Death and Taxes Review (Synik)
TLDR: What it lacks in depth it makes up for with a fun story, multiple endings, and a plethora of achievements to aim for.
PROS:
➕Music
➕Humor
➕Multiple choices/endings
➕Collectables/achievements
➕Good replayability considering its genre
➕Character customization
CONS:
➖Minimal/repetitive gameplay
➖Can drag on with minimal plot development
➖Lack of emotional investment
Content (Game world/Narrative) –
The game world consists of a visual novel-esque type of backdrop - you’ll either be plucking away at your office job via Papers, Please, or you’ll be talking to a character like a visual novel. There is some small traversal with an elevator that I really don’t think should have been in the game. Would be less clicking if it was just zoomable rooms a la Fallout Shelter.
The narrative is good, basically you do your job or you don’t. There are consequences either way and the choices you make directly impact the multiple endings.
Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) –
Really you’ll only be making choices by checking boxes or what type of response to say. There isn’t much for gameplay here, but that’s generally par for course for visual novels.
Not a difficult game - the game cleverly holds your hand depending on which route you want to take, either go against the rules, or follow them.
Graphics (Quality/Technical) –
Not bad, mostly hand drawn or pixelated.
Good on technical, I experienced no bugs or issues.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD
Audio –
Music is solid, I liked the radio on your desk, but you only get ~3 song choices. Still, each was different and good in their own way.
Great voice acting, most of the characters are voice acted and there is a good amount of lines here.
Replay Factor (Longevity) –
There’s some decent replay. First, the amount of achievements here is very high considering the length.
Second, the multiple endings backed by many different choices provide some good replayability, even if it does boil down to 4 stats.
Third, New Game+ is smoothly transitioned and immediate upon completion. I also really like how in NG+ there are options that reference how this isn’t your first playthrough.
This might be one of the most replayable “Visual novel”-type games that is out there.
Final Verdict –
Death and Taxes (D&T) is a sort of visual novel game where you play as the grim reaper and make choices on who lives or dies. These choices influence the plot and endings for the game.
For my biggest negative, I would say it's the lack of direct impact relating to the choices of killing or sparing people. It seems like that consequences for this choice are purely related to the type of ending and/or interoffice interactions. Whatever choices you make, you get a quick 1-2 sentence headline from your phone app. After reading through almost all of them for multiple in-game days, I just found it boring, uneventful, and just simply detached from any emotional meaning. Perhaps that’s the type of game this is - more of a focus on the humor elements.
To expand on this in an even wider lens, there is a lack of meaning for almost all parts of the game aside from either following the rules or going against it. I’ve already mentioned that the humans don’t matter, but this kind of extends to the characters too. You’ll meet a few characters in the bar each weekend and these don’t really matter or affect anything aside from adding some flavor to the world.
I’m being nitpicky because D&T is a good game, but it could use some more interesting mechanics with meaning behind them.
As for the positives, I enjoyed many aspects of D&T - humor, choices, replayability, achievements, and music. Nothing stood out as exceptional, but all parts were done well. If I had to pick one, I’d say that choices (between rebellion or rules) or humor are my favorite areas.
Overall, I enjoyed D&T. It’s fun and tells a short story without burying the player in complex systems. You won’t find deep RPG choices here that will force you to pick between 5 decisions, each with their own varying degrees of consequences. Instead, you’ll check some boxes and things happen based on if you listen to your boss or not.
Recommend?
Yes
You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR