Death's Gambit

One of my favorite games to come around in recent years is Dark Souls, a game so influential and so impressive, it has seemingly sparked legions of similar games to appear ever since its release. These games are often referred to as being "Souls Like", with some of the more successful instances of this being "Nioh, The Surge (though I personally hate that one) and Salt & Sanctuary.. The latter of those is my absolute favorite, as it takes the combat style and stamina meter of Dark Souls, but turns it into a classic 2D experience, drawing as much inspiration from Castlvevania: Symphony of the Night and its many spiritual successors, as it does from the Souls games. It hits the perfect balance between challenging platforming, in depth, rewarding exploration and tough, but enjoyable combat. As much as I loved that game, I've been waiting a while to see if anything else could ever rival it.

Well, two and a half years later, the highly anticipated Death's Gambit has finally arrived to put its own mark on the "2D Souls" genre. The game had been in developed for several years, and first caught my attention through a preview video I saw in 2016 that made it look potentially awesome. Ever since seeing that video, it has become one of my most anticipated games in years. Now that it has arrived, though, does it live up to hype? Not quite, but it does come close, and in some ways, it's even more of a "2D Dark Souls" than Salt & Sanctuary was.

Visually, the game looks pretty nice, using a pixel art style that may at a first glance look similar to the recently released Dead Cells, though that's where comparisons to that game end. It's a very colorful game, with very nice character and monster designs. Some of the bosses in particular are very striking, and there's a nice variety to them, ranking from the expected humanoid opponents, to giants, to an ice monster, and of course there's many more I won't spoil. Level designs are also quite varied, and include a snowy area, a huge tower and a dark, underground lab, which adds a bit of a Sci Fi vibe to the setting, not found much in the rest of the game. Animations are a little bit sluggish at times, with some boss attacks being a little tricky to avoid due to some awkward timing, but overall I'd say the graphics are quite good, if not anything special. The most worrying thing, though, is the performance on PC. In fact, I can't even play in fullscreen, because the framerate drops to an unplayable 12-13 FPS. There are also quite a few glitches, such as getting stuck in walls or dialogue not loading properly, causing the game to freeze.

One area where I was slightly disappointed was with the sound. Everything that's there is generally quite good, with sound effects all sounding cool and appropriate enough, and I quite like the voice acting, even if it is a bit one dimensional, with basically every character having comically deep voices, so they blend together a bit. The soundtrack in particular is very nice, except I have a hard time hearing it, because even when setting the music to max volume, I could barely hear it over the sound effects. Maybe I would have had better luck if I had used headphones, but that should not be required for hearing music in a game. Overall, sound is good, but not perfect.

Moving on, the story is one element that seems to be largely criticized by other players, but I actually find it quite interesting. You play as Sorun, a man who has lost both his parents, and who should be dead himself, but he's been granted immortality by Death, who keeps bringing him back to life every time he dies, so he can continue his quest. The plot deals with themes of death and immortality, and while the ongoing conflict is about whether to end immortality or not, most of the lore comes from flashbacks that trigger seemingly at random when you die, letting you see visions of events from Sorun's past, largely related to his mother. I find these scenes quite interesting, though the fact that they can often trigger when dying to bosses is a slight momentum killer, as in this kind of game you're going to be dying a lot, and when you die, you'll want to quickly get back to where you were so you can try correct your mistakes, which means having to deal with dialogue in between can slow you down a bit. Overall, though, I quite like the story in this game, and both the final confrontation and the ending are very satisfying, imo.

Of course, the most important element is the gameplay, which is where Death's Gambit largely succeeds, though it does falter in a couple spots. The basic gameplay is heavily lifted from Dark Souls, with the stamina meter being in full effect, and being a bit of a pain to manage, as well as a dodge roll which seriously consumes a ridiculous amount of the aforementioned stamina meter, making a good shield a much better option for boss fights than dodging.. Combat is fairly fast paced and engaging, with a satisfying variety of enemy types for you to learn how to deal with, and many of them have their own unique abilities to mess you up good. Boss fights are often intense and challenging, delivering both the frustration and the inevitable rush of adrenaline any Souls Like can deliver upon victory. For the most part, I find the boss fights to be enjoyable, and many of them have their own fun, unique gimmicks to help make them more interesting, such as making you balance a teeter-totter like platform to avoid falling off. However, there are a couple that feel a bit cheap, with one in particular feeling like if you make a single mistake, you're screwed, due to how much damage they can do instantly. Overall, though, I'd say this game is the closest you'll get to a true "2D Dark Souls", when it comes to delivering the kind of intense, challenging and ultimately rewarding combat that series is known for..

Character customization is also nice, with seven starting classes, all of which have their own unique ways of recovering Soul Energy, your source for weapon skills. However, aside from that, you're free to choose whichever weapon type you like regardless of your class, which I like. There's of course the expected stats such as Strength, Vitality, Finesse and Endurance, and leveling works pretty much how you'd expect. One interesting thing is that instead of taking your source of currency and EXP when dying, you lose one healing item, which can either be picked up where you died (they never disappear permanently, and can be picked up even a couple deaths down the road) or you can pay a certain amount of shards (your currency/EXP) to instantly get the heal back. It's a nice feature, but I find it doesn't really effect me too much. What I do love, though, is you can also augment your feather, the healing item, so you can sacrifice heals to add more damage, gaining 10% damage per heal sacrificed. This made a big difference for me in a couple boss fights, so I greatly appreciated having it there, and that's something other similar games in the future could potentially learn from and build on, I think.

There are a couple areas in which I think the gameplay could be improved, though. First of all, I find platforming to be a bit underused for most of the game, with many areas in the first half containing just a couple of fairly small rooms, filled with enemies, as well as save points being very close together. The game feels close to a boss rush at times, in the early going. that's how small the areas are and how closely the bosses are placed. When platforming does become more of a focus in the second half, though, it can get annoying, as you have to push a button to grab on to ladders, and then keep it held down while you climb up, which can be very cumbersome, especially when switching from one ladder to another while dodging obstacles. One particular late game area was an absolute nightmare for me, because of this. Exploration is decent, but also not as great as it could be..I like that you can find tomes that give you lore for the bosses, as well as giving a 5% bonus to damage against the boss of the area, but again, I find many of the areas just a bit too small, and so exploration is more limited than I'd like. Having a horse to travel between the interconnected areas is nice, though, and even with the lack of fast travel, the world is small enough that using the horse makes getting around very quick and easy.

Overall, Death's Gambit is a game I had very high expectations for, and while it delivers strongly in some areas, I find it comes up just a bit short overall. It's certainly a game I can easily recommend to fans of Dark Souls wanting a similar experience in 2D, as combat can be very intense and rewarding, but as a metroidvania fan, I'd say the game doesn't deliver well enough on the platforming or exploration for it to be on the same level as Salt & Sanctuary..So in the end, it's not quite the classic I was hoping for, but it's still a very enjoyable game, and one I plan on playing a few more times in the near future, with different builds, to see how that goes.

Death's Gambit comes close to being a great game, or at least a very solid metroidvania. I love this genre so much that i play everygame that cames out of the style, however Death's Gambit is such a frustrating experience that i came close to quitting before finishing the game.

First off lets start with the story, which is pretty bad. It tells to tell a tragedy, but i never got to care too much about any of the characters or their backstories, and it doesnt help that the voice acting is pretty corny and the cutscenes that interrupt the gameplay time and time again (they have a tendency to play out after deaths, which is when the player is most motivated to get back to the action).

Visually it presents itself as well done pixel art, but the animations are awkward a lot of the times. The joints of characters dont really behave like joints, and its missing a lot of impact in the animations as well. The hitboxes are abysmal at times, and they contribute to the game being so frustrating. Finally there is the combat, which is somewhat satisfying to dispatch small foes, but all the trouble with the controls and feedback crops up in the boss fights. Im talking here about the jumping being one of the worst i have played in a while, the item button not responding sometimes, and the overly focus on stamina conservation when the enemies dont use that mechanic, making the game feel unfair.

The best thing about the game i would say is the level design, which encourages exploration to look for items. Its where the game shines the brighttest, as the different locals you visit are all well interconnected in its small game world. Unfortunatly these levels are filled with enemies with the flaws i already described.

Its a very divisive experience for sure, but i think i came out of every gameplay sessions frustrated more than anything else, and i cant say that the ending justified all the frustration.