Death's Gambit

« Death's Gambit has all the makings of a fantastic 2D Souls-like experience. Getting through the campaign right now requires a bit of patience due to glitches so hopefully, White Rabbit will refine the experience to ensure players can get the most out of it. »

« Death's Gambit saw the opportunity to take two genres and tweak them enough to make a new game out of it — and it worked. The core mechanics, while markedly unoriginal, are genuinely fun to play, and the stunning sound and visuals make it a treat to experience. This game is far from perfect, though, with a lacking story and unfortunately glitchy points, but is still worth the time and money to check out. While I wouldn't say that Death's Gambit is an improvement upon either Metroidvania or Souls-like games, it's a great addition to both genres. »

« It may be different to what was initially promised, but Death's Gambit is nevertheless a great game, especially if you are into Dark Souls, Castlevania and Shadow of the Colossus, all mixed and presented in a beautiful 2D art style. »

« At the end of the day, if 2D Souls-inspired action platformers with Metroidvania elements are your thing, you absolutely need to play this game. Story aside, the gameplay is great and the difficulty hits that sweet spot between too hard and too easy. Once you grasp it, it is intuitive and pretty simple but until then you will die, die, die and die some more. With a modest $20 price tag, I recommend it. »

« Though it's not the best platformer, the story and environment alone make it a must play for Dark Souls fans and retro Metroidvania junkies alike. There's plenty here to enjoy, with plenty of replay value for those it hooks. »

« Death’s Gambit provides an interesting 2D challenge with its dark world filled with fierce enemies. While I can’t recommend it for everyone, anyone who likes challenging 2D action-adventure games will enjoy this title. »

« Death's Gambit takes a slightly less punishing approach to progress than other games in it's sub-genre and is all the better for it. While the vast majority of world building and gameplay concepts are a loving pastiche of Dark Souls, Death's Gambit's balanced challenge, sense of humour and unique visuals allow it to stand on it's own feet and earn a rightful place in the game collections of those souls who are drawn to the fire of the first flame and others who simply enjoy a challenging adventure, laden with mystery. »

« While Death’s Gambit as a whole falls a bit short of expectations, the game itself is a solid action-RPG. The game looks great and runs well most of the time, with a solid challenge that is also unlikely to frustrate players too much. With multiple ways to experience the game, I can see myself returning to the game with a different playstyle. Overall, Death’s Gambit does justice to some of its lofty comparisons, though some more time in the oven would have helped polish the title. »

« Overall a good quality metroidvania platformer. They put a lot of effort into the quality of artwork and sound design to create a charming world. Fully voiced dialog with half decent voice actors was a nice touch. It does have similarities to dark souls such as the wide range of play styles a player can use e.g. different weapons or mage class, and the statistics scaling system is very familiar. However the game is not dark and gritty , it's more light hearted fantasy, not taking itself too seriously and even humorous at times. The story is a little convoluted, it does hold together for the most part but much of the dialog is oddly written, so often characters would say a lot of words that didn't have any meaning and left me confused. Just like in dark souls you end up with a fair amount of item clutter, and mostly useless items, but you can dispose of these. I found the skilltree underwhelming in that no individual ability was that useful, and probably could have completed the game without any of them. No fast travel was a nuisance, but sometimes passing through an area again reveals new overlooked details. Despite a few minor flaws, Death's Gambit is a well rounded experience, and there's enough variety and fun factor here to give a second play through. »

« I'm not a big fan of artificial difficulty. I mean that's about 5minutes work for devs to raise mobs hp and damage, then they can namedrop dark souls.. imagine that temptation to sell any crap without working on anything else (unlike the soulsbornes, which were excellently balanced and worked games). Then there are gems, like Death Gambit or Blasphemous, with a lot of work and passion put into them.. yet still with that damn artificial difficulty. I mean the games are hard enough by gamedesign when they're worked. Besides those are 2d, you can't do much. Realistically, that means a lot of useless deaths getting 2-shot by mobs, a lot of wasted time hitting 10+ times each mob, and a lot of running from combat to heal. Tedious, boring, chorish.. anything but challenging or fun. Why da fuq ruin the games. Anyway.. yeah -3 for artificial difficulty, -2 for the level cap. at 150, hit midgame and underpowered. And -2 more for wasting my time playing till endgame where it becomes unplayable, having to hit 20, 30 times each monster. Good game but fk u back devs. Gimme crit builds if you pull crap like that »

« Some will say this is a tribute to the Souls series, but it's a poor man's version of it In 2D form. The 2D graphics are not bad. Enemies are nicely drawn, especially the bosses. The background and levels are also nice. Though, not everything is consistent in this department, and makes certain things stand out more - not always a good thing. The levels are also not that big, and are very interconnected with each other. So, you will be backtracking a lot. A lot. The music is probably one of the better aspect of the game, and it stands out the most. It's fits the game well with it's solemn and melancholy atmosphere it creates. And it's helps the story out, which is also not bad, and helps to keep the player going. Game-play and controls are the biggest disappointment. This is where it starts falling part. I don't mind a good challenging game, but controls have to be very responsive, and enemies in tune with them. I always feel there is a delay in game response, which is a feeling I didn't get with the Soul series. Stamina bar is also something that is a bit wonky, especially when facing enemies with large health bars - and where dodging doesn't always works or helps get you away from damage. Overall, it's not a bad game, but the controls, and the game-play, just don't feel in tune with each other, often conflicting with one another, which only works against the whole Souls experience, and hurts it more than helps. And the game feels short, but is made to feel longer with what some will politely say as "challenging" when that is mostly due to the poor controls and game play. Paying more than $10 for the game is not reasonable. »

« Really great game, the story is super predictable but it's still solid. The gameplay is great imo, played through this game multiple times with multiple builds and had a ton of fun with each. »

« I kind of feel bad for the mix reviews this game received from the moment it got released. After playing it I could tell the heart and passion that went into this. I'm not aware of the bugs or problems the game had at first but as of now from a story and gameplay perspective Death's gambit is beautiful from its music to story, simply outright fun, and challenging. In my eyes Death's Gambit is perfect and has given me an amazing experience that I won't ever forget. »

« If you like Dark Souls you'll get more enjoyment out of this game than most players...which is not to say you will enjoy it. It's one thing to reach for the difficulty found in Souls games, it's another thing entirely to nail the balance of discovery, build variety, and difficulty that Souls makes look easy. To its credit Death's Gambit looks and sounds really good for a 2D Souls-like. Initially you'll feel compelled to learn more about the world and story. But early on the drudgery sets in, and you'll be skipping dialogue and trying to run through sections to get some semblance of progression. The worst part for me was the stiffness of movement you have to fight against compared to enemies' and bosses' seemingly effortless ability to put danger in your path. It really comes down to the fact that it's too easy for your health and stamina bar to deplete. So even when you feel like you have an enemy's moves down, you find yourself without enough red or green bar to survive, eliciting an amount of grinding that feels like padding considering the limited nature of the game. I feel bad going so hard on White Rabbit's first game. The developer's made great strides in putting out a competent product that almost feels like a B game, but as you go on the limitations show their faces more and more and outstay their welcome. »

« Gameplay : 7 (Good dark souls copy) Bosses : 8 (Nice dslike bosses) Story : 7 (Cool story) »

« This game is a gem! From the stunning pixel art style to the breathtaking soundtrack made by Kyle Hnedak (serious props for the soundtrack, it’s amazing) and of course the fluid challenging combat. The combat system starts of simple: One preforms a attack-string by tapping the designated button and there is a jump and roll attack. One blocks, dodges and parries/counter attacks to avoid damage and punish.Then there are weapon abilities which both boasts higher damage and secondary effects such as bleed/fire or an increased damage buff. Where the twist comes in is with the talent tree and weapons. Talents can give the player certain buffs when preforming a certain action, for example: Next Aerial Attack *4 damage after executing a full attack-string or blocking an attack reduces all ability cooldowns with 2 secs. Some weapons have similar effects, so combining weapons, abilities and talents can really dish out some damage if you play your cards right. There are also more mechanically adding talents such as an air dodge and perfect blocking. When it comes to builds then the game generally has 3: Strength, Finesse and a Intelligences builds. They can all be mix and matched, all sporting different weapons to choose from. There are also starting classes which determine how to obtain additional “mana” used for abilities, 2 class specific talents each and some other perks. But what good does a combat system do without opponents? Death’s Gambit presents a decent plethora of enemies and some incredible bosses with overall creative battle design to face of against. But the fight isn’t over when you defeat the boss. Heroic Rematches can be had with defeated bosses for rewards. The bosses obviously get stronger, but they also get a slew of new attacks! Some endgame heroic bosses will surely give seasoned players a challenge, but if that’s not enough then there’s always NG+ which the developers have fleshed out to a surprising degree. (since most games literally just tend to buff enemies and send you on your way) Then there’s the story, which touches upon themes like life and death (starring Death himself) with a very emotional undertone featuring very humane voice acting. I can’t say too much without spoiling, so all I can say is that I thoroughly liked it. This game even used dying as a story feature instead of just a gameplay mechanic. Where I feel the game falls short is the amount of content it presents. It’s certainly fits it’s price range, but I’m left wanting more. There was a lack of weapons (all existing weapons were unique though), some areas felt too short and I was left wanting more lore and story than what was presented. Some soundtracks like at least the majority of the “Gaianslayer” OST didn’t even get used, which is a shame since it’s truly EPIC. My playthroughs of the game took around 10 hours each to beat (minus some heroic bosses I’m stuck on...) across 4 save files with different builds. Luckily the developers are currently working on further content to the game beside patches and bug fixes. Hopefully this spoiler-free review was somewhat fulfilling and I certainly hope anyone who decides to pick this gem up end up enjoying it as much as I do. »