Have a Nice Death Review (A Rare Lyric)
Have a Nice Death Review
This is a tough one, but generally as I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, I’m going to give this a recommend.
I was originally interested in buying this game because it shares various similarities to the metroidvania game, Hollow Knight and therefore, it looked like something that I might enjoy. However, after playing it now for around eight hours, I am slightly conflicted with whether I really like this game or not. This is mainly because it has no story at all and a frustrating death mechanic that resets nearly all but a slight amount of progress upon dying. At first, I found this mechanic to be quite frustrating, and if it weren’t for some solid gameplay mechanics, it would have been a deal breaker for me. But, as I’ll explain, there are many positive elements to this game too that still make it worth playing overall in my opinion.
Gameplay.
Have you ever wanted to play as Death, claiming souls with the hack-and-slash of a scythe that has cool animations and upgrade pathways? Great! Because this game lets you do that, and it is honestly the best part about this title.
The gameplay is honestly the only thing that made me open up the game again after my initial disillusionment with it after realizing that progress is mostly reset upon death. The combat feels fluid, challenging and satisfying and there is a genuine sense of progression when it comes to getting better at it.
There are three available weapon types that you can equip Death with: the cloak weapons, spells, and the main weapon, the scythe. All of these weapons feel meaningfully different from each other and using them in tandem can create the opportunity for interesting combos that add some variation to the gameplay. The feeling of deciding to keep fire arrows equipped so you can have a long-range option for a particular boss while using a cloak item such as daggers for a close attack option genuinely adds a nice layer of nuance to the gameplay which feels satisfying when executed correctly. The whole thing feels fluid, responsive and balanced. So, it’s great! And no other complaints there.
(The same goes for the art style, which, although in early access, is still really gorgeous and looks markedly different for each area).
The Problem.
The only real problem that I have with this game, then, is the repetitiveness. This game is REALLY repetitive (at least in its current early access stage). I don’t see how a game developer in 2022 can expect their player base to play through the same levels just to end up dying to lose their progress and do it all over again. It’s strange. Especially when you consider that there are so many games out nowadays (many of which are free) that offer the opportunity for emergent gameplay upon each playthrough and many of which actually reward the player with permanent items that have more of an impact on gameplay than those in Have a Nice Death do.
Runs usually go this way: start off by killing a bunch of low-level mobs, get curses which unlock branching powerups, collect weapons through the various sub-levels, beat the end of area boss to buy heals, and then do it all over again for a different area with a different end of area boss. This formula would be okay if there was a genuine sense of reward at the end of each run, but there kind of isn’t. After the completion of a run all the player gets in return is a few gold pieces that they can use in a shop to purchase items such as cloak weapons that can be unlocked on the next run or food that gives certain powerups for a small duration. I really would have liked something permanent in return for my progress in this game, even if it’s just a cosmetic item such as a new robe for Death or something. I think that this would have broken up the monotony of repeating the first levels and added some much-needed meaningful variation to the game.
Conclusion.
Have a Nice Death is a game with fun mechanics, a solid identity, and a lot of promise. However, due to issues such as lack of meaningful rewards and the requirement to repeat the same bosses, it just doesn’t feel complete enough at this stage. Hopefully, this will be resolved when the game launches fully, which should bring much more dimensions into the game for hopeful players such as myself to tuck into.
However, despite its feeling of incompleteness and sometimes frustratingly repetitive gameplay, the game is fun. I would like however, to see in the future more variation in terms of bosses, levels, cosmetics, and weapon upgrades to add more variation to the gameplay because it desperately needs it. In short, I would say that if this game is in the sale, then buy it, if it’s full price though, then it still just about justifies a purchase (for me).