One thing worth mentioning about the training dummy enemies: it fails to prepare you for bosses. If the build up from each floor is so pathetically easy, you don’t have much incentive to improve your skills and thus when you go up against bosses who can’t be stunned so easily you tend to struggle a LOT because the game hasn’t been teaching you the necessary skills for success
I find your videos very high quality for someone with less than 200 subs; I am infinitely impressed. Furthermore, I suggest that you play Risk of Rain 2, It seems like a game you would enjoy judging by the games you have reviewed already, and it is a game I believe deserves a review.
Thanks a lot for the compliments, means a lot! I have about 50 hours in RoR2's older versions, I'll definitely add as a consideration as one of my next games to do!
+1...excellent/thoughtful analysis in this review. And 'Number of viewers/subscribers' has nearly zero correlation to "quality of content" in the current simulation you're experiencing -- Look at the tens of millions who eagerly consume mushy pablum like "The Kardashians" and muk-bang vids. Cheers Acencial!
i was so excited to play this after seeing all the 9 and higher reviews. after buying and playing the game for a few hours i was instantly underwhelmed. i can't quite put my finger on it. the controls are tight and responsive, i'm just not having much fun playing it. games like hades and hollow knight pulled me in and kept me hooked from start to finish, i've played may 5 or 6 hours of this game and it's just failing to keep me interested.
I have to question how far you managed to get in the game, no offense intended. Many of the enemies in the first 2 areas are fairly simple in terms of how they act towards the player, but once you reach area 3 and further, enemies begin to show different actions and strategies you have to work around. Area 1 is just basic enemy types, flying, melee, tank, ranged. So that area I can understand the "training dummy" feel. It's meant more as a warm up and opportunity to work on getting some stats, perks, and resources. Area 2 continues that opportunity to some degree but makes enemies a little hardier and improves attack patterns slightly: though still fairly easy enemies once you understand them. Area 3 throws some new enemies at you that tend to work against the normal "hit it until dead" expectation, like the Nurserion which teleports, jack in the boxes that have a varied attack pattern that is a little more difficult to avoid while still getting in hits. The rest are a little more simplified to act more as side threats. Area 4 is where enemies become a lot more varied, setting traps, guarding, using homing projectiles that need to be dodged, carpet bombers. I feel area 4 is closer to what you might be expecting. Area 5 is where enemies start getting weirder in their attacks and are much less straight forward to fight against. Lastly Area 6 has some quite difficult enemies to work around as they tend to fit categories intended to bolster one another, making it difficult to really choose which enemy is best to beat first before choosing the next, or even needing to handle multiple enemies at once by switching targets to ensure you don't get hit. Having clocked a solid 88 hours into the game myself as of current, I think it's more the RNG aspect that makes the game feel more like a tedious slog. To some extent, I agree that the RNG feels out of the control of the player, but not entirely. However I think it's because the game does a poor job at explaining the systems properly that it fails here. I'm not entirely understanding of the system myself, but at the same time I figured out much of it. After figuring it out, I was able to make much more meaningful choices depending on the given status of a run. As a result I've consistently reached area 5 many times, and area 6 quite a few times as well. The systems that definitely need better explanation would be the stats, weapons, and spells. The curses are somewhat self explanatory, but are also missing some critical pieces of information that allow newer players to Roguelikes make better choices. Also I do want to touch on the fact that the game is a Roguelike, not a Roguelite. Which is something I've come to notice some don't understand the difference between. That being Roguelites have the many aspects of a Roguelike, while allowing the player to progress in ways that only make their later runs much more impactful. However therein lies the issue, as proper Roguelikes do not allow the same, and can often have wildly variably RNG. Some Roguelikes are even so heavy on RNG that it is possible for any given run to be completely impossible, making any run a gamble. I'm not saying that "Have a Nice Death" is that wild with its RNG, though it is heavy handed at the least. Unlike old school Roguelikes, "Have a Nice Death" is somewhere inbetween. I feel as though the RNG could be toned down slightly, and offer ways to give the player more choice, but the player does have some degree of control. The only downside, I guess you could call it, is that not all runs are going to be the same. I've had runs that completely go against my preferred play style, but I still stuck with them and just tried a different play style. I even had a run in which I didn't use a scythe attack for the latter half of the run because I had a build that played heavily into spells. Basically just because it isn't the player's preferred play style, that doesn't make it bad RNG, just and inflexible play style. That said however, I will definitely agree that it is bad RNG when you have a build going and then the RNG fights against the player at every curse choice.
Wow, its a shame that the creator of the video didn't reply, but that are some good points, i agree in almost everything that u said, but even the RNG, u can kinda control it, by taking the path that u want more times or using the prism to switch the scythe and all, and for the builds, i am courently finding more ways to play the game, ofc i have a prefered playstyle, but the other builds that the game gives u are not bad in most of cases if u improvise a little bit, ofc not all times, there are playtroughs that u simply cant win, thats a fact, but i still enjoy my self in those playthroughs bc i can focuse on geting items for my future playtroughs. I understand that this might not be enjoyable for every one but still i dont think its "a game problem", its just that most people dont like the playstyle that the game offers. And for last, i really think that the creator didnt got any further than the third area, because some flaws that are presented in the video, i think that are not actually flaws, like imagine if the enemies on the second area were as dificult as of the fifth area, the playtroughs, that are arleady long, would be insuportable. Im sorry for the long text and the bad english but i think that it was all i had to say.
Great video and review! I found your channel from your Steam review of this game. Keep going with these awesome reviews and I am sure your channel will continue to grow! I just subscribed and look forward to future videos. :)
Thank you for the kind words man! I'm gonna be working hard to put out good vids, I was super humbled by all the positive buzz the reviews have been getting :)
I am glad you're having fun with it - I think that this game definitely has a target audience that would enjoy it a lot - hope you sink in a ton of hours into it and have a blast!
@@Acencial Thanks a lot! Im sorry to hear it wasn’t to your liking I was a bit scared i was gonna dislike it as well because i didn’t like Dead Cells nor Hollow Knight But something about the game really got me hooked!
I know this review is 1 year old (and the creator hasnt uploaded in a year, in fact), but I kinda disagree on most points (despite finding most of your reviews very on point, like the Sekiro one). I found that this game requires basically broken builds to be able to beat a run, but unlike many others (like Isaac, for example) is absolutely easy to break, and has MANY builds that can break it. This makes it very fun and challenging. This contrasts to my experience in Dead Cells, another game I love, but a game where the meta was found immediately and, after that, every single run I looked for exactly the same build. My biggest recomendation for anyone reading this is to try it for yourselves, since I hadnt had so much fun in a roguelike since Hades was released.
Great points about ai adaptation/interactiveness. I think the game is very cool in a lot of ways but I'd love to see the devs update it with better enemy responsiveness and a better permanent skill progression system. If they made those changes I really think it could contend with the likes of hades or dead cells 🤞
*Missed potential is believable:* -The lore seems jumbled, lacking coherency -Employee and Boss interactions which explain the situation are hard to follow (even the back and forth can be convoluted) -explanations for time and life’s motivations as villains is impossible to grasp at first sight, whereas in other titles it’s pretty easy to understand -even after figuring out Time and Life’s plan, there is still a lot to be desired lore wise. -the solution to the story is ultimately a bad decision, framed as a good one, that doesn’t resolve anything *On the other hand, gameplay and music wise it is incredibly well done:* -the movement of Death is wonderfully fluid -the variation of weapons allows for a player of every walk of life to find a pace in combat on a weapon they enjoy -the many abilities in the game make for fun combination and play styles (curses and bonuses encouraging you to try different builds each run making the ability mechanic great) -the enemies feel balanced with each stage and are pretty easy to handle alone, but in groups can make a more difficult challenge as you have to learn their mechanics. -the mechanics of both the game and enemies are fairly easy to learn (Base enemies have 1 attack, big enemies have 2, thanagers have 3-5, sorrows have 6-8, and final has 9) -music flows wonderfully with the gameplay, making each stage and combat scenario feel unique -the album for the game features some banger soundtracks, making use of a combination of different instruments, including the sounds of specific objects and voices to help make the stages feel different from each other. -the art-style is fantastic, nuff said -the boss fights, oh man, they are all great. Even if some are challenging, each is visually distinct from the other through slight color variations as well as game mechanics they feature and the lessons they teach you. (Brad is is an easy intro, Grimes a hulking brute that covers the screen in muck, Waldo a technical wizard that encourages precision to avoid his assaults, Krank is a tank that teaches you backstabbing is key, Maxxx a bullet hell boss that punishes you for being greedy, The Majors deadly bombardments motivate you to go on the defensive and find short breaks for damage, Immuras shapeshifting tricks remind you to be cautious, and time is the culmination of all those tricks with a bit of emphasis on patience, y’know time and all) Overall a great game that I continue to play here and there
Great review! So if I really enjoyed The Binding of Isaac (200+ hours) and its RNG system, I assume I should probably try this? Also, they showed 10+ difficulty modifiers, and some of them make minions "gain additional defense". Have you tried this?
Fantastic review brother, very well done! I played a 0.5.some version of the game and got maybe like 10 hours in. My biggest complaint was the lack of healing or getting healing items around. I didn't find the combat hard or the game difficult I just couldn't figure out enough healing for myself in the game. Not sure how old that copy of the game was and how much it got fixed from there on out, but stillI found it a bit unenjoyable when I couldn't figure out healing in the game. I absolutely adored Hades though. Even loved Returnal.
Love Returnal, it's so great when big studios take risks and make games that aren't for everyone, was an absolute blast! Still didn't get into the tower DLC yet tho! Thank you for the kind words too!
yeah i find returnal far more fun than this game. it's hard as hell, only made it to the 3rd area so far and got my ass handed to me there. took a little break from it to play hades and loved it. after seeing all the extremely high reviews for have a nice death i was really hoping it would be the next game i fell in love with. i'm still playing a couple hours here and there, but i just can't see what the hype is about. it's an ok game but it's just missing that something that makes those games so amazing.
ughh im really wanna buy it.. but i know exacly what do you mean. Once i learn the game, i will not use any of unique attack, because dash into enemies' face will be all i need to do. Sad because i like the visuals and the gameplay overall.
You KILLED this review... I bought the game played for 6-8 hours and put it down... It's soooo boring to me except the boss fights... It did not value my time... Back to Dead Cells for me
To respectfully refute your "No one will read a wall of text..." ( _your Steam review_ ), I did, and thought it excellent distillation of this game...thanks for the thoughtful review, mate. Your link brought me here...subbed and looking forward to more. Ваше здоровье!
While I haven't beaten a run yet (farthest I got was World 4 Mid boss) I don't think the plain enemies complaint compared to Dead Cells was fair, as someone how regularly plays 5BC (yes I hate myself) the strat there too is to rush down enemies asap with good gear, maybe the enemies can be more involved but it's not too different DCs especially when DC's idea of making biomes harder is just adding dozens of Inquisitors in almost all the maps So far my main 2 issues with Death have been the pure healing, it feels too punishing for normal mode feels like something that should a hard mode restriction. I feel like I never have full HP and always cut by half, and I'm playing on Switch so I've gotten some bad lag and crashes with it (this can be patched out) again I haven't beaten a run so idk how balanced the hard modes will be
When you talk about "new indie rogue-like game vid" last time I didn't expected it to be Have a nice death lol. But yeah I can see how you feel like that. I also feel like RNG and balancing is quite off in this game too when I play it last April (or maybe just because i'm suck). Still gonna try it again after I'm back home tho, that launch update might change my mind
I am also definitely looking forward to playing it with the 1.0 gameplay update. I am not sure how much that stuff will change since I don't think it will be system overhauls for the final patch, but rather finishing touches on content, but I am looking forward to trying it out !
Thanks for the review dude, I think you're right. I got the impression this game was more shallow than it looked from the dumb V1.0 anime trailer. It's a shame such development skills (graphical, stylistic, audio etc) are being spent on games with so little core gameplay.
My main complaint it is far to RNG based. Aside from that I am enjoying the game. I would enjoy it more if there was a system of progression that was not so RNG based.
Hi, I don't think I've touched on any technical issues in the review? The review was mainly about game mechanics and how they interact with each other. Is there anything I am missing? Please let me know if so, I'd like to set the record straight. Also the whole review was recorded and played on v0.5.4.48820, which is the last patch out right now before the big 1.0 drop tomorrow (or later today depending where you are).
@@Acencial Yes, I was referring to the balancing of spells and the ability to choose your starting weapon. They also added more enemy attacks and animations if I'm not mistaken.
@@johnathan1506 thanks for letting me know what you mean! I have reviewed the game on the latest version and had most of my playtime on it, so while I can't comparatively say how it it compare to older patches, it definitely still felt like it isn't quite there in terms of balance. In terms of enemy moves, my argument wasn't that they have a small amount of moves, but that you deal with everything in the same way no matter what their moves are. But overall I'm happy the devs are updating the game and addressing issues, I hope they do well and I'm sure as patches go on balancing will be better and better, it's just not a game for me.
I definitely agree with this. But for me, this and dead cells don't feel very fun to play. Both games for me feel like it can't decide whether to be weighty and slow or floaty and fast. I honestly think have a nice death might feel better if it were built around a more metroidvania progression since a lot of the combat feels so similar because it's just hard to imply different strategies into gameplay with a rogue lite since you automatically have way less control over enemy positions and variety. I agree completely with your thoughts on how have a nice death just barely missed the mark
I see what you mean about Dead Cells. I guess that's where my personal preference shone through a bit in the vid since you're not the only person who has disagreed with that point. The reason why I think Dead Cells does it better, even though it has the problem that you are speaking of is that at least when you have a different build in dead cells you approach combat much differently in every situation, and the enemy placement in some zones will force you out of your comfort zone, no matter your playstyle. And unlike HaND your builds generally get much more interesting and you genuinely need to adapt to different biomes, while HaND's builds generally either play only keepaway or dash+mash throughout the whole game, except where in some later zones you need 2 rotations to stun an enemy instead of one. One game I feel did it right was Hades, because the combat system was made in a way that level design doesn't play a big role in encounters, and they made every weapon able to accomplish same things in wildly different ways, so runs felt much more balanced and varied no matter what you picked. Sure when you get to stupid difficult stuff like heat 32+ you will find that some weapons are built to deal with those situations better than other ones, but for 95% of players that isn't really a concern and the players that do play those difficulties probably don't mind being limited to 5-6 good choices since the game literally lets you pick your builds with minimal RNG.
Thank you for the recommendation! I saw some of my favorite youtubers talking about it and they only had good things to say, so I definitely planned to buy it! I'll make a video on it if I have something meaningful to add to the discourse for sure.
was my first rouqe like game and last dumb the game takes everything away from you if you die even your life so if you have 95 life health bar and you die it wil reset to 65 what kind of bs is that it takes away the motivation to be better ! the levels are empty and boring ,yes the combat is fun the humor and art design is cool but thats all there is at least give me somekind of way to defend my self dashing all the time gets boring fast ! the mini bosses are often times the same i got to level 2 and died and it took me all the way back to level 1 with nothing not even my health lol wtf !! there are better games out there for shure !! and i realy tried to like this game whats the motivation to keep playing if 1 death makes everything go away zero ! and yess i like hard games i finished all the souls games and recently wolong and after that Planet Cube: Edge < recoment it hard but fun and rewarding !!
Absolute garbage that you can’t use the d pad to move the character on switch 😐 the game requires a high level of precision during the boss battles that the joy stick does not provide! 😠 What a stupid choice to not give the player the option… you should be able to choose joy stick or d pad for movement. Not better than Hades.
looks like you only played up to stage 2, the enemies get different later in the game, one of the hardest games I have ever played. Should play through to the end then do another review. Enemies react later on and you can barely stun them.
I've beaten the final boss multiple times, the footage in the review is early game is to protect from spoilers for later areas and bosses. The issues that I am talking about are even worse in the late game than early, specially if you play a magic build your optimal play is not to interact with anything but to try and kill it offscreen, and for melee builds while it is harder to stun, the play pattern is the same - wait for them to use their attacks and jump or dash and then either go for a stun or poke and run away again. I didn't say the game is not hard, far from it, it's just not my cup of tea combat wise and I try to explain why.
hot take. hades gets boring very quickly. the combat isnt challenging enough so i almost never died. because the story progression is tied to have to end runs to re roll npc events it took me over 100 runs to get through most of the game and then i just gave up and forcibly killed myself just to get character stories to progress.
I think that's a fair take, and the game lets you offset that with self-imposed challenges, which is why I ended up loving it. Specially once you have progressed your mirror enough it's super easy to stomp through Hades' early game, but where Hades shines imo is when you play the high heat runs. Once you crank up the modifiers to 16-20+ you really gotta use the most out of every tool that you have, and do it as quickly as possible, which makes the combat actually get it's time to shine in really complex situations that you don't get to encounter otherwise.
