Death’s Gambit Review

Love or hate From Software’s Souls series, it is undeniable that From has changed the face of gaming by showing designers and publishers that gamers want a challenge, even it means that they will die over and over again. Many games have tried to reproduce the formula in various ways each to their own results, but after our time with Death’s Gambit, a new side-scrolling RPG from publisher Adult Swim and Developer White Rabbit, we believe they’ve nailed the mark for better or for worst.

In Death’s Gambit, we’re introduced to Sorun, a soldier who recently died in battle. On his way to have his body burned in a funeral fire, Sorun meets Death who signs a contract making him immortal and sets him loose on taking on a group of soldiers who have also been turned immortal.

Like the Soul series storytelling, most of the game’s story is kept under wrap at first, allowing you to come up with your own theory about everything that is happening, while it works with the Soul series and other games like Dead Cells, Death’s Gambit doesn’t give you enough information to allow you to really get into it. However there is an exception, when you die after succeeding at key points, you’re given a glimpse at Soren’s tragic life which gives us an appreciation for the character.

When it comes to gameplay, Death’s Gambit is purposely slow, with Soren carrying huge weapons that take time to swing and do damage. A stamina meter is also applied and is associated with multiple features of Soren’s movement including attacks, jumping and dodging.

There is a few problems you can expect from this though and it mainly comes in the form of timing and controls. Much of the enemies you end up going up against are generally fast and your weapons based on the ones we’ve found and gotten to try, are extremely slow. leading to some insanely frustrating deaths that feels like they could have been easily avoided.

It’s because of this that I found myself putting the controller down and restarting the game from the beginning with different stats more times than I cared to admit until I found the right build and weapons that worked for me. If you’re into the meticulous planning with your stats, a lot of the negativity towards being an enemy’s pin cushion will go away.

Even if you’re not like me and force yourself to start over, you can still rack up the experience points fairly easily thanks to fact that you won’t lose your experience – or souls – after you die. This allows you to go and boost your shortcomings without having some crazed maze of death all over again. You do however, lose something equally important and that is your health items.

It also helps that Death’s Gambit is beautifully crafted with some of the best pixel-art we’ve seen yet, which really pulls the dark/gothic world together. It especially makes itself useful when it comes to monsters and extravagant characters like Death. The music helps set the mood and accompanies the art, raising tension in the boss battles and keeping up the sense of dread as you expect to be mowed down by the next well drawn creature.

It’s sad to say that we can’t judge Death’s Gambit for it’s own merits as its mechanics have been borrowed from one of the most recognizably challenging games released within the last two generations only done as a 2D pixel art hack’n’slash. Still what it does, it does right, and if you can get over some of the bumps from the slowness and the ever frustrating multiple deaths, Death’s Gambit proves itself to be one of the better indie titles of the year.