Retrospective - Dead Cells - The Peak Of Roguelikes Indies

 

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Welcome to a new installment, this time a game that climbed to the pinnacle of Indies and won the heart of the industry, all in one swift swipe.

We have talked about chilling indies like Stardew Valley or Graveyard Keeper, to more unique experiences like Terraria , all the way to more action oriented like Enter The Gungeon but this one achieved fame worldwide with Castlevania Crossover.

TL;DR Section

Chronicles Conclusion:

Highly recommended but needs to buy Dlc for a complete experience 

Pros:

Well planned exploration/metroidvania part

Combat diverse and fun

Different items and weapons

Replayable to the bone

Very different biomes

Interesting bosses

Smooth progress

Great Crossovers

Cons:

A little grind after certain point of general upgrades

Lot of great content behind paywalls (Dlc)

Easy to get broken with certain builds

Wasted potential in the story (we only can read/discover bits of lore here and there)

Let's dive in!

The Story:

In terms of story we don't have a story.

The game has contextual glimpses about the world, the different levels, your own character, some bosses and things like that in a Dark Souls style just never concludes anything.

You beat the final boss and the story don't advance so much (and it doesn't tend to be direct with the revelation) but you certainly get some tricks here and there for the gameplay.

By contextual I refer for example when you enter the barracks, the loading screen explain what usually happened to the others that climbed here, not why they were below or who killed them.

In the fishers village they explain about a plage that devoured the village and probably the palace and you can see vestiges of that horrendous situation, creates a good atmosphere but they could have done more because the world itself is very interesting.

Those are the contextual glimpses of lore we have

The gameplay:

We have the gameplay of a 2D scroller action game with the gimmicks of a roguelike.

You die and that's it, restart the run but as is common in the genre we have diverse currency for different uses, the cells for starters are the "Permanent Upgrades" things like more life, an extra "Dead Cells estus", unlock new weaponry, skills, etc...

This game has a lot of variety, you will constantly be shifting gear, probably for a dozen of hours in the interlude of getting comfortable with  equipment.

Also on the playthrough you will be constantly obtaining power scrolls that improve your affinity with a specific skill tree.

For basic explaining there are three:

Red(brutality) : Melee focused 

Purple(tactics): Gadgets focused

Green(survival): Tank focused

In the bottom left we can see the numbers of the selected upgrades

The game is hard, very hard but fortunately we have a mean of choosing difficult, it's a great system because when you finish a run you will get a boss cell.

This unlock you a new difficult completely optional but you need to finish all ones for the complete experience.

Each cell you add will put more hazards, less refill station for your flask, more dangerous enemies and also hit way harder, without talking about the bosses that can almost one shot you.

Those are the reason replayability is a great deal 

Another thing is the diverse biomas, the map is divided by levels and sublevels, for example the first one will always be the prison, but you can explore and find your way to the barracks, the garden or the sewers, a couple secret more and all are your choice(some are paid dlc).

The game has excellent crossovers with indies and not so indies (Castlevania) I had wished that I had coverage for everyone of them but I don't so you have to take my word for it, everyone of them is a game of excellent quality.

The indie sector made me proud to be working together within their own universes to get to be knowed, we have some great characters like Juan from Guacamelee, Shovel and Hollow Knight, Skul, a lot but a image says more than a thousand words so here they are.

Credits to Motion Twin for the epic images

The Conclusion:

The game has excellent ideas and implementations, the gameplay is fun and rewards it's mastery a lot, the crossovers are beautiful and the way of obtaining difficulties and replayability is on point.

I said it before but the only problem I have with the game are the lot of Dlcs, nothing so critical but having encountered a door and the "you need the X dlc to continue" destroyed my immersion (bad seed)

The game is pretty cheap but I recommend by a long way to get the full version, the paid dlcs worth it and the last one (Castlevania) is nothing short of a masterpiece so there you have it

This game has all that love from the fanbase and the praises not by pure luck so trust us and give it a try.

Beautiful and epic, that describes Dead Cells and this Dlc

Thanks for reaching the end, we hope that you like it and get some itch to play it.

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