Broadly, while you can succeed at the game with just a couple of the ability-granting runes, getting to many areas requires you to pick up items that will allow you to wall-jump or smash through weak floors below you. What problems Dead Cells does have is in its progression system. The different levels all have their own distinctive look, and the technical performance is flawless, so even when everyone on the screen is being torn apart, everything looks good and the framerate is stable. There is real care and attention that’s been given, and it’s impossible not to notice. The movement and attacks look nice but it’s the smaller details that really make it ride an elevator and sparks come off the walls and chain, fire spreads across the floor, glowing blue if it touches off some oil left on the ground. After learning how the enemies tick, tearing through them is a joy. Whether you’re clutching a bow and sword, or hiding away behind a shield and tossing throwing knives, the kinetic energy of the combat makes the unforgiving nature of the game feel like a strength, not a weakness.
No other game has quite managed to capture the joy of combat like this. It’s the combat in the game that keeps me coming back. Suddenly, anything I’d marked that attacked me instantly exploded, and two of the games big bosses also fell afoul of it, taking big chunks of damage every time they tried to hurt me. Then I got a gold rarity shield that wouldn’t allow me to parry but meant that I took the bare minimum of damage from attacks and reflected 300 percent of any damage blocked while taking a tiny chip of my health. Later, I found success with a Hokuto’s Bow: this wondrous thing massively increases the damage that an enemy takes. Some of the items feel overpowered, and I initially thought the Ice Bow in the game would redefine any run.
DEAD CELLS PLATFORMS SERIES
Get a couple of these and your run is somewhat charmed, a series of weird particle effects and damage over time attacks chipping away at the swirling mass of enemies around you.
DEAD CELLS PLATFORMS FULL
The weapons - roughly divided into melee, ranged and shields - and power-ups that you can get your hands on are interesting and drop at random, with similarly random traits and rarities.Ī gold quality weapon, gold being the highest rarity item, will often come stuffed full of invaluable traits to help you wipe out enemies. You’ll also get to grips with the game’s remarkable arsenal. There’s a remarkable amount of variety throughout the game’s roster of enemies, whether it’s angular scorpions firing venom, mages firing projectiles through walls or even teleporting swordsmen that, after they’ve caught your scent, never stop chasing you.Īll of these appear in the first few areas of Dead Cells before you encounter the first major boss, and all of them are immediately challenging until you learn how they work. It’s important to learn each adversaries’ unique attack patterns and behaviours if you want to survive. There isn’t always a well, or the mushroom doctor’s room, and they may look different each time, but learning these little bits of information will help you make an impact each time these opportunities rear their head. To escape from the castle ramparts you need to venture downwards, the mushroom doctor’s room has a hidden passage, and digging into the bottom of the well will often yield goodies.
While the levels are procedurally generated, they obey specific rules and by learning them you can start to see the patterns in the generation and use them to your advantage. This loop of performance and self-improvement is the chewy meat that holds Dead Cells together, and it’s satisfying enough to carry the entire game on its back. It’s not an exaggeration to say that losing a significant chunk of these is agonising, and provides a strong impetus to perform better next time. While you lose your money and Cells, your upgrades will persist and you get to try again.Ĭertain upgrades can let you keep hold of a chunk of your cash, but it’s losing the Cells that really hurts: these can only be spent on the progression-enabling upgrades at the end of each level, so several times during play you could find yourself losing 30 or even 50 Cells after a death. There are no checkpoints and you will be unceremoniously dumped back into the starting area, ready to try again. They can be used to pay for upgrades that persist forever: perhaps there is a special weapon that you want to unlock as a piece of loot in game, or the ability to heal yourself twice with a health potion, or even three times.Įventually, you’ll die. These are gathered by wiping out enemies or liberating them from secret areas in the game world. This Castlevania-inspired roguelike charges you with journeying through an ever-changing castle, surviving using only your wits, learned skills and a variety of different weapons and gadgets.Īlong the way, you collect Cells. That’s Dead Cells core concept in three little words.
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