Death's Gambit (PlayStation 4) Review

Now that ripping off Dark Souls has become a genre in itself, like how first-person shooters all began as "Doom clones," the landscape of independent developers has become like a wild west of ideas. Sometimes there are sparks of brilliance and pure inspiration like Hollow Knight, but more often than naught the ever expanding catalogue of From Software imitators is steeped with mediocrity. The "souls" formula lends itself pretty well to the second dimension, as the more successful examples have proven, and Death's Gambit manages to reinforce this pillar even further.

Much like the titles that inspired it, Death's Gambit begins with a character customisation screen but with a different focus. No matter what, player''s will always assume the role of Sorun, the undead warrior. As Sorun, his "job-class" can be selected, and what this means is deciding on his starting equipment and abilities. Things like this make for good replay value, and keep everything interesting. He also serves as the embodiment of Death himself, who was the one who gave him the raw deal of immortal undeath. This is a core mechanic in Death's Gambit since so much of the experience and game design is centred on dying.

Things begin to stand out more from similar titles when analysing the systems, since there is a great deal of thought put into the logic of how Sorun's deaths can impact his journey, and the kinds of hard choices the player will have to make. Unlike most souls-like, doing a corpse run is not meant for reclaiming lost currency. Dying causes Sorun to lose a maximum charge of his healing item, and the corpse run is instead meant to restore his lost charges. Of course, there is always the option of paying Death the indignity of having him restore it for a price. Most interestingly, the contract that the hero signs with Death can be broken if the user chooses to... thus activating Death's Gambit's permanent death mode.

The designer's paid a lot of attention to the flow of combat in the best souls-like. The rate how stamina is consumed versus damage output, compounded with character animation, while going up against a ton of other factors, is not something that is easily balanced. Yet the champions behind this title figured it out, and knew what to prioritise, since making this sort of action-RPG in 2D requires different things than the 3D counterparts. With all things considered, Death's Gambit is mechanically, very finely tuned. Everything is responsive and engaging, and combat feels satisfying as hits connect and bones crunch against brushed steel. Jumping and dodge rolling have the appropriate weight; Sorun feels like a tough guy in armour, and looks generally pretty cool in action.

The way special attacks are pulled off is what will set Death's Gambit apart from similar style games, since the protagonist can effectively dish out some serious damage as long as users stay aggressive and consistently keep dealing damage while not getting hit. Idling around will cause the special attack meter to deplete, and it can only be filled by attacking enemies before the cool down kicks in. It is an unusual system, but it does encourage some bold gameplay, keeping things exciting when surrounded by angry lizard guys.

The playability feels polished and tight, but there are some aspects that are either rough or not well-thought out. The skill-tree is completely tacked on, and is mostly full of useless upgrades that would have been better off as perks that would have been attached to specific weapons. Speaking of weapons, there is not much variety or choices to make as one would assume. Expect to get attached to a very standard set of weapons. No matter what, bow and arrows are a part of Sorun's equipment which is used for a very meek ranged attack which later on in the game barely has any function outside of pulling mobs, or hitting switches. The one area where Death's Gambit truly falters is just how unfair certain sequences can be due to buggy hit-boxes or pixel-perfect platforming that demands a bit of luck when approached. Expect a bit of unfairness when making deals with Death, kids.

If there is anything about Death's Gambit that most people won't complain about, is that it does have some impressive pixel art. While it is not the most ambitious, it is certainly a cut above most of the similar competing indie games out there. Some characters are obviously animated with puppet style joints, which is a disservice to their intent on being designed to be threatening and end up just looking like big goofy puppets. The level design seems vast and open at first, and as things draw closer to the end, all paths converge. Early on a more skilled user might take a much harder alternate path that is guarded by an extremely high level mini-boss. Death's Gambit allows everyone to explore this colourful, yet dark fantasy landscape that best fits their skill level which ranges from hard to hellishly brutal.

Fans of souls-like games are going to enjoy Death's Gambit. The adventure is not so long where it becomes exhausting, but is dense enough so that every moment is memorable and striking. The action can get extremely spicy sometimes, and while there are multiple options to make progress or engage some "soft" easy mode modifiers, like lore entries that make bosses slightly more vulnerable, or a simple level grind. Replay value is generous enough thanks to the variation of builds that can be explored with, and level design is open enough to experiment alternate paths.