Dead Cells is a 2D roguelike metroidvania. You play as a disgusting little blob of cells that globs itself onto the “head” of a beheaded body. Every time you die, you go back to the start of the game and start over again, fighting your way through, finding and buying upgrades, and making your way through a series of branching levels to get to the final boss.
The core gameplay is decent enough – you move, you jump, you double jump, you have some attacks, ect. It starts out pretty bog standard, and while there’s a handful of permanent “metroidvania”-esque upgrades that let you unlock additional paths, like a wall climbing ability, a lot of these unlocks are just things you use on specific locations to open up new paths.
That being said, the actual items you find help to mix up the gameplay more.
There’s a nice variety of weapons you can find, and they all have their own attack patterns and animations, and own strengths and weaknesses. Some are swift, some hit like trucks, and of course, as is common for such games, some are just a lot better than others, so you really want to find them. There are both melee and ranged weapons, and there’s a pretty good variety of each. Some apply status ailments that freeze enemies in place, or set them on fire, or spawn little biting monsters that run around and attack your enemies.
On top of this, you have skills with cooldowns that do things like throw grenades, launch knives in all directions, let you make a super fast slashing attack that puts you on the far side of your foes, or drop turrets that attack your enemies.
These are all things you pick up and can sometimes upgrade as you go through the game.
In each of the levels, there are also “scrolls” which give you what amount to level ups – they let you upgrade one of three different colors, which correspond to different weapon types, and they also get you additional hit points. The more you choose from each color, the less bonus hit points you get, so it pays to mix it up – but you can maximize your damage by only picking a single color during your run.
After each of the levels in the game, you reach an area where you can spend “orbs” – little glowy things – on permanent upgrades, like unlocking new weapons and skills that will drop in levels, or getting additional healing, or saving more of the gold money that you use in in-game item shops to buy items during your runs when you die. Additionally, if you can get through a stage without taking damage while killing enough enemies, or get through a stage fast enough, alternative doors open up in there with additional loot drops and orbs.
It is here you can also take “mutations”, which give you some sort of permanent static bonus during your run. These are varied, ranging from dealing extra damage when no enemies are near (ideal for abusing ranged attacks) to things that cause you to regain health when you kill enemies to dealing extra damage and taking less damage after being hurt. One will even save you from death one time, bringing you back to life and allowing you to continue a run.
When you die – as you inevitably will, sooner or later – you lose all the items and most of the gold and orbs you’re carrying at death, and start over from the beginning. Each run through the game, you have the option of going into several different levels, and there are even multiple boss options, with bosses appearing every 2-3 levels, and presenting a significantly higher level of challenge. The stages and bosses vary considerably, which helps to keep the gameplay fresh and varied.
Fortunately, the game isn’t overly long, so you’re never more than an hour away from the end of the game. If you’re going through the game quickly – which is often the best strategy due to the speed run bonuses – a full run may only clock in around 45 minutes, or less if you die sooner.
Once you beat the game, you can play through it again on a higher difficulty, which unlocks new paths through the levels and new enemies to fight. This, again, lends the game more replay value, and indeed, you won’t be able to see the whole game until you’ve beaten it on five of its six difficulty levels.
It’s likely you’ll get tired of the game before that point, but honestly, that’s okay. The game doesn’t need to go on forever, and after beating it for the first time on my seventh run, I am still feeling like there is more stuff to find and more levels to explore. I’ll probably give up before I 100% the game, but as it is so far, it’s been pretty fun and varied.
All in all, this is a game that is worth playing if you like roguelikes and metroidvania style games.
3.5