In 2019, Magic Design Studios—a brand new workforce comprised of many ex-Ubisoft workers—put out the Rayman-esque Unruly Heroes, which we thought was an amazing platformer with some wonderful visuals. For the following few years, the workforce went quiet whereas engaged on its subsequent sport, revealed in late 2021 as Have A Nice Death, a tricky motion roguelite in regards to the grim reaper. Since then, it’s been regularly baking in early entry on Steam and now that it lastly reached 1.0 standing, it’s obtained a console-exclusive launch on Switch. We’re completely happy to report that the developer has succeeded with its sophomore outing; Have a Nice Death is an satisfying and addictive expertise that roguelite followers ought to pay attention to.
It locations you within the function of Death himself, who has grown bored with the exhausting graft concerned in harvesting souls for millennia. To take the load off his shoulders, he decides to begin a company to rent numerous ghouls and ghosts to do the work for him whereas he can distantly handle affairs from a comfortable government workplace. For years, Death enjoys placing his ft up and letting the Kafkaesque group do its factor whereas he simply rubber stamps the paperwork that comes throughout his desk, however issues start to get out of hand when the admin rises to ridiculous ranges. It seems that Death delegated too many duties; all of the beings he appointed to supervise transitions to the afterlife have gotten a lot too trigger-happy and have been going method over quota. Death thus picks up his outdated scythe and begins somewhat company restructuring, setting out on a journey by means of each flooring of each division to aggressively lay off his misbehaving workers.
There’s not way more to the story of Have a Nice Death by way of plot, however it is a title that completely revels in its delightfully darkish and morbid humorousness. Whether or not it’s a naïve and overworked intern excitedly telling you that she’s going to be hazed tomorrow or an in depth description of the over-the-top method that an enemy met their unique demise, there’s tons of character and wit to be present in Have a Nice Death’s writing. Though we often want there was a extra centered narrative to point out us round this fascinating company hellscape, issues like taste textual content within the bestiary and temporary conversations with NPCs nonetheless do an amazing job of worldbuilding.
Gameplay carefully follows the blueprint of a typical motion roguelite, notably Dead Cells, whereby you try and combat your method by means of an more and more harder gauntlet of randomized ranges as you ascend the flooring of your headquarters and defeat the supervisor of every division. Death is a nimble and potent combatant armed together with his scythe, and there’s quite a lot of secondary weapons and spells—similar to a strong hammer or a bow—you may acquire alongside the way in which to spherical out your repertoire and provide you with extra flexibility within the warmth of battle. Most foes, in fact, don’t take various blows, however the many bosses you may face off towards present memorable and brutal trials that take a look at the bounds of your expertise and construct.
Whether you’re going up towards a Thanager (a kind of mini-boss) or the supervisor of the division, we appreciated the sheer selection and creativity current in these boss fights, which introduced the battles of Cuphead to thoughts. Whether you’re combating an in-universe tackle the Big Boy mascot or one thing extra low-key like an irate skeletal janitor armed with a vacuum cleaner, each combat gives up a stunning quantity of problem as you narrowly dodge by means of a barrage of hard-hitting strikes. These bosses undoubtedly don’t pull their punches, even when taking part in on the best problem setting, and it’ll take you a number of (failed) makes an attempt to lastly study their tells and timing properly sufficient to succeed.
This excessive problem is probably going what’s going to act as the primary sticking level for a lot of gamers. Have a Nice Death gives a brutal problem on its meant base problem stage, and this isn’t a roguelite that you may ultimately overcome by grinding meta-progression. Although there’s some mild character development (extra on that in a bit), most of it solely expands the number of weapons and drops within the loot pool for every run. So, in case you don’t have the razor-sharp dexterity and reflexes wanted to outmaneuver the numerous issues that’ll attempt to harm you, you’re in all probability gonna have a foul time right here because it’s not like you may ultimately buff your character’s stats sufficient to completely scale back the issue.
We appreciated this slightly uncompromising problem on condition that it makes progress really feel really earned after you’ve practiced exhausting sufficient, however those that don’t have the time or endurance to grasp the sport mechanics might really feel disenchanted by the unforgiving and unmoving ability partitions they hit.
A huge a part of surviving the problem is present in being strategic along with your selections on every run. It’s necessary to know what weapons you’re handiest with and find out how to maximize their usefulness, however there are different components to contemplate that may sink or save your run. The rewards that you simply acquire on the finish of a stage are a very good instance, and also you’re normally given a alternative about what rewards you need to present up on the finish of the following stage earlier than you get there. Sometimes it is best to roll the cube and hope you’ll get a very good tools drop, generally it’s higher to play it protected with a forex infusion on the finish.
Most notably, you’ll often be given the choice to pick a brand new Curse that’ll immediately buff Death’s stats or efficiency ultimately. There are three varieties—crimson, blue, and inexperienced—to select from every time, and these will do issues like infuse all of your assaults with lightning or lower the cooldown in your dodge. The Curses typically get increased high quality the extra you get of a selected shade, however this comes with a tradeoff or ‘penalty’, like growing the quantity of harm you’re taking from sure sources or hiding all the weather of the UI. Curses are an amazing addition to the gameplay loop, as they depart a variety of room for experimentation and the random nature of them ensures that no two runs will ever provide the similar buffs in the identical order.
When you inevitably fall to some ghoul, your efficiency over the run can be assessed and become a closing rating, which can then convert to expertise that may each stage up Death and add to your financial institution of gold ingots. Leveling up will do issues like enhance the quantity of ingots you earn per run or provide you with an additional heal merchandise to begin every run with. None of the buffs are a substitute for you gitting gud, however they do assist to create some barely wider margins for error that simply might prevent afterward down the road. Plus, it simply feels good to have tangible advantages that guarantee your efforts on the final run weren’t totally wasted.
Ingots are the opposite aspect of meta-progression, and these could be invested into new tools and power-ups in a well applied system that encourages run selection. Every new unlock could have a sticker value hooked up to it, however you’ve the choice to low cost it by mounted percentages by fulfilling particular duties. These duties ask you to do issues like kill a certain quantity of enemies with a weapon class or defeat a boss a sure variety of instances. You don’t have to really attain any of the precise targets, however you’ll knock extra off the value of the merchandise the nearer you get, so there’s a light-weight sense of technique right here as you establish for your self how miserly you need to be. Most gadgets are given away for almost free in case you fulfill their situations, but it surely would possibly take for much longer to take action.
As for its presentation, Have a Nice Death has fairly engaging and distinctive visuals. The hand-drawn artwork model typically adheres to a monochromatic, and ‘cute but dark’ aesthetic, not in contrast to Hollow Knight. And whereas there’s not a lot shade to visually distinguish every division from the following, we appreciated that there are numerous environmental components to maintain issues distinct. For instance, the Toxic Food Processing Department is crammed with mountains of junk meals and outdated diner indicators, whereas the enemies are themed after issues like cupcakes and cups of soda. Animations are fairly easy, too, which helps to make fight really feel way more kinetic and free-flowing as Death easily transitions between combos and weapon sorts.
These visuals are matched by equally distinct sound design that contributes so much to Have a Nice Death’s distinctive character. The music typically sticks to a jazzy assortment of Halloween music rife with theremins and didgeridoos to offer it that ‘weird’ tinge, whereas some tracks have a extra comical component to them, such because the muzak that performs whereas Death chills within the elevator on loading screens. Meanwhile, little touches like a file scratch if you get hit mid-combo or the lovable gibberish that characters verbalize in dialogue assist to create a typically lighthearted ambiance regardless of the morbid themes.
All that is properly and good, but it surely does should be stated that Have a Nice Death may use some tightening up on the efficiency aspect of issues. Though 60 FPS is the goal right here, we famous in docked mode that there have been many situations the place the body price would tank significantly as a brand new stage took its time loading in. Related to this, we famous that load instances might be somewhat on the lengthy aspect, clocking in at anyplace from 15 to 30 seconds lengthy whereas the following flooring hundreds. It might not sound like a lot, however every stage solely takes a pair minutes to complete and people load instances actually begin to add up over time. We famous that docked efficiency was worse on this regard; load instances are lengthy in both docked or handheld, however they have been typically a couple of seconds longer when taking part in on the TV. If you find yourself springing for the Switch model, we’d suggest primarily taking part in this undocked.
Conclusion
Have a Nice Death might not reinvent the wheel for roguelites, however it is a high-quality new entry within the style. The brutal problem, artistic theming, and satisfying fight all mix to make this a memorable and worthwhile expertise, even when we want it had higher efficiency. We’d suggest this to anybody searching for one other extraordinarily competent and humorous motion roguelite so as to add to their assortment, although with the caveat that you need to solely make the leap into this underworld in case you really feel assured within the sharpness of your expertise. There’s so much to like about Have a Nice Death, however because the title suggests, the bony hand of the reaper would be the just one holding yours.
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