Deathspank: The game we all wanted Brutal Legend to be?

I played some of the demo for Deathspank yesterday.

Is it me or does this game feel like what we all wanted Brutal Legend to be? Action/RPG beat-em-up with humor.

Take Deathspank, add guitars and use the same cutscenes from BL, epic win.

It's very good. I'm about halfway through it, and I'm loving every minute of it.

If there is Iced Earth in the soundtrack: yes.

Otherwise, a resounding no. I'm kinda over lootfests. I wanted metal Zelda more than metal Diablo.

There have always been Diablo clones and variants, and there did seem to be a period were it was cool to throw loot around, although I can only really think of Torchlight and Borderlands.

It does seem like something that is really hard to get right, a fine balance of lots of factors that a slight wrong decision can push it into a dead weight that drags your game down over it's playtime. This even applies to games that have just the lightest amount of looting like Mass Effect 1, if the loot system isn't top notch then it's forever remembered as a negative for your game. Are there many Diablo clones with minimalist or non-existant loot systems?

Brutal Legend was just about exactly the game I wanted Brutal Legend to be. That said, Deathspank looks pretty awesome.

Podunk wrote:

Brutal Legend was just about exactly the game I wanted Brutal Legend to be.

I came in here to post that. Glad I'm not alone.
I'll be checking out the Spank-Demo later today.

Everything I've seen of Deathspank looks overwhelmingly repetitious to me. Is there any variation to the combat other than melee, range, and sometimes the "justice" move?

Sinkwater wrote:

Everything I've seen of Deathspank looks overwhelmingly repetitious to me. Is there any variation to the combat other than melee, range, and sometimes the "justice" move?

Yeah, you can play like I do: melee, melee, melee, melee and the justice attacks. Ranged is borked. It's definitely button mashy.

I do like having angry flocks of chickens that fight for me though. That's pretty cool.

There's block. You're going to be forced to time your blocks later on in the game, or suffer frequent deaths. Later on, the game turns into melee 1, block, melee 2, block, melee 1, block and so on. A timely block can instantly fill the justice meter, so I had some fun trying to achieve that in some fights. I suggest relying more on the items you obtain. Though not essential tools against the challenges you'll face, they add a twist to the very basic combat. I also recommend upping the difficulty, which may make the item use necessary.

I've got some advanced crossbows that make ranged combat very viable. Aside from that there are glyphs you acquire that allow you to use two associated weapons for Justice combo attacks.

Either way, there's no getting around that the combat is repetitive. I don't know if it's part in parcel for the loot genre or if DeathSpank just isn't deep enough to keep the combat more varied (I'd guess a combination of both). The good news for me anyway is that I find the combat responsive and tight. There's a lot of enemy variation that also demands varying tactics so I haven't felt burned out by fighting yet, I'd guess 8+ hours in.

Side note, the game-timer in your records book is totally borked. The first night I know that I played for at least 3 hours by the clock on the wall, but it only logged 68 or so minutes.

Anyway, the whole reason I opened the thread was to reply that for some really strange reason DeathSpank feels a lot like Banjo Kazooie (N64). I can't really describe why, but that's the vibe I walk away with.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I wanted metal Zelda

That's kind of Darksiders.

Decent so far. Just unlocked the full version today. I can see where it'd get repetitive if I played for hours straight, but an hour here and there is pretty fun.

Brutal Legend was what I wanted Brutal Legend to be. Maybe a bit more Pikmin/Zelda would've been cool, but I wasn't disappointed.

I have no opinion of DeathSpank. Hate Blizzard games and games that feel like clones of Blizzard games, though, so if that's what this is, I hate it already.

DeathSpank doesn't feel like a Blizzard game.

I was put off by the demo. Starting off with a small fetch quest, and then several larger fetch quests filled me with dread for what the full game would hold. The humor was too campy for me as well.

Hyetal wrote:

DeathSpank doesn't feel like a Blizzard game.

Then I have no opinion on it.

Evo wrote:

I was put off by the demo. Starting off with a small fetch quest, and then several larger fetch quests filled me with dread for what the full game would hold. The humor was too campy for me as well.

While I love the game to bits, if the notion of fetch quests annoys you, I'd steer well away no matter how effusive some of us may be. The game is pretty much all fetch quests. Even "go kill thing x" is often pitched as a fetch quest in that you usually need to pick up body parts and return them as proof.

juv3nal wrote:
Evo wrote:

I was put off by the demo. Starting off with a small fetch quest, and then several larger fetch quests filled me with dread for what the full game would hold. The humor was too campy for me as well.

While I love the game to bits, if the notion of fetch quests annoys you, I'd steer well away no matter how effusive some of us may be. The game is pretty much all fetch quests. Even "go kill thing x" is often pitched as a fetch quest in that you usually need to pick up body parts and return them as proof.

I can't put my finger on why I enjoyed Titan Quest so much, but the fact that many (most?) of the quests could be completed without returning to the quest giver might be a big one. I'm not really a sucker for loot-fests, but I am sort of a sucker for skill trees and leveling up. All I know is that I got a little bored playing the Deathspank demo, so that probably means it's not for me.

in the brainy wrote:

I can see where it'd get repetitive if I played for hours straight, but an hour here and there is pretty fun.

Yeah, I've been playing it for like a half hour here and there and it seems perfect for those kind of bite-size chunks. If anything, the screen is so busy with stuff that it kinda wears you out if you play much longer.

juv3nal wrote:

Even "go kill thing x" is often pitched as a fetch quest in that you usually need to pick up body parts and return them as proof.

And let me guess, the rate of body parts dropped to enemies killed isn't 1:1?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

And let me guess, the rate of body parts dropped to enemies killed isn't 1:1?

Actually, so far as I've noticed, it is 1:1.

I'm absolutely loving the game. While the combat / quest system isn't very deep, it works perfectly as an easy game to chill with and enjoy the humor, which is exactly the type of humor I love. Works as a great palate cleanser after playing a heavy game like red dead..

juv3nal wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

And let me guess, the rate of body parts dropped to enemies killed isn't 1:1?

Actually, so far as I've noticed, it is 1:1.

Weird. They must have mis-coded their drop rates.

Actually, that's good to hear. I find that I lose interest in games pretty quickly if I'm sent to fetch rat tails but only one in three rats seems to have one.

If there's one thing I would change about the game, it's that I'd make the magical attack things either:
a) reusable, maybe on a longer cooldown delay
or
b) buyable in shops

as it is, you never know whether you're going to really need it later against a boss (and you don't know whether enough will drop to refill your stock) so I ended up hoarding mine and basically never using them against normal enemies. Which is a shame because some of them are pretty neat.

b) is probably more viable in terms of balancing because you could always tune the price way up (so people having real trouble with one section of the game could grind their way through it with gold/money if they felt they had to), but making the cooldown delay too long would just be annoying.

Downloading this now. To be honest, any game called Deathspank has earned my dollars.

Yeah, I'm 77% in on the clock and I haven't used offencive/defencive potions much.

I plays in line with my usual character in these scenarios though. I've aways been a ranged/melee weapon dealer myself.

It's funny how Torchlight gets mad love for falling into the same budged hack & slash genre as DeathSpank, yet I find myself immensely more drawn to DeathSpank. Both are knockouts, but DS just has so much more personality and visual flair than the admittedly deeper Torchlight.

No right or wrong obviously, it just funny how the tides flow.

Played a good 4hrs of it today, loving the plays on words in conversations (ex: enchanted seal). Had a friend drop in in around hour 2 and that was even better, my only gripe being Player 2 getting the shaft on weapons, armor, etc.

As far as comparing to Brutal Legend, Tim Schafer did a brilliant job of his game and I wouldn't have it any other face-melting way.

I just finished this morning, which those of you from the pile threads should know is an accomplishment for me. Plowed through it, and since it's not normally my cuppa, I consider that an accomplishment.

MechaSlinky wrote:
Hyetal wrote:

DeathSpank doesn't feel like a Blizzard game.

Then I have no opinion on it.

Can't attest to the Blizzard feel or not, but based on what I read over in the Wannabe Writers thread, you may dig it, Mecha -- DeathSpank is kind of...kind of a Rated-T-For-Teen version of Max Applesauce, as filtered through Gilbert's old-school LucasArts stuff.

If that helps at all. And yes, that's meant to be complimentary. Of both the game and Applesauce.

I didn't realize there was so much love for BL. My impression was that most people had an overwhelmingly good first impression of it, but ultimately cooled to it because the Overlord-esque stage battles weren't fun. I know I would have liked it more if it had been a hack'n'slash/beat-em-up type game with rythm elements, but then I really can't stand most RTS games.

Anyway, I haven't decided if Deathspank is worth my money yet. I don't have a lot of space on my PS3 hard drive at this point, and I've been reluctant to delete previously installed games that I don't play as often because I don't know what Sony's re-download policy is.

I also can't stand RTS games, but I loved the stage battles in Brutal Legend. Honestly, the only thing I wanted more of were more dungeon-esque areas like the spider's lair. Could've even been as straightforward as the spider's lair and I would've been happy. But I was far from disappointed with the game. It's one of my favorite games ever.

RSPaulette wrote:

Can't attest to the Blizzard feel or not, but based on what I read over in the Wannabe Writers thread, you may dig it, Mecha -- DeathSpank is kind of...kind of a Rated-T-For-Teen version of Max Applesauce, as filtered through Gilbert's old-school LucasArts stuff.

If that helps at all. And yes, that's meant to be complimentary. Of both the game and Applesauce.

I like Gilbert and I like the title, but if it's a game for loot-whores, it's not for me. Doesn't matter what else it does, if it essentially plays like Diablo, I'll hate it.

Humor seemed kind of forced. I wanted to like it, but it wasn't really working for me.

I think this is the first console game I've seen that runs at an unambiguous true 1080p (Xbox360). It's stunningly crisp. But, maybe some of the fine detail gets lost or overwhelmed at standard living room viewing distances. I found myself wanting to sit three or four feet closer to the screen so that I could resolve all the detail properly.