It’s time for another big roguelite game! Hades really helped me get into the genre and it’s been nonstop Ws since then! This one isn’t quite as story based but there is definitely a lot of story content here to sink your teeth into. This collection also brings 9 DLC waves with it so that’s a lot of extra content at the ready. Get ready to lose a lot but every death will take you closer to your big victory.

You play as an undead guy who just won’t stay dead. For some reason you are doomed to regenerate after every death. There is some kind of a grand plan at work here and the hero knows that he will have to defeat an ultimate evil. Problem is he doesn’t have much of a memory either so the whole thing is like a never ending mystery. One thing’s for sure, escaping this realm is not possible so he will have to keep on moving forward.

There is a lot of lore within the game’s universe but it’s all told within interactable objects. There is the occasional cutscene with some vague dialogue but the atmosphere is the top priority here. Additionally if you want to get the true ending then you have to complete the game on all 5 difficulty levels. Props to anyone who is able to accomplish that because this seems like an incredibly difficult task to me. Beating the game on normal and hard was tough enough.

The gameplay feels a bit like a Castlevania title. It is 2D and you use your weapons to clear out the enemies and make it to the next room. Each room has around 2-3 exits which lead you to other levels. There is also a rest level in between each one for you to heal up and gather your bearings. You will be presented with many different weapons and bombs as you go through the levels and you need to choose the ones that you prefer to use. There are many different ending rooms since each of the DLCs are baked into the game as well. It makes for a lot of variety and of course the room layouts are randomized so don’t think that you can just memorize all of the spots.

Defeated enemies drop orbs which you can use to unlock permanent power ups as well as alternate costumes. Be warned that every weapon you unlock becomes part of the random rotations. So if you really don’t like a weapon, you should not unlock it. There is no way to turn off unlocked weapons unless you go into creative mode. For the most part I tried not to unlock new weapons after I got my initial set and just focused on mutations and the permanent ones. Still, it’s possible that you will miss out on some really cool ones as a result so you shouldn’t be too picky.

Each weapon has a rank from 0 to 10 and those ranks have 3 levels to them. As you progress through the levels in each run they will get higher. What that means is that you might start a run with your favorite weapon but it’s in your best interest to upgrade soon. Yes, that means getting rid of your favorite weapon sometimes but that’s just how it goes. There is no benefit to staying with a grade 0 weapon and in fact it’ll make defeating some bosses nearly impossible.

The enemies scale up with each room so you need to keep pace with them. In each level there are also scrolls which you can use to amp up the power of one type of weapon. Red, Green, or Purple. You want to focus on always using the power ups on whatever color you are going to prioritize. They scale like crazy with compound interest so trying to do a little of everything is a super bad idea. Definitely don’t fall for it and stick to one. That’s the best way to make a lot of ground here.

My favorite setup was the mega hammer and a freeze gun. I would just freeze the enemies in place and then land my power move. It’s not good against the boss at the shipyard but works on just about everyone else. I was able to use that combination to beat the game on my only 2 successful attempts. I have a harder time reading the enemy movements so going with the faster swords didn’t really work for once. The game also puts a lot of work in for setting up shields for parrying/blocking but admittedly I never really tried it. I mean literally I never used the shields. I feel like this game is more about DPS and I didn’t want to bother trying to learn how to use the shields effectively.

The game has over 110 trophies which is incredible. That’s thanks to the DLCs of course but I’ll take it. I got over 60 trophies during my run which was a satisfying number. Getting the platinum is not something that I’m really going to attempt though. It would definitely be really difficult as it is and you need total mastery of the genre. It would be a true milestone to get that though. It’s something that most players won’t get anywhere close to.

The graphics look pretty good. It has that indie type vibe to it while still being pretty colorful. It does well in the retro side of things and the soundtrack is also good. I would say that the Castlevania tracks tend to be the best ones though. The remixes were a blast and there was a lot of care put into that one. The Castlevania DLC also was the most story based one which was pretty cool. You’ll easily be here for at least 20 hours or so. Honestly I’ve been getting some pretty good bang for my buck lately as every game seems to last at least 20 hours or so. It’ll probably be time for the shorter games to make a comeback at some point but it’s just hard to turn down the longer ones.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Dead Cells. As long as you enjoy the Roguelite genre then you can definitely appreciate all the work they put into this one. The amount of content you get is super impressive and the gameplay is extremely smooth. Some things may be really difficult to figure out without a guide so I recommend checking in with the community. Then you will have fun unlocking the final levels and slowly improving your home base. You get to see new weapons and items pop up on the ceiling and I guess one goal you can have is to get them all up there. I don’t know if there is a reward for that but there might be one.

Overall 8/10