Dead Cells – Short Stolen Review: PC Version
*Mumble* Don’t see what the big deal is, *shrug*.
You can trust me. TRUST ME NOW! DO IT!
I’m not in the mood to review anything today, so I won’t. I’ve stolen the following review from Kotaku.
Let’s check out their intro!
In my first game of Dead Cells, I died after about four minutes. In my most recent one, I lasted almost an hour. The time difference between – Yada, yada, yada, you get the drift. Play game, get better at game. Sometimes you die quick or don’t.
Ok, not a great start. Dead Cells is a jumpy, jumpy platform game with random levels and a single precious life. You’re forever upgrading and improving so it’s not a big deal when you croak. It also looks really rather pretty.
Jeez… this is too much work. Let’s get back to the plagiarism.
Take it away guys!
Dead Cells in a cell! WHOOP!
In Dead Cells, you play as a nameless prisoner who must slash, pound, and freeze-blast their way clear of an ever-changing magical prison.
Oi, I already said that. C’mon, let’s skip ahead.
Dead Cells is a Rogue-inspired “Rogue-Lite,” in which death means hitting the big ‘ol reset button and taking it from the top. Levels procedurally reshape themselves, routes reconfigure, and hidden secrets appear and disappear, though the game’s overall structure and arrangement remains static.
Ok, let’s skip way ahead.
Some enemies you kill will give you cells, (Hey, that’s the name of the game! Dead Cells! Your main characters dead. Neat!) which you must deposit toward upgrades in between levels. First, you’ll unlock a vial that lets you – You upgrade shit and improve. You know, computer games. Oh yes, you can lose your cells on death. I know! The drama!
Enemies – Yep. There are lots of different enemies.
HEY BOYS!
Combat in Dead Cells is aggressive and direct. The Prisoner moves like a thousand-pound cyborg, popping up over ledges and slamming to the floor with a heaviness – Nah. Bollocks to that. You command the prisoner with pace, absolute authority and is perfected weighted. Cutting through enemies feels just right and dodging through enemies to smack them in the buttocks is a constant joy. Bloody hell. I’m doing too much work here. Just know this, Dead Cells has great feel.
Randomly rearranging levels aren’t actually as random as they first se-
Good point, agreed. Isn’t this the very nature of these types of perma-kinda-randomised games. From Spelunky to Rogue Legacy you can’t embrace true chaos or the challenge would be warped. The greatest bit of original design Dead Cells brings to the party is the wonderful teleport points. They are always perfectly positioned. It ensures a good flow and remove tedious backtracking. Very, very clever.
each playthrough eventually starts to feel more or less the same as the last one.
I’m going for a nap.
You know when you take nice pictures. This picture is a reflection of how messy this game gets. Don’t worry. It’s all clear when you play it!
Far more impactful are Dead Cells’ random upgrade and weapon drops. You can carry two weapons and two “tools” at any given time. Your loadout on a given playthrough will depend on which weapons the game drops for you, either as pickups in the world or at stores. (*dribble*, the monkeys in the top draw mommy) The further you’ve progressed in the game, the more weapon possibilities you’ll have unlocked, (Gnnnnnnghhh) and the more varied each playthrough will become.
Melee weapons range from stunning hammers to quick-stab daggers to heavy broadswords, and ranged “tactics” weapons – Hnnnnnhheeyyyy… Wot did I miss? That’s enough of that. The game is full of interesting weapons, spells and quirks and spelling them out will ruin the mystery. Each playthrough lives and dies from the “ooOOhh” you’ll come across. For all the jumping and swording, this is a game of repetitive discovery. Yes… you can find some delightful secrets!
In most action-RPGs, I tend to pick a single loadout and rely on it to the neglect of all other possibilities. That’s doubly true in a Souls game, – What the fuck does Dead Cells have to do with Souls? We have reached peak review. Fuck it. I’m cutting this off.
Anyway… Wot’s left. Take a look at the pictures… nice isn’t it. In motion it’s a real beauty. The sound and music does an adequate job and stealing reviews is far harder work then I thought it would be.
This bastard archer somehow killed me and I’m still not over it. Fucking game. Note – *I swear for an additional 10 minutes*.
For some strange reason I tried playing the game on the keyboard and whilst doable it’s a tad too unwieldy. Best break out your best control pads guys. I’m pleased to say you can customise your controls, although, I would have loved to have chucked that dodge-roll on to the right control stick like, say, Shank. Hey, you can’t have it all. It’s not a big deal as can’t overstate how nice the double jump is.
The thing with Dead Cells is you “get” the game after four minutes play. You know exactly what you’re getting yourself in for. It doesn’t take long to understand how the world comes together. You pre-empt challenges and you set your own goals. Can you overcome that area? I’ll just nab that upgrade. I need to return to murder that fuckin’ archer. The game’s hard to abandon. Dead Cells is smart, polished and beautiful, but does it provide us with anything we haven’t seen before? The very nature of this game means it is likely that we are only skimming the surface and have no idea just how deep Dead Cells really goes. Time will tell whether or not this is a true all-time classic, or an excellent game.
Being an excellent game isn’t a bad thing and I can heavily recommend Dead Cells. Right, I’m off now to boot it up again. I suspect I’ll be doing that a few more times.
Dead Cells doesn’t deviate from it’s clear purpose and is brimming with potential.
Repetition hones skills and the drip feed of empowerment ensures we utter the phrase “just one more turn”.