Dead Cells

I stray away from games that are being sold as unfinished products, but I am a huge sucker for the 2d graphics revival in indie games as of late. Dead Cells has been nothing but a pleasant surprise and each update continues to make this a winning game. -The core of the game is it's combat. It is quick, fast and unforgiving. All actions are smooth after the 15-20 minute learning curve (shorter if your used to such games.) As many have said, it is a mix of metroid and castlevania in both difficulty and style. If you are a fan of either series, you will not be disappointed. -Game mechanics and objective is simple; fight, die, repeat. It sounds poor in written format but in execution it has been a fun ride all the way through. If you are one that get's upset after multiple failures, or looking for a linear "play till the final boss" kind of game, stay away. -Story as far as I can tell (I have not completed the game) seems very flat and non-adventurous. This is not a negative because this game was made for the rider, not the narrator. If story-driven is your thing, avoid. If you are looking for quick, fun, and adaptive combat, this is for you. I know. The game has the label of pre-devlopment which sounds to me like a good way for a developer to squeeze cash from people for unfinished quality, but that is not the case here. The developers are actively supporting this title and are very receptive (from what I can tell with the update notes) of their player. This has been my only good experience with a pre-development title as of yet, and would gladly pay full asking price for this game again.

Great!: - Very smooth gameplay - Really fun with all the items different items you get each try - Extremally challenging on higher difficulty levels - Lots of things have been improved since EarlyAccess - Over 70h playtime - still fun to play BUT: Version 1.0 just came out and Devs introduced MODs to the game that are INACCESSABLE if you have DRM-Free version!!! Get the game on Steam if you want to use the Workshop and be able to MOD stuff. Right now I am frustrated I can't recommend this game on GOG until that gets fixed in some way. Summery: If you like metroidvania and roguelike this is a must-buy, however with the current version (1.0) BUY IT ON STEAM

Dead Cells may be the best roguelite I played ever. Or rather, it could be, but it has one fatal flaw. The balance. Disclaimer: I'm a, let's say, semi-casual gamer. I still play a lot, but I'm not that *invested* in games as I used to be. The best part of this game is the beginning. I had great fun learning this game, unlocking new weapons, branches, mutations, etc. Soon after my first win, I stopped playing. Why? Dead Cells is challenging from the start, but you can learn the patterns quickly. After some time, reaching the final boss is not a problem. But the transition between the first and second difficulty level is brutal, because the game not only buffs old mobs, not only introduces new ones, but removes few healing fountains (fountains placed between stages are main source of healing) - and it's kind of deal breaker for me. Stages are more difficult - and that's fair and expected. But the problem is that game makes it much harder to *recover from mistakes* at the same time. Dead Cells has a lot of difficulty levels (*cells* to unlock) - certainly enough to make transition a bit more smooth. Now, new difficulty level is too hard for me, but the previous one is not challenging at all nowadays. Good game with great mechanics, but the balance issues ruined it for me. Still, worth buying even at full price.

This review is based off the Steam version (BETA Update 4 The Brutal Update) Dead Cells is an amazing metrovania style game with some rougelite elements tossed in, but it's not without it's problems. On the positive it has solid controls and a solid amount of content avaliable to play. Plenty of weapons to fit every playstyle and plenty of enemies to stick said weapons in. The music and art of the different areas is also amazing. The 3 bosses are difficult enough to keep you engaged except for the last boss who is going through balence changes currently. Then there are some negatives. The current scroll system for upgrading weapons feels too restrictive to me. Scrolls are split into 3 classes. Brutality (RED), Tactics (PURPLE) and Survival (GREEN). Weapons are colored according to what they scale off of. Some have 1 color and some have 2. Weapons only scale off your highest stat and that can sometimes feel restrictive. So you usually end up only building 1 stat up and neglecting the others. That's my only real gripe with the game, but even with that it's a solid game and is worth the money.