Hello everyone, hope you're all doing well, and welcome to my review of Dead Cells! I've been hearing good things about this game for a while now, with many people comparing it to Dark Souls, but I just haven't had time to play it since I've been preoccupied with so many other great titles. It can be hard to keep up with all these new releases, and I always feel like I'm missing out on something. This isn't the type of game that I usually gravitate towards, but I knew eventually I'd have to give it a try. At the moment there's no other major releases on my radar until Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice comes out at the end of the month, so I'm using this time to catch up on anything that might have slipped past me. Now that I've finished the game I'd love to tell you all about it.
Dead Cells is a roguelike-metroidvania game developed by Motion Twin, an indie team based out of France. This strange sounding genre basically means the game has a maze-like, interconnected environment, where the layout of the levels are procedurally generated and slightly different each time you play through them. The locations of items, enemy placement, and even the exits, will always be different every time you replay the same stages. This keeps you on your toes, and stops the game from getting stale, since you will be running through the same levels multiple times. Dead Cells is purposely designed in a way where you're meant to die often, go back to the beginning, and try again, hopefully making it a little further, and getting a little more powerful on each attempt.
There's not much of a plot in the game, only small bits of information that lay the foundation of what's going on. It takes place on an unnamed secluded island, where you wake up in a prison, and you're not really sure how you got there. A pile of corpses lie on the ground of the prison area, and at the beginning of the game a green, slime-like substance crawls into one of them bringing it back to life. That's pretty much all you know from the start, and from there you begin your journey out of the prison in your newly reanimated corpse body. You see how far you can make it, battling enemies, discovering new areas, and acquiring fresh loot, until you ultimately die, restarting back in the prison to try again.
On your first attempt you start out with very basic, low level gear, making it difficult to stay alive for too long. Enemies in the prison area are actually pretty easy, but at this point in the game even they will give you a hard time. As you explore the environment you'll eventually come across more powerful weapons that will give you more of an edge in combat, as well as power scrolls that will raise your stats, like health and damage output. You never know where these important items will be waiting for you though due to the procedurally generated levels. If you can make it through the Prison area you will find an exit to the next stage where you'll have to contend with new tougher enemies and bosses. Most levels have two exits that will bring you to different areas, so you can choose a new path each time if you make it that far.
As you defeat enemies you will be collecting Cells which act as a form of currency. You can then spend these Cells once you finish a level. Anything you earn by spending Cells will stay with you even after you die, and this is how you become more powerful over time. Everything you have acquired will be lost once you get killed. Any Cells you had on you, any weapons you've found, and all your power scrolls will be lost, forcing you to start from the beginning with nothing again. Only the items and powers you earn from spending Cells will carry over to the next run, but eventually you will become stronger, and will have access to better weapons, giving you a higher chance of making it further than you did the last time.
The combat is very satisfying, and it makes up the majority of the game. You can carry two main weapons that you can upgrade, or swap out for better ones, whenever you find something that you like. These range from various melee weapons like swords, whips, and hammers, or long range weapons like throwing daggers, bow and arrows, and elemental attacks. There's a wide variety of these main weapons with many different stats and attributes to suit whatever play style you prefer. In addition to those you also get two side weapons, giving you lots of options for each new playthrough. The side weapons can be anything from grenades, stationary gun turrets, or traps that hold enemies in place. It's a lot of fun to experiment with all the different combinations available to you, and it takes quite a while before you see everything the game has to offer.
Eventually you will start to build up your character by collecting Cells and unlocking permanent upgrades which will give you a much better chance of making it to the end. Almost every level has two different exits to choose from that branch off to new areas, but they all lead to the same ending with a final boss fight. In order to access the different exits you will need to find a handful of permanent abilities hidden throughout the game that will allow you to reach various blocked off sections of each level. There's one that makes a vine grow at certain places that you can climb. There's one that let's you teleport by using specific statues, and one that let's you climb up vertical walls. Once you find all these permanent upgrades you will have full access to all the available stages of the game, and all hidden areas.
This game does a great job of blending many ideas from different genres into something that is ultimately just a lot of fun to play. Yes you will die quite often, but no matter how bad of a run you have it always feels like you're making progress. When I first started playing I was worried about the game being too repetitive, but because of the branching pathways, the wide variety of weapons and abilities, and the procedurally generated levels each attempt feels different. The beginning areas that gave you so much trouble at first will eventually become quite easy, but it is tough to master the later levels and bosses, which can be a bit frustrating at times. It's not a very long game, and it does have it's faults, but the gameplay itself is very solid and addicting. I picked this up for $20, and at that price it's definitely worth a try. I'm going to give Dead Cells a grade of...............................
B
Thank you for reading my review of Dead Cells, I hope you enjoyed it!