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CURSE OF THE DEAD GODS REVIEW — HADES ON HARD MODE

Curse these cursed curses!
Jason Rodriguez
|
Published: févr. 23, 2021 5:01 PM UTC+1

Curse of the Dead Gods, an action roguelike from Passtech Games and Focus Home
Interactive, has been part of Steam’s Early Access program for almost a year.
Though I’ve only played it recently, I easily noticed similarities with Hades.
Supergiant’s offering happens to be something I consider as the pinnacle of
games in the action roguelike genre.

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As such, I went in to Curse of the Dead Gods with an open mind, keen to see if
it is worthwhile. There are several features and mechanics that make it unique.
Unfortunately, it also has a number of flaws that can’t be ignored.

 


MR. GENERIC ADVENTURER

In Curse of the Dead Gods, you play as some generic adventurer fella named
Caradog McCallister. Mind you, I don’t even recall his name being mentioned
in-game (I just found it on the wiki). That’s the first flaw: the game has
absolutely no story, at least not one that kept me engaged.



Given that it’s a single-player title, I didn’t feel invested in Caradog’s
journey, motivations, or why he’s delving into dungeons in the first place. I
don’t even remember any semblance of voice acting outside of character grunts
and enemy shrieks.




HELLO, HADES

Curse of the Dead Gods has three temples, each one with its own themes, traps,
regular enemy mobs, and boss encounters. Level design is wonderful, and you’ll
notice an emphasis on Mesoamerican culture as you progress. The enemies and boss
encounters are also well crafted, but a bit too limited.



As for the Hades similarity I mentioned earlier, it pertains to the room-to-room
clearing, with specific rooms providing particular buffs. The key difference in
Curse of the Dead Gods is that a temple’s layout is readily seen. You can plan
ahead and strategize, choosing which rewards you want to focus on. You can find
new weapons, weapon upgrades, attribute boosts, relics, gold, health fountains,
and even a challenge or two. Likewise, there are several unique mechanics
presented. One example is light versus darkness, where you can use a torch to
see traps or light braziers. However, a room that’s shrouded in darkness will
cause you to take more damage.





Another mechanic that you’ll need to master early on is corruption. This builds
up if you sacrifice to earn a reward, if you get hit by certain enemy attacks,
or whenever you enter a new room. Upon hitting 100 points, you’ll get afflicted
by a random curse. Some of these are negligible (such as traps activating
automatically), and one can even be used for a specific build (your torch can no
longer light braziers, but you don’t take extra damage while in the dark).
However, there are a select few that can be truly detrimental, such as
corruption that slowly builds over time.



With how the mechanic is implemented, there’s a possibility that you’ll hit the
fifth curse. This one’s no longer random, as it simply causes your health to
drop until only one HP remains. Assuming you can’t find a means of lowering your
corruption (i.e., relics or weapon perks), then you’ll find yourself at the
mercy of RNG.




PARRYING LIKE IT’S DARK SOULS

In terms of battling opponents, Curse of the Dead Gods has one of the most
enjoyable combat systems I’ve experienced. It’s extremely skill based, with a
steep learning curve that prioritizes high-risk, high-reward actions. Think of
it as akin to Dark Souls and other Souls-like games given that you use your
stamina to dodge and parry attacks. Time these right, and you’ll regenerate
stamina (or in the case of parries, you’ll also stun enemies). Likewise,
slashing, dicing, and smashing foes can be very satisfying due to the weight and
impact of attacks. There’s even the “greed kills” mechanic, where chaining kills
back to back without getting hit allows you to earn more gold.



The game’s weapon system is used in conjunction with the torch (the light versus
dark mechanic I detailed above). There are keybinds for the torch, a main-hand
plus off-hand/secondary weapon combo, and another for a two-handed weapon. You
can freely switch on the fly and, outside of two-handers, you can even dodge or
parry to cancel attack animations. Just be sure to use a controller, since the
mouse and keyboard setup is hard to get used to.





A major gripe I do have, though, is with Curse of the Dead Gods‘ weapon pool.
Although weapons have different charged attacks and capabilities, very few were
worthwhile to use. For instance, I primarily completed my runs using a
one-handed sword and shield combo. The sword didn’t use up stamina whenever I
landed a finisher, and the shield had a chance of executing a parry
automatically. The only substitute I used for the sword was a mace that offered
increased damage per second depending on the level of relics I’d obtained.



Other than these, I never really found much use for the other types of
armaments. In some ways, I felt held back if I wasn’t choosing something that
could be stacked with an attribute, relic perk, or heal-on-kill/heal-on-critical
effects. Furthermore, many cursed weapons just became too cumbersome to wield
due to certain affixes they could end up with.




CURSE OF THE DEAD GODS‘ PROGRESSION

After finishing a dungeon run (or failing one), you’ll lose all your gold and
boosted attributes. However, you’ll retain resources that let you unlock
permanent perks and discoverable weapon types. You may also obtain altars that
offer a selection of gear and “divine favors” (rerolls in case you want a
different reward).



In essence, Curse of the Dead Gods follows the core gameplay loop that the
action roguelike genre is known for. You enter a dungeon, get killed, earn some
upgrades, and then get beat up some more. You lather, rinse, and repeat all of
these until you eventually triumph. The biggest downside, however, is that
there’s not much else to look forward to.




WHAT’S THE POINT?

Your first few romps in Curse of the Dead Gods will be against enemies in a
temple with roughly seven rooms. There might be multiple fights in each room,
mind you. These will culminate in a champion encounter. Later, each temple gets
a second champion (with a total of 14 rooms). After that, the third tier
features that temple’s avatar plus its two champions (with 21 rooms). That’s
just for a single type of temple, and you’re likely to get bored with facing the
same mobs throughout your runs in the other two.



Eventually, you’ll unlock the final temple where the boss resides. There are
three sections here (a total of 24 rooms this time). This run has champions and
avatars that can be fought, as well as a “mixed roster” of opponents (mobs from
various temples can appear). Although I managed to defeat the final boss, the
next part just had the same old temple delves. The only thing that changed was
the difficulty spike: tougher enemies, fewer healing fountains, and increased
damage taken. By that point, I was already tired.



I genuinely don’t mind challenging action roguelike games. Unfortunately, Curse
of the Dead Gods didn’t scratch the itch the same way that Hades did. It seems
that a lot of development time was spent on crafting perfect dodges and parries
(which is fine), and too little on content, pacing, and structure. Neither the
story nor the character was interesting, and the bestiary was very limited.
There also wasn’t a lot to go by when it came to experimentation and
customization. It led to a cycle that became too redundant and repetitive,
compounded by an over-reliance on RNG curses. In the end, I couldn’t help but
realize that I was just going through the motions. At the very least, the combat
was excellent.





Post Tag:
Curse of the Dead Gods
Focus Home Interactive
Passtech Games
7
Curse of the Dead Gods
Curse of the Dead Gods' combat system is extremely rewarding, and the challenge
will keep you on your toes. Unfortunately, it lacks a lot in terms of content
and it can be repetitive within a few hours. It's worth playing in bursts, but
it doesn't have enough to satisfy long-term engagement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Author
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Jason Rodriguez
Jason Rodriguez is a guides writer. Most of his work can be found on PC Invasion
(around 3,400+ published articles). He's also written for IGN, GameSpot,
Polygon, TechRaptor, Gameskinny, and more. He's also one of only five games
journalists from the Philippines. Just kidding. There are definitely more
around, but he doesn't know anyone. Mabuhay!
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