To begin with, the control issues and enemy design haven't been improved. However, I think that the DLC, as it was released, is a miss. I just want to say, up front, that I really appreciate developers creating free updates to existing games, and that I intend to keep an eye on this title in the future, since the developers clearly want to polish their product. Update #2: while I had stopped playing after updating my review last, I noticed on the news dashboard on my Switch that the game had pushed out a free DLC, so I decided to give it another whirl. I can't reasonably deduct points for the cage match bosses (after all, literally every game I've played in the past decade has suffered from this malady), but the control issues force me to reduce my rating to 1/5 - 3/5 if, again, you don't mind contrived difficulty AND you don't mind iffy controls and minor input bugs. I've encountered four boss battles so far, and all of them feel very similar. As nauseatingly expected, every boss battle is a cage match in a tiny, enclosed space with, at best, a few platforms to jump around or between. The main levels permit a great deal of flexibility and strategy in terms of how to kill things without being killed one's self - stealthy use of deployables, brute force, ranged, melee, or a blend of these are all viable depending on one's reflexes, planning ability, and preferences. Another problem is the sheer number of useless powerups - I would say around 1/3 of the items in the game are better (except in terms of raw attack power) than the default beginner weapon, which means that you'll find the one or two good items in a run and lean on them exclusively instead of exploring a wide variety of attack techniques.Īnother hideous flaw (which is, sadly, not unique to Dead Cells) is the bait-and-switch with play techniques. I am not sure if it's a programming issue, a platform issue, or a deliberate delay - but it makes the game considerably less fun than it would otherwise be. Update: after playing further, I have discovered a number of ugly control timing issues - under some situations, there is a very obvious (and repeatable) delay between inputs that can make tightly timed manoeuvres impossible. On the plus side, the graphics are very nice, the weapons are mostly interesting, and the flavor elements (random encounters, etc) are funny and add nice atmosphere. I'd rate it 2/5 for most gamers & 3.5+/5 for highly skilled gamers who don't mind artificial difficulty. It's not a terrible game, but the lack of polish and taste makes it difficult to call it "good". There's very little reward for risk-taking except death and rooms that unlock if you reach them fast enough. Most game situations can be resolved almost risk-free with a little patience and planning, but that's not really fun - so the player either has to play stupid (but fun) or slow and careful (but boring). Some levels are almost annoyingly easy, and others tedious. It's not especially difficult, but it is tedious and it slows down progression through the levels - which are randomized (nice variety) so you can't just memorize the hot spots. Certain enemies don't count toward curse count-downs or heal-on-kill Cage match boss enemies with AoE damage fields around them (and other cheap tricks) Enemies that can activate off-screen and hit the player with ranged attacks that ignore line of sight Enemies with projectile and/or AoE that penetrate walls and can detect the player with no line of sight Enemies with melee attacks that hit through walls when yours can't (spinning guys in Ossuary) They're not hard to work around, but they're tedious and annoying - such as: However, this game does a great many little tricks to 'enhance' the challenge. Those things are part and parcel of any high difficulty game. It's one thing to walk into a beautifully crafted trap because you weren't paying enough attention, or to miscalculate split-second timing and die in one hit. This reminds me a lot of those games, except without the talent or taste that went into them. Even nowadays I enjoy the occasional game like Furi or Grid Wars that have extreme difficulty curves and demanding skill profiles. I'm a fairly old school gamer - cut my teeth on Ghouls'n'Ghosts and other so-called 'Nintendo Hard' games back in the late '80s and early '90s.
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