environmental hazards lack the supercharged momentum of the rest of the game’s fighting and exploration. The only fly in this obscenely moreish ointment is Dead Cells’ occasional tendency to default to dull death-dealing cliches such as spikes, sawblades and acid pools. Strange foes and stranger equipment are learned, mastered, anticipated, and new paths and possibilities open up ingeniously once you gain experience. When playing well, you’re a bolt of bladed lightning shot across a blighted world that deftly sidesteps gothic stereotypes. Or maybe it just finds each run as invigorating and fun as I do.Dead Cells avoids gothic stereotypes – though there are too many acid pools to dodge.Ĭombat is about speed, evasion and an ever-growing choice of weirdo weapons, not ritual blocking or solemn trudging. Maybe it’s trying to find a non-infested, Malaise-free paradise. While I have yet to beat the game (or ascertain why our single celled organism keeps trying again and again), Dead Cells’s environmental storytelling and gameplay, put simply, is fantastic. Your character’s expressive gestures also render an entertainingly sassy personality (surprising for a green glob). Story elements are optionally accessed as well, so speed runs are not impacted. The story is subtly integrated into the mutating environment with varying examinable artifacts and characters. The world of Dead Cells, while infested with zombies and teleporting swordsmen, is gorgeous. Dead Cells keeps me hurling myself in again and again to get better and better. ![]() Some techniques like downward smashing are not explained but can be intuitively discovered by those familiar with such moves. A run or two in and the controls become instinctual. The basic controls (I played on PS4) are intuitive and also clearly laid out on screen for the forgetful. Every swing of a rusty sword and parry of a greed shield III feels incredibly satisfying. Each new map discovered, rune absorbed, and blueprint unlocked attests that I’m getting closer to the end. Knowledge of monster attack patterns and strategies to approach them is useful from run to run - the Ramparts are separated by gaps, and the Clock Tower is mostly climbing - and learning what weapons synergize well, how to combo, and other skills allows you to improve.ĭying is frustrating and easy, but the game assures you of progress and promises even more if you just try again. Additionally, while maps reconfigure themselves, they retain similar features and types of monsters encountered. Explore the ever-changing island of Dead Cells in this ruthless dungeon crawler. ![]() Weapons unlocked remain discoverable in subsequent runs. Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game is a dungeon-crawler that offers a cooperative rogue-lite experience inspired by the Metroidvania genre, playable with 1-4 players, and with a gameplay of around 45 minutes. While each death wipes you of all the cells, stat boosts, and weapons you’d collected, you can invest in permanent perks or upgrades. You can vary your arsenal to adapt to your play style or simply your mood (want to run shields only? You can!).Įach death is not a complete reset, though. With the changing environments, you pick up different weapons and blueprints. You’re not merely running through the same map over and over again. While on the rare occasion you’re thrown into a map you can’t finish, the mutating world makes rediscovery exciting and challenging. ![]() The same map’s twisting corridors and hidden secrets are different each time around, being procedurally generated. Each run is about getting good for the next run, but restarting is not as frustrating or as repetitive as it may sound.ĭead Cells thrives off its replayability. But Dead Cells is about restarting over and over. A glob of green goop falling into a corpse. As a roguelike, every death is a restart, and Dead Cells is hard, so you die a lot. You play the cheeky glob reanimating prison corpses and slashing through a monster-ridden world. I’ve spent the last three days after REX dying in Dead Cells, a roguelike, metroidvania (a term I learned researching this game) sidescroller. And it’s back into the breach again, dear friends. Our character ambles up and, in a flash of blue, we’re alive. ![]() A glob of green goop oozes back into our corpse (rotting beside an even larger rotting corpse). The protagonist reawakens in the prisoner’s quarters.Īvailable on PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and PCĭead.
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