Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsFun but glitchy
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2018
I purchased this game based on the Castlevania/Dark Souls hype without any prior exposure or spoilers, and so far have been entertained but often frustrated by its glitchy mechanisms. At core it shares a lot of similarities with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a fantastic game that still retains a loyal following many years after its release way back on PS1. But unfortunately it is nowhere near as polished, which is particularly confusing given how many years it has been since SOTN. For example, one of Dead Cell's more interesting features is randomized dungeons, a concept imported from the vast history of "roguelikes" known for their replayability. But Dead Cell's randomization is so glitchy that it actually makes the game less replayable. For example, on my very first game, the starting area right outside the cell consisted of nothing but a long straight corridor with (pointless) warp locations at each end. The corridor ended in nothing but a long upwards vertical space, requiring a very high jump that my starting character could not clear. After endless attempts to discover some sort of hidden triple jump object Mario-style, or some sort of secret exit from the area, I had to restart the playthrough via the menu, generating a new map and causing various NPCs to update. It's a bad look when your game literally dead ends out of the box.
The Dark Souls aspect of the game is found in its death = advancement concept, whereby your inevitable deaths still can advance the plot or unlock other aspects of your equipment or NPCs. But unlike Dark Souls (or SOTN) you do not retain items on death, and have to rely on a grindy process of unlocking various features through the use of "cell" currency so that your next restart is slightly less punishing. You can also use the roll command to evade attacks similar to Dark Souls, although it functions oddly in a 2D platformer and tends to launch you into space or cause greater confusion with its sometimes unreliable invincibility frames. For example, I was able to clear long SOTN-esque spike pits by just rolling through them, but could not do the same with certain pendulum traps or enemy AOE attacks. In the end, you tend to find yourself just jumping or ducking past dangers like old school platforming. In addition, deaths can often be unfair even when dealing with known risks, including enemy attacks that go through obstacles or enemies that somehow break out of combos or status effects before they should. There's even a curse status where you die with any type of hit, which can effectively force you to try to play through long stretches using only a bow or ranged skill given the unpredictable AI and hitboxes of a number of the enemies.
I still have hope that Dead Cells will grow on me in its own way, rather than as a cludgy amalgamation of various other games. It has some clever ideas and some interesting areas to explore for sure. But never knowing whether you are stuck because of an intricate map puzzle or because the game didn't actually create a viable exit for the area is sure to be only more frustrating as time goes on.
