Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

Deadcellvania: Escape of the Prisoner

Among roleplaying games, hybrids of genres sometimes occur like that between RPGs and first-person shooters akin to the Borderlands series. Although the roguelike subgenre of RPGs had its origins in the West, Eastern game developers like Spike Chunsoft would popularize it with titles such as its Shiren the Wanderer series and hybrids with mainstream roleplaying game series such as Dragon Quest. The Metroidvania action-adventure game subgenre would later find its way into roguelike games, with a contemporary mixture of them being Motion Twin’s Dead Cells, which saw its original release in 2018 on several consoles and would receive sizeable downloadable content.

Dead Cells occurs on a nameless island, with the player controlling a character known as the Prisoner, capable of possessing dead bodies with a mortal body but immortal head. The Prisoner ultimately decides to commit regicide, believing the king’s death will make something happen for the better on the island, and gets help from the Collector, an enigmatic hooded figure. While some of the backstory sporadically revealed is decent, supposedly more with each of the Prisoner’s subsequent escape attempts (central to the gameplay), the main narrative never reaches excellence.

As a hybrid of the roguelike and Metroidvania subgenres, Dead Cells features completely randomized side-scrolling dungeons that regenerate with each of the Prisoner’s deaths during its various tries to escape incarceration, alongside the sporadic acquisition of abilities to enhance exploration of said areas, for instance, one that turns saplings into extensive climbable vines. As the Prisoner advances throughout areas, teleportation points are unlocked, allowing instant conveyance among others in each randomized region. Also encountered are upgrades to three different attack categories coupled with heightened maximum health. No system of magic points exists in Dead Cells, with many abilities requiring some time to recharge before they become available for subsequent use.

Occasionally, the Prisoner also receives the titular Dead Cells from defeated foes, which players can use to unlock upgrades such as health potions recovering most hit points. Players can also receive mutations for enhancements such as higher damage for combination attacks (and players can chain limitless attacks with certain weapons without fear of running out). Fortunately, the player can invest obtained Cells into abilities without unlocking them, which can be handy since whenever enemies kill the Prisoner, the game resets to the beginning, with all Cells the Prisoner hasn’t used and upgrades to the three main weapon types lost, among other things.

"I'm Prisoner of the world!"

Fortunately, an Assist Mode that can reduce the health of enemies and enable many other anti-frustration abilities exists, which can take the edge off the old-school brutality of Dead Cells and reduce the repetitive disposition of the game. Assist Mode can further alter what happens to the Prisoner upon death, with the most forgiving feature being that the character revives at the last checkpoint, which is in most cases a door traveled through, players luckily being able to go back through it to update their progress and reduces repetition that can occur even with the offsets enabled, given the trickiness of many enemy patterns. Aside from the potential for repetitiveness and the potential to waste money on weapons only for them to get weaker, the developers succeeded in accommodating different player skill levels when producing the game.

More fortunately, the control of Dead Cells is tight, with another one of the mentioned Assist Mode’s features being the potential to have an entire map of each area revealed upon entering them, alongside easy inventory management and the ability to quit the game at any moment and resume play where the player left off. Granted, the repetitiveness of the game mechanics, given that players still must redo portions if they die with the maximum Assist Mode options enabled, bleed into interaction, but Motion Twin’s project is very user-friendly.

The soundtrack fits the different areas of the game, with good sound effects and gibberish acting as “voices” for whatever characters the Prisoner (who is silent) encounters fitting them (and not sounding annoying at all), but there are maybe a few moments that are a bit too quiet.

The 2-D visuals also look nice, with good designs for the characters and enemies, fluid animation, and no reskins. However, the action can become chaotic and sometimes negatively impact the gameplay.

Finally, with all Assist Mode options fully enabled, one can finish a single playthrough in around three hours; however, a traditional experience can extend playtime well beyond that. While the potential repetitiveness will deter some players, those who don’t mind will be happy to know that plenty of lasting appeal exists in the randomization and one hundred-plus Steam Achievements.

Overall, while Dead Cells can be a brief experience, especially with the Assist Mode options implemented at their maximum levels, and repetitiveness will deter many players, it proves to be a fun experience, given its fast, fluid game mechanics, tight control, solid audiovisual presentation, and extended lasting appeal. Granted, players will need to play through the game multiple times to get the most out of the story, which is otherwise paper-thin. However, the heavy randomization and consequential endless experiences make the game infinitely replayable. Motion Twin’s title further proves that gaming hybrids can work, and I would gladly be willing to play more of its kind were I to discover any.

This review is based on a single playthrough to the standard ending with all options of Assist Mode enabled and maximized.