Death’s Gambit definitely has the look of a Souls game. But even the store page no longer pushes that, because it’s something of a misnomer. Still, it’s another example of the duality of Adult Swim Games’ publishing; and I think White Rabbit deserves a bit of praise for their work, here.
I really don’t like giving away too much in Story sections, so I’ll keep it to a minimum. You play as Sorun, who is dead. But that’s okay, because he made a deal with Death; a deal which can be cancelled at any time (more on that below). The war Sorun died in is the backstory of the game.
Needless to say, the story is a draw, though it isn’t necessarily told in a linear fashion. Also, the voice acting is all fairly good. Just thought I’d get that out there.
Gameplay is a bit of a surprise, given how the game looks, but the Death’s Gambit doesn’t really play like a Souls game, aside from some little things. It actually winds up much more like a class-based Metroidvania game with rolling, guard breaking and parrying.
Speaking of, each of the classes have a purpose of their own. While you can build them all the same, they each have unique properties that change how you go about things. For example, the Blood Knight makes it fairly easy to get through the game with its counterattack based healing. The Acolyte of Death can restore broken save statues, and so on.
In general, the combat revolves around taking advantage of openings. And, you know, knowing when to dodge/block/parry (the latter takes some effort to learn). You do need to keep an eye on your stamina bar, though, because pretty much every action other than running uses it up.
The bosses are challenging, and much like its stylistic predecessor, enemies can be a problem if you don’t play smart. You’ll want to use the bow to deal with some enemies from far off. There’s also one really interesting change from the Souls format that the game imitates; you don’t lose your shards on death.
Rather, you lose one of your healing items, which are normally regenerated upon reaching a statue. And they’ve even accounted for your inability to easily go pick up your lost plume; you can spend some shards to restore all of them to you. Bottom line: The combat is a little clunky, but I feel that’s by design… mostly.
Graphically game is realy quite pretty. The sprite-work really brings to mind the likes of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Not in the strictest sense, though; rather, I mean in the way objects rotate, breathe, and move. They put a lot of effort into making the game beautiful, and it genuinely shows.
The controls seem a little weird when you first pick the game up. But, after a while, they feel like second nature. That said, I can only imagine what havoc they’re wreaking on the parts of my brain dedicated to controls for games. if I had one nit to pick, though, it would be that holding left bumper to climb ladders is weird, and I forget it almost 50% of the time.
White Rabbit is incredibly proud of the soundtrack to Death’s Gambit. And they should be; it does the work good game music should do. It accurately conveys the emotion of the locales you visit. As a matter of fact, they’re so proud of it, that the game literally won’t play if you set all audio sources to zero. And good lord, why would you?
You might notice that this review seems a bit light. You might also notice that every one of these screenshots can be found on the game’s store page. And that is because, right now, the game is fairly buggy.
Yes, there’s actually a bug that prevents Steam’s built-in screenshot feature from functioning. The game has performance issues on certain monitors. Almost all custom control and display settings reset when you quit and relaunch the game. There’s an entire discussion thread on it.
They have plans to patch most of this, as soon as they know what causes it. This is why I’m not dinging its score over it; they’re dedicated to fixing what’s wrong. There is a legitimate effort to make the game the best it can be, and I respect that, even if I’d normally knock points for some of the things that happen with the game.
I’d be lying if I said Death’s Gambit was perfect. I don’t know how it stacks up to other 2D games that are similar. But, it delivers an entertaining experience, it’s gorgeous, and it offers a bit of replay value. I’d definitely give it my recommendation, for whatever that’s worth.
“While a little rough around the edges, Death’s Gambit gives a nice 2D action/adventure experience.”
Final Score:
4/5
Title: Death’s Gambit
Platform: PC (reviewed), PS4
Genre: Action, Adventure, RPG
Developer: White Rabbit
Publisher: Adult Swim Games
Release Date: August 13, 2018
*We were provided a copy of this game for review*
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