In recent years, many independent studios have made roguelikes one of the most popular titles. We have even felt saturated, but some present something fresh and interesting; an example is Have A Nice Death. Developed by Magic Design Studios and distributed by Gearbox Publishing, this 2D roguelike introduces us to Death, the CEO of Death Incorporated, the company in charge of processing and reviewing the protocols for souls to enter the underworld. The twist in the plot is that it shows it as a bit of a boring and laborious office job, or as we call it in Mexico: very Godínez.
Despite the fact that death is a very serious subject and makes many philosophize, in Have Nice Death has a comic tone, inspired by series like The office and Parks & Recreations. At times, it does excellently thanks to its charismatic cast and to the fact that it is full of very eloquent interactions, the problem is that sometimes it falls far short of what Greg Daniels’ scripts achieved.
Excellent work environment!
We liked the Death Incorporated headquarters setting a lot because the characters talk about common problems in an office, how annoying a colleague can be, and the idea of uniting and going on strike, among other topics. We liked that it is from the oldest employee to the intern, the one who knows all the gossip, the bitter one, and everyone we meet in real life. The interaction is a lot of fun, and it’s always exciting to see new dialogue… even though a lot of it is full of clichés. On the other hand, when we start a game and leave the office, the setting loses some points and also its charm.
Despite the fact that the apartments and floors—the levels—have different themes and try to differentiate themselves, the art relies heavily on dark color palettes and very gray and insipid tones, which makes the settings similar. Some games, like Hollow Knightwho also seek a gloomy environment, manage to stand out and that we differentiate each place, but in Have A Nice Death It is not the case.
Have a good death (get used to it)
The character, boss and enemy design is sensational because the 2D digital illustration style is unique and distinctive. However, we are talking about a roguelike, where the most important thing is the combat.
In this sense, Have A Nice Death It stands out for the movement, fluidity and smoothness of the gameplay. The developers describe it as a combination of Dead Cells and Cupheadand it makes a lot of sense, because Sébastien Bénar, in charge of the development of Dead Cellshelped Magic Design in the creative process.
The combat in each cycle is interesting and different, which motivates us to play non-stop. There are an immense number of variations; from our main weapon to the secondary ones, the curses, the floors we can go to and the department routes, which makes it highly replayable and addictive.
When starting a cycle we are asked if we want to keep our sickle in its base form or modify it to decrease its strength and increase its range or vice versa, but there are many more options. So, if at the end of a round the sickle we chose did not fully convince us, in the next attempt we can another combination until we find our favorite variant.
Other 2 movements are equipment and spells; We can buy them at the beginning of a round or find them on the floors. There are so many of them, so starting each game is very exciting because there are always skills to discover and test in combat.
The different uses of each make us think that we have found our favorite equipment, but 2 cycles later we find one that we like better, and that feeling is just great. This is how we can spend hours playing to discover all of them.
To complement the equipment are the curses, which are cards that are obtained in some levels and after defeating the bosses. They have benefits that range from increasing the damage of the sickle and secondary attacks to increasing defense or generating effects, such as poisoning or freezing enemies. These options serve to raise the characteristics of our weapons.
Another aspect that helps make each round unique is the map. Its aesthetic design is weak, but the ideas inside are fantastic. At the end of each floor we enter an elevator that can take us to one of the 3 levels, each with unique benefits. They may seem irrelevant decisions, but they are very useful to improve the strategy or fix a problem.
At the end of each level the options are randomly generated, so you can imagine the feeling of the elevator opening on the floor you want. Sometimes the benefits that seemed irrelevant turn out to be great, so you have to think very carefully about the short and long term. Also, the little elevator song fixes any anger we have. It is the typical elevator song in hotels and buildings that never gets tired and helps to achieve the office or godin atmosphere (whatever you prefer to call it).
The bosses, called the Lamentos, are in charge of each department. At first, his dialogues are funny, but they become repetitive; however, what matters is that the battles are brutal, no matter how many times we replay them. It is in these moments when we check if we make the right decisions, because they require all our skill and attention.
With a lot of influence and also identity
Have A Nice Death It manages to distinguish itself from other roguelikes and hook us so that every time we lose our lives we say “okay, another round” thanks to the setting and all the variants offered by the combat and the map. There will always be something that makes us think that the next game will be very different, because it is.
Plus, it always rewards us for trying. For example, at the end of a cycle, we earn gold to buy decorations for the office, XP to level up and unlock advantages, and our coworkers will have new dialogues to entertain us.
The last aspect that leads to Have A Nice Death is so replayable is that it has several endings. We do not want to spoil, so we will only say that finishing the adventure once is not enough to know the true outcome of Death and his adventure.
Before we wrap up, we’d like to talk about something that really affected our experience: performance on Nintendo Switch. It seems that on PC the title runs very well, but on the hybrid console it becomes annoying. At the start of each level the frame rate drops drastically, to the degree where we thought it was stuck.
In our first few games it only happened at those times, but coming up with the more difficult bosses, which fire a lot of projectiles and take up more space on the screen, we also had this problem, which ended up affecting our result. This effect hurts the title a lot, so hopefully Magic Design will fix it soon.
Another detail is that we put the game with text in Spanish, but sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, the speech bubbles appeared in Portuguese. It happened a few times, but it was rare, and let’s hope the developers catch this little bug.
Verdict
In conclusion, Have A Nice Death It stands out in what is truly important: the combination of combat and movement. It has several flaws, such as mediocre humor, lack of originality and heavy reliance on its inspirations, backgrounds and forgettable music, as well as performance on Switch, but as a roguelike it’s excellent and gets the job done.
Its gameplay is great for all the options and strategies it presents; we know that players will want to try all of them to arrive at their favorite. It also makes each game unique, so we also know that 30 hours or more will go by without feeling it and each one will feel like a new and valuable learning.
If you have a PC and you are a fan of roguelikes, we invite you to try Have A Nice Death immediately and discover the soul of this title that speaks a lot about death. In case you want to play on Nintendo Switch, we suggest you wait for a patch because poor performance can make this experience more frustrating where you will already get angry about how much you die.
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