Dead Cells Catch-All

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The Developer wrote:

Dead Cells is a roguelike, Castlevania-inspired action-platformer, allowing you to explore a sprawling, ever-changing castle… assuming you’re able to fight your way past its keepers.

To beat the game, you’ll have to master 2D souls-like like combat with the ever-present threat of permadeath looming. No checkpoints. Kill, die, learn, repeat.

RogueVania: Intense 2D action with the adrenaline pumping threat of permadeath in a castle full of cuddly creatures.

Souls-like combat: Pattern-based bosses and minions, weapons and spells with unique gameplay. Roll roll roll your boat gently down the stream...

Nonlinear progression: Unlock new levels with every death, take a new path. Tired of the stinking sewers? Why not take the ramparts?

Exploration: Secret rooms, hidden passages, charming landscapes. A fine place for a holiday.

Dead Cells is 15% off. It's a damn good game, even unfinished as it is. It's comparable to Rogue Legacy in that you earn permanent upgrades as you play in the form of new items and upgrades, and so far I've found the combat to be a lot of fun.

It's currently in early access with the devs estimating 8-12 months to full release. I generally do not play EA games - I'd rather wait for the "full" experience - but since it was on sale I picked it up to get the better price. Of course I should probably just play a few minutes to try it out, since I already bought it... Now I've got 4 hours into it in 1 day.

Anyway, if the above looks interesting at all, I recommend you check it out!

Is this the Dark Souls of Metroidvanias?

maverickz wrote:

Is this the Dark Souls of Metroidvanias?

It is indeed!

I picked up last night, and ended up playing for like 3 hours.

Reminds me of Rogue Legacy, but with much better art and smooth flowing combat. I don't really like the Dark Souls games but I do like Spelunky and Castlevania SotN.

It's under $15 on steam right now, seems well worth the price.

Very very good feel to this one. Incomparably better than Rogue Legacy's clunky control, IMHO.

Brendan Cadwell's write up at RPS made this sound a lot closer to Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow more than Dark Souls. But having never played a Souls game I'm not sure I'd be able to pick out what exactly makes it a Souls-like.

This is the best one of these I have ever played.

Almost sad I'm coming to it now before it's done. On the other hand I've already sunk 6 hours in and haven't come close to finishing it.

It just feels right. So many of these games botch controls or character movement or animation priority or whatever else that when one finally nails it it really stands out.

I really liked Rogue Legacy.

Dead Cells plays far, far better now in early access than that game ever did.

*Turning in over 100 cells at once feels real good.

I think I'm going to have to uninstall and try to forget about this until it's released. It's just so good I wanna keep playing, but I really don't want to end up burning out before the full game is available. I'll be back!

Favorite hilariously tragic run to date: Encounter three cursed chests in a row. It's a Roguelike and yolo doesn't apply so... why not? I went back and hit all three just before changing areas so I'd be entering an area fresh and risking no loss, and I needed the items because I had bad weapons.

Got some good stuff from all three chests, and entered the Ramparts loaded for bear. I took the level slow and steady, cheesed some rough spots with the little biter swarm ability and electric whip, and eventually finished the 30 enemy curse. Maybe five whole seconds after celebrating with a "the rest of this level will be easy now" sigh of relief I accidentally jumped, without doing the downward smash move, into a batch of 5 enemies and got instamurdered before I could recover from the fall stun.

THIS GAME

I've been looking to get this game for the past week or so. It seems that people have been enjoying the game. Hopefully it goes on sale again sometime soon.

Can't stop playing. Help.

Chimalli wrote:

I've been looking to get this game for the past week or so. It seems that people have been enjoying the game. Hopefully it goes on sale again sometime soon.

The game was 15% off for a few days when it launched. For a $17 game, that's not much. Also from their Early Access page:

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“Yes. We will probably increase the price during or after the early access based on the amount of content available and feedback from the community.”

I bought it today, and I put in 90 minutes right away. My son sat by me and laughed and laughed. Since I'm usually on a Mac, I had to a) use the kid's PC and b) plug in a controller - both of which are things I haven't done in a long while. So far, worth it. The game plays so smoothly, and it telegraphs its information well.

I dunno everyone, i stopped playing after losing 40 souls and 2 blueprints last night, so imo it is the biggest heap of sh*te game ever.

:'(

Looking forward to trying this soon, the game looks very promising and polished already.

shoptroll wrote:

Brendan Cadwell's write up at RPS made this sound a lot closer to Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow more than Dark Souls. But having never played a Souls game I'm not sure I'd be able to pick out what exactly makes it a Souls-like.

Yeah it's really not. It punishes you for death, but nothing else really. Maybe a little bit of animation priority in the combat counts?

I just think people say it's hard therefore dark souls in every context.

I'd say it's much more "Castlevania meets Risk of Rain" - little, if any Souls-ness.

I played about 90 min. and refunded it.

In the end it felt a bit too grindy & twitchy for my old-man gameplay style.

But the production is flat out AMAZING from top to bottom for the target audience.

It's a shame in my case as the brilliance is immediately apparent. I just wish it were slower paced.

drdoak wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Brendan Cadwell's write up at RPS made this sound a lot closer to Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow more than Dark Souls. But having never played a Souls game I'm not sure I'd be able to pick out what exactly makes it a Souls-like.

Yeah it's really not. It punishes you for death, but nothing else really. Maybe a little bit of animation priority in the combat counts?

Estus flasks, parrying, and iframe dodging. That's probably about it. I get the comparison a little though because besides the Rogue Legacy-like game structure, playing the game reminds me MUCH more of Salt and Sanctuary than any other 2d game I can think of, Castlevania included.

I caved and bought the game, it is a blast, I love the combinations of the different weapons/powers that are available and even though I have had a few frustrating deaths I haven't found the game too overwhelming. The only 'souls' thing I have noticed is if you don't make it to the checkpoint you lose everything. But, the items are not overly expensive that it requires a grind to unlock the next thing the most expensive thing I have found so far, that is not an upgrade of an existing item, costs roughly 30 cells and I generally get about 13-20 cells in the first area.

I did encounter one issue, when I got the the ramparts section I cleared the map and couldn't do anything else because I didn't have a skill unlocked or something, so I had to suicide.

Crossing fingers for an eventual console release!

WizardM0de wrote:

Crossing fingers for an eventual console release!

I believe the game is coming to Switch. I imagine the other consoles too.

Interesting, but I'll shelve until release at this point. I beat the first boss once. The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time is a little annoying.

In the end this makes me think most of Enter the Gungeon. I really like this games but most of them are tuned to be too hard or too grindy for my tastes. Isaac had it just about right for me which I guess is why I played so much of it.

Tyops wrote:

Interesting, but I'll shelve until release at this point. I beat the first boss once. The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time is a little annoying.

In the end this makes me think most of Enter the Gungeon. I really like this games but most of them are tuned to be too hard or too grindy for my tastes. Isaac had it just about right for me which I guess is why I played so much of it.

This is kinda where I'm at. I really like the gameplay but don't really like the grindy repeat the same stuff over and over part. I would have loved to see an additional game mode that just has you play through a set version of the game with some form of death penalty. I get that such a mode would have to involve some more level generation but a Metroidvania type game with what they have right now would be pretty cool.

Tyops wrote:

The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time

It doesn't. Once you've been him the door is gone.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Tyops wrote:

The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time

It doesn't. Once you've been him the door is gone.

This doesn't jive with my experience. Maybe I'm missing something, but I've sunk a good chunk of hours in at this point.

At the end of the first chunk after your reincarnation or whatever, The Prisoner's Cells, there are three possible ways out.

The Toxic Sewers, the Ossuary, or the Promenade of the Condemned.

The promenade has exits to:
The Ramparts
Prison Depths
The Old Sewers

The Ossuary has exits to:
The Prison Depths
The Ramparts

The Toxic Sewers have exits to:
The Ramparts
The Old Sewers

The Old Sewers, The Ramparts, and The Prison Depths all lead only to The Black Bridge, which is the bossfight. There are no other exits from those three areas. You will always hit him. From there the path is linear. You beat him, go to the Fog Fjord and then The Graveyard. There are no other exits in either of those areas. I've been to the Graveyard one time and got to the door, but didn't take it because there was a bunch of the level left and I only had like 9 Cells to turn in at that moment. So I backtracked and then of course I died. I've beat the Black Bridge boss four times but the Fog Fjord is rough if you don't have a solid and complimentary combination of weapons and abilities.

Also worth noting that in the starting Prisoner's Cells area you need the Vine and Teleport rune abilities to be unlocked or you'll only be able to access the Promenade. The sewers and the Ossuary require the rune abilities to reach.

Similarly if you don't have those rune abilities yet then you won't be able to access The Old Sewers or The Prison Depths in the Promenade area. The only accessible exit will be The Ramparts.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Tyops wrote:

The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time

It doesn't. Once you've been him the door is gone.

The boss on the bridge always comes back. Maybe you're thinking of the elite archer for the first rune?

I snagged this on a whim, and have been enjoying it. I opted into the beta branch so I could play with the new toys.

Is it just me, or is the timing on the shields just plain weird? I'm pretty good at the rolling dodge, but I can't parry for crap.

Other than that, I really like the way all the weapons work. Well, I'm not sure I like how some of the new grenade attacks are weapons and not skills. But the mechanics of them are fine.

The branching level structure is interesting. I hope they plan to carry it through to the back half of the game. Though I guess there isn't as much need for that, since you won't see those as often as the first half.

PSA: You cannot leave a level if there are enemies next to you. Not a problem normally, but when you are trying to run away from an elite, it was maddening.

Vargen wrote:

Is it just me, or is the timing on the shields just plain weird? I'm pretty good at the rolling dodge, but I can't parry for crap.

Not for me. I find the timing just as straightforward and easy to use as dodging.

I like to use them in tandem because they both have their own mini cool downs. I've gotten out of some real tough situations by alternating my dodging and blocking effectively.

I just panic and try to roll and jump to hopefully get out of the situation.

Also the skeletons in the graveyard are really annoying.

Tyops wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
Tyops wrote:

The idea that every run will require me beat this guy every time

It doesn't. Once you've been him the door is gone.

The boss on the bridge always comes back. Maybe you're thinking of the elite archer for the first rune?

That is, in fact, what I was thinking of. I hadn't gotten to the bridge boss yet when I posted. I assumed it was a boss since you got a permanent ability but, having since gotten to the bridge boss, I now see that there is a distinct difference.

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