Dead Cells like Frankenstein's monster experiment. Game tried to combine three genres of games at once from metroidvania that forces the player to discover huge map full of mystery to find the right room, roguelite that continue to change the layout of the level every time played, and souls-like which is actually difficult and encourages players to menghapali every aspect of game . These blends various genres such as prone to make the game become unfocused and identity crisis, especially for small indie studio that is trying to release his first game in all modern gaming platforms that exist. But the mature execution of Motion TwinThree genres merged into a single entity that is difficult yet addictive to be played hundreds of times.
At first glance, Dead Cells look like other indie games with elements roguelite which became a cliché now to indie studios. Roguelite which incidentally have random levels have get a bad perception in recent years. Level randomly made by the features of procedural generation makes the designer level is not too dizzy because they do not have to spend a lot of time on the design level and this trick be a cheap trick to make playtime of the game longer than it should. Although this sounds like a bad thing, but the beauty of this genre comes from how well the execution of the developer. When the genre roguelitecombined with full variable gameplay design and content are qualified to make players curious, genre roguelite can make the game very rewarding and addictive to play. Dead Cells become the latest example of the good execution.
Kill, Die, Repeat
The premise of Dead Cell is very simple, you play as a green blob that can take control of a dead body. You are trying to free themselves from a dungeon, but of course a lot of barriers that will impede the output of your labor. Enemy soldiers who all want to kill you, a level that is always changing every time you die, and the big bosses turn off the biggest hurdle that you will encounter.
Always start the same game, you take the sword as a primary weapon and a shield or weapon choosing the range as a secondary weapon , and then start the game against zombies, archer, and bomb throwers in the first level. It's just that each layout of the level that you are walking is not always the same. This is where the genre roguelite implemented in this game. Like the games roguelite such as Enter the Gungeon, Spelunky and Nuclear Throne, the games use procedural generationto the design level. So you never encounter the same folder layout although it may be the background and the overall design of these levels have their own repetition pattern as the first level always being in prison, the second level in the sewer, the third level in the tower, and so on. On the one hand, random design like this makes the game more interesting to play again, but on the other hand you have a great opportunity not to be lucky and get the trash loot that makes the game more difficult than it should be.
By tradition random level of genre roguelite , how can an injection Motion Twin metroidvania in this game? Simple, they make a lot of areas in each level can not be accessed until you have runes particular. Rune like climbing a creeper, groundslam , or teleportation will get a player with the further progress achieved. Each level in the game although made random always have a particular area that is not accessible without the presence of runes , then the player must survive as much as possible to get these runes if they want to explore these areas.
Dead is normal and reasonable, especially for a game that tries perpadukan roguelite and souls-like at the same time. Like the other roguelite games, every session you do will give the impression of its own even though you repeat the progression from zero, but Dead Cells build a better system of this progression. This is because the system blue cell on the game. Souls like a game-like, each enemy you kill has a chance to drop loot. In this game, the enemy can drop items such as gold, diamonds, food that can be used for healing, and also blue cell . Blue cellused to permanently upgrade at each new level transition. This permanent upgrade starts from something small such as opening access to new weapons to increase the capacity of healing potion- mu. This system makes each your gaming session did not seem so wasted because you know if the next play session will be a little easier because you just get new upgrades from the previous play session.
Although replaybility this game came mostly because of procedural generation of each level, which makes Dead Cell interesting to play many times is the gameplay. Dead Cell had gameplay that encourages players to continue to act and mamfaatkan all ability to do the main characters. Most games like this usually restrict players with ammo system, or where so that they do not continue to use the same trick over and over again, but in Dead Cell, all the gadgets and weapons you have only limited by the cooldown alone. Game indirectly force players to exploit tricks that you just found badly as possible because the gameplay is designed for the player in action as soon as possible.
Every enemy you kill will give DPS the main character and movement speed boost, makes you feel like continuing to kill monsters though there was supposed to do. Exploration of the game is also an element of fun because you will always be rewarded with a certain item to take risks that will inevitably enter the territory of the enemy banyk. Gameplay is fast and rewarding is combined with seamless animation and design attractive enemy makes Dead Cell into a game that can make the players say "one more time dah" whenever death.
Technical aspects are admirable
Visual pixelated may belong to the old school for the moment, but when in the right hands, can still satisfy the visual pixelated players estatika and artistic terms that can be achieved from this artstyle. Visual pixelated of Dead Cells have distinctive characteristics that create different visual comparison of those games with the same artstyle. Each pixel in the main character, an enemy you face, until the background was made very detailed and distinctive by Motion Twin, create a visual of Dead Cells can spoil the eye although not present super-realistic textures and modern visual effects whatsoever.
Dead Cells aspect of the sound is equally interesting. Music soundtrack from composer Valmont de Ragondas be a music collection that can amaze the ears of the listener. The strains of guitar and drum sounds in each of the game's soundtrack succeeded in establishing the atmosphere of each level and the action presented in the player's screen. For other aspects of the sound in the game, arguably not so bad, but one of the weaknesses in this aspect is the sound emitted in the electric whip weapon available in the game. Maybe not all of them feel the same as me, but from the experience of playing 20-30 hours so far, the sound of the electric whip in this game sounds too loud compared to the voices of other weapons. Not infrequently I had to lower the volume of the game each time such a weapon and raised it back when switching to another weapon. Regardless of the voice, the presentation of this game is quite fantastic.
Thank you, Dark Souls Dead Cells
Out of all the praise I exclude from this game, it is certain that I would recommend this game to all of you. But it would be a big lie if not there are some things that made me a little upset from this game.
Dead Cells is a difficult game, and there's nothing wrong about it. However, the difficulty of this game comes from one thing, namely the absence of recovery time . If you do not know what the recovery time , let me explain briefly. Most games platformer like this usually gives the character a kind of invicibility frame (indicated by the characters into twinkling) when exposed to a hit for a few seconds. This is done so that players game designers have a chance to counterattack and did not die instantly granted. Developer Dead Cells seemed to lift the middle finger will be mechanized and let the players continue to hit damage on every attack on the character. Level and location of the enemy made random, often you'll see a collection of enemy bergerombolan in one location and when you hit a hit only when attacked by these enemies, you are not only exposed to stagger a few milliseconds but could also hit streak from other enemies, make all progres disappear.
One other thing I regret from this game is the boss battle. Not only the number of bosses that were presented fairly low, especially when compared to games roguelite other, but also each boss fight is not too have designs that are not interesting. Each boss have attacks that can always be avoided with one button, have the health pool is too large which makes the fight takes tasted so long, and attacks that always finish 1/3 HP of the player. Compared with the boss battle of the game such as Hollow Knight metroidvania or roguelite such as Enter the Gungeon, boss battle of Dead Cells seem underwhelming .
Verdict
Dead Cells is not a game that gives any special innovation compared to other games that already exist, but Dead Cells has achieved a definite targets that make a decent game to play - fun gameplay. Dead Cells is one of the best indie games released this year, and it is a great compliment to see how its fantastic indie games are released throughout the 2018's. If you are looking for an indie game that is hard to play, Dead Cells into the game you are looking for.
But the mature execution of Motion TwinThree genres merged into a single entity that is difficult yet addictive to be played hundreds of times.