Dead Cells: A Ghastly Decay

Time to Beat: 18 Hours, 33 Minutes

In 2019 the Evil Empire created a plague that spread across the world, ruining entire kingdoms. No this isn't a Star Wars reference, a Reagan speech, a re-release of an album by Rage Against the Machine, or an article fifty years in the future describing the coronavirus. It's a game developed cooperatively by Motion Twin and Evil Empire.

Dead Cells is a metroidvania-roguelike set in a vaguely described kingdom. The player controls a recently executed citizen, their crime unknown. In the bowels of the Prisoner's Quarters they are reanimated by the Malaise, a virus with a mysterious origin. Every time the player dies their body is discarded, and they, as a clump of malignant cells, return to the Quarters, ready to revive another executed prisoner. The player transforms from a single organism, into a chaotic, unkillable cancer.

As an understated monstrosity they roam a decaying kingdom. Seeking vengeance? Truth? A sadistic glee at murdering other monsters? The developer doesn't concern itself with telling a detailed story, or prescribing a clear motive. The collective consciousness of the cells the player controls is a strange creature. It prefers not to speak, using a silly pantomime to communicate most of its thoughts. But it can read, and does talk upon occasion. Physically it can run, jump, roll, wield weapons and items, parry with a shield, and suffers no damage from falling (though it is stunned when falling from a great height). While Dead Cells demands the player navigate large dungeon levels and expansive rooftops, platforming is only perfunctory. The risk of a fall is rarely as great as in a proper platformer such as Shovel Knight, or even Braid.

Instead, Dead Cells focuses on combat, a quick paced melee/ranged fusion. The protagonist has four item slots. They wield two melee weapons/ranged weapons/shields at a time, while using two traps/powers/grenades. They have an additional backpack slot to hold onto backup gear. Gear, regardless of the category, has a color, a level, a quality, and bonus modifiers associated with it. Higher levels and better quality increase damage output. Modifiers are as simple as bonus damage on a burning target, or as crazy as enemies transmiting damage-over-time effects to each other. Dead Cells contains an incredible amount of Gear in all its varieties. Most of them feel unique. Initially the player can only access a limited range of Gear. Defeated enemies drop Cells. The player spends Cells between levels at the Collector to activate Blueprints. Blueprints are found scattered around the levels. Each blueprint is a piece of Gear, a Mutation, an upgrade, or an outfit. Once activated, the appropriate Gear is found throughout the dungeons.

Gear is associated with three colors. The protagonist has three stats indicated by the corresponding colors; Red (Brutality), Purple (Tactics), and Green (Survival). Each stat resets to one upon death. But stat boosters are scattered throughout levels. Picking up a stat booster lets the player choose one stat to increase. Red stats increase the damage of melee weapons, while purple improves ranged attacks, and green leans towards Powers/Grenades/Traps. A stat also increases the player's health. While a player prefers to upgrade the one or two stats that align with their Gear, the more a player chooses a stat, the less it increases their health. The first point in a stat causes the largest boost to health. To build a healthy hero the player needs at least a few points in each color. While most Gear is a single color, some Gear is two colors or gray. If two colors, the Gear doesn't combine both stats. It takes the better of the two colors. If gray, it uses the player's strongest stat.

In addition to Gear, the player acquires mutations, equipping one per level, to a max of three. Mutations are also aligned with the three stat colors.

A single life contains many temporary elements. Because Dead Cells is a rogue-like, the player loses their Gear, their gold, their stats, their mutations, and even their Cells when they die. They retain their unused blueprints, their unlocked blueprints (all Gear, mutations, costumes to be found in the levels), and their runes. Runes are permanent abilities. They don't help the player to defeat enemies. Instead, they are like keys to unlock secrets or different levels. There are eight in total. They are difficult to find, because Dead Cells doesn't tell the player where to look. This unnecessarily blocks access to areas. Also, the player can't check what Runes they've found (or what upgrades/blueprints they've unlocked), except at the very beginning of each run.

Each dungeon is a series of hallways and rooms. Of the fourteen non-boss areas I explored, only one or two felt mechanically unique. The rest weren't indistinguishable from each other. The Forgotten Sepulcher shines compared to the others. The entire area is dark, and the darkness hurts the protagonist. Passing by lanterns lights them, but the light slowly fades, and each lantern can only be lit once. The dungeons are full of enemies. In similar games, enemies defeated by the protagonist would reappear, but Dead Cells' don't. Each area contains secret zones, a shop or two, plenty of dead ends, and teleporters. The last of these are common and very well spaced, except on the rare occasion when they aren't. I can't explain how 95% of dungeons were well served by teleporters, but sometimes there were none to be found. They are helpful, because it means the player doesn't have to waste time running back and forth across large spaces. The map is also useful. It shows all the teleporters, shops, and areas of interest. And it is marked to show where the player hasn't explored. Dead Cells allows the player to save at any spot. After exiting, the player visits the rest area.

Between every level is the Collector's room. The player spends Cells to activate blueprints and buy upgrades, gain Mutations, heal, refill their health potions, and earn rewards for their performance in the previous dungeon. Dead Cells rewards the player for speed and precision. There are rewards for searching the entirety of every area, and for finishing as quickly as possible. Dead Cells seems to prefer rewarding the player with a high level weapon of the same type they already have, instead of a new type. Then it's onto the next area.

Dungeons contain a variety of enemies. Unfortunately, like Nioh, Dead Cells isn't content with introducing new enemies, it also likes to recycle old foes, but with more health and damage. The combat is hack-and-slash, at a frantic pace. The best method of fighting is inflicting continuous damage, since enemies flinch when they are attacked, restarting their attack animation. One annoying feature is that even when the player's attack animation passes through a wall, it doesn't strike the enemy on the other side. And because of the speed, and the hordes of enemies, I never found parrying useful, except for some of the bosses, but only with the correct character build.

The visuals of Dead Cells aren't impressive either. Everything looks nebulous and cloudy, like a picture made by a sloppy water painter. The background, enemies, and objects appear blotted, and spread out.

If the player discovers enough of the obscure secrets needed to find the runes, defeats the enemies and bosses, and arrives at the final boss, they'll probably be defeated the first time, and forced to do it all over again. I beat the final boss on my third attempt. It took thirty-three attempts from start to finish to defeat the boss. And since this is a rogue-like, that isn't the final fight. The player is rewarded with a Stem Cell, a means of making Dead Cells more difficult and progressing the “story”. With the Cell activated the player begins again, but still with all their activated blueprints, upgrades, and equipment. When I played Hades, I defeated the final boss, and then returned again and again to lose and win. In Dead Cells, I felt I had had enough with one victory.

Though the maps of each level are helpful. The lack of a world map is a severe hindrance. Even with one players will still have trouble, because they need to locate certain runes to access them all, and the game offers no hint to where runes are hidden. But below I offer a simple map which shows the connective tissue between the areas. I spent more time mapping the connections between areas for Dead Cells than I did enjoying the game.

 In conclusion, Dead Cells is one of the few games that has a massive variety of equipment, and actually makes them feel distinct. But, the levels, enemies, and even bosses, feel repetitive. The combat is an unenjoyable hectic hack-and-slash. The artwork doesn't compliment the game. Some of the artificial roadblocks to progress are unnecessarily opaque. But with the variety of Gear, its collectibility, and the possible fighting styles enabled by the variety, some may find this game an enjoyable endeavor, even if I didn't.

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