We have a time to wait until Hades 2, and if you need a roguelike to fill the hole hell left behind, then have a good death should do well. I had a chance to play the game first at GDC and then again now that it’s out. on computer and Nintendo Switch, and I was immediately taken with its dark humor and easy-to-learn (but hard-to-master) combat.
You play as Death, the CEO of Death Incorporated, who has outsourced the job of harvesting souls to his trusted minions who, after countless millennia of processing mortals, decide to go rogue and foul the well-oiled machine of death and death. . As his boss, it’s your job to traverse the bowels of the Death Inc campus, defeating these so-called “thanagers” (which is an extremely good pun). Along the way, he gains perks, abilities, and weapons that make it his job to bring down his wayward employees.
The opening cinematic of have a good death it is extremely scary. First, you reap a peasant who stays long enough to see his wife break down in tears over her husband’s body. Next, you take a woman dying in a hospital bed as her grieving family clings to her in her last painful moments. After that, you take a guy who was in a car accident, his lifeless body riddled with shards of glass and dangling from the windshield. From there, it’s a montage of all the people Death takes, morphing from individual stories we spend a second or two with in a blur of vintage after vintage, flattening the dying into a steady stream of nameless faces. or personality.
I don’t think the developers intended this, as the rest of the game does talk a bit about death and all the silly ways humans can die, but it was a clear, if unsettling, metaphor for how we’ve grown accustomed to the everyday. tragedy of life
Death begins each run with his signature scythe. As they fight their way through the halls of Death Inc, defeating the minions of the minions that have gone rogue, they can pick up magical and secondary weapons that pack an extra punch when executing combos. The combat, therefore, becomes extremely varied. I enjoyed mixing and matching weapons and spells which, when combined with curses that work pretty much the same as the divine blessings of Hell, can result in some pretty unique setups.
The problem though is that I die too quickly before I can really get a feel for what works for me. This is likely an “upgrade” situation, but the enemies hit like a fucking truck, and my general strategy of putting up with a few shots to the face isn’t serving me very well. Besides, HAND He does that cheeky thing where after a few kills he asks, “Would you like to switch to easy mode?” I know you’re not making fun of me intentionally, and the easy modes are good for people who want to try something out of their comfort zone or for the embattled game critic, but it feels like a mockery and makes me want to throw away my Switch across the room. How dare you, inanimate collection of code and art, how dare you.
It also seems like the game is extremely stingy with how it doles out healing items. You start with one potion and can gain up to two more, but they don’t seem to heal you much (and there’s an annoying health mechanic whereby taking damage can reduce your total HP overall that normal potions won’t restore), and earning them is a very nice treat. queer.
This seemingly exhausting difficulty is offset by the fact that Death Inc’s different floors, while intricately designed with multiple levels to climb up or down, feel too empty. Enemies don’t attack you in waves; you have to find them behind breakable barriers and off-screen platforms. It’s not a deal breaker, it just feels a little lacking.
If I can get past my growing pains with the game, I think have a good death It’s a perfect little “pick up and drop” game. It’s not something that feels like it needs to be completed or even played in marathon sessions, but rather a little dating game where you can work your way up a bit, then quit and pick up whenever you feel like it. And I like those kinds of games that don’t demand a lot of my time, especially because The legend of Zelda it looks very big in the distance.
have a good death is now available for PC and Nintendo Switch.
