I really want to like this game, but...

[DaemonX_HUN]

Okay, so I tried the game for 2-3 hours on my cousin's PC to make sure that I like this game before I'm going to buy it.

Overall I'm impressed with the audio-visual design, and the extremely fluid and satisfying combat. The level design is also good, the weapon and enemy variety is big, etc.

But my problem is - and probably this is a subjective thing - is that this game has some core, fundamental problems that originate from the roguevania genre itself. I feel like this genre is just as flawed in its concept as the genre of MMOs or the genre of games like The Division or Destiny (two games I literally hate).

The problem is that I either don't get a sense of progression or I get the illusion of progression. I feel like I'm constantly wasting my time without moving forward in a meaningful and satisfying way.

The core statement of this genre is roughly the following: whenever the player dies, the world resets itself. The levels/dungeons/map sections get reset, the player loses all of his progress (including his level and gear) and only some specific things carry through - skills, for example.

I get the intention behind this. You want the player to learn the game mechanic more and more and discover hidden pathways on earlier levels that he wasn't able to access previously because of the lack of a certain skill.

But there's a problem, and I try to explain it with a specific example.

Let's say I played the game for 4 hours and I died 20 times. In those 20 rounds, I completed the first level 20 times, the second one 15 times, the third one 10 times. What becomes clear is that after a while given levels become extremely repetitive due to the fact that I ran through them countless times and they either don't offer enough challenge or they simply don't provide enough variety to stay fresh.

So basically, the game wastes my time intentionally. It tries to artificially extend the gameplay length by forcing me to do repetitive and/or unchallenging stuff just to get to the next section that is actually challenging and feel fresh because of the new level design and new type of enemies.

This repetitive task reminds me of every day's work, but it doesn't remind me of a fun gaming experience. It feels like an MMO where you have to do the same thing for 40 hours just to get a bow with 2 more damage. I know it's a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

I wish there was a traditional single-player mode in the game in which I could steadily progress through the game by constantly visiting new and interesting areas and facing new and interesting enemies. I wouldn't mind if it would be shorter. I would rather play a 6 hour experience that is varied, interesting and can stay fresh till the end than a 20-30 hour game with 18-24 hours of busywork.

[DirectOrder]

It sounds like rogue-likes are just not for you, and that's perfectly fine. What you are describing is inherent to the genre. It's like saying I really want to like first person shooters, but I hate not being able to see my character's body and see what's coming up behind me without turning around. Well, then first person shooters are not for you. Nothing wrong with that.

There are tons of metroidvanias that do not feature rogue-like aspects. I've heard Hollow Knight is one of the best, and you might find exactly what you are looking for there.

[DaemonX_HUN]

Originally posted by Denigrate:

It sounds like rogue-likes are just not for you, and that's perfectly fine. What you are describing is inherent to the genre. It's like saying I really want to like first person shooters, but I hate not being able to see my character's body and see what's coming up behind me without turning around. Well, then first person shooters are not for you. Nothing wrong with that.

There are tons of metroidvanias that do not feature rogue-like aspects. I've heard Hollow Knight is one of the best, and you might find exactly what you are looking for there.

Yeah, maybe you are right. I already completed Hollow Knight, it was awesome. :D

[darksoul]

I´m absolutely with you on this, it seems as if I´m one of the few ones who isn´t enjoying the game at all. But contrary to you, I actually bought the game over on GoG. Normally I´m someone who does pretty informed purchases, so that I rarely regret buying a game. But with Dead Cells I do. Guess I was blinded by the "Metroidvania"-aspect too much.

I´m not the biggest fan of Roguelikes per se, but there are/were some I enjoyed; Rogue Legacy for example. With Dead Cells I also feel as if I´m wasting WAY too much time playing the same stuff over and over and over, without much progression. In Rogue Legacy you could upgrade your castle/character after each run, which always gave me SOME kind of progress, be it as small as it sometimes/often was. I also liked that you could stop the random generation of the game (for a fee), so that it felt more like a traditional game.

In terms of leveldesign I´m not 100% happy as well; you simply feel that they´re randomly generated instead of carefully handcrafted; levels like the Ramparts or the Promenade are simply straight paths with some elevators going down (and some ladders up) where oftentimes the only thing down there is a teleporter to bring you up fast againt; what makes replaying these levels even more tedious. Later levels fare better, some are even pretty good (The Ossuary or the Slumbering Sanctuary).

Of course I don´t blame the devs for making something I don´t like; as I said a huge amount of people seem to enjoy this game. If this game would feature some kind of static progression through the game, with fixed levels I would enjoy it much more. Because on one hand I do enjoy the combat and visual style of the game. But of course I also know that these complaints surely came up dozens of times during Early Access, and the decision against these things is not changeable anymore. I can only blame myself for being blinded too much by the "metroidvania"-tag, and not thinking too much about the roguelike side of things. So, sadly this is one of the purchases I regret, and it´s all on me.

[GuyTheStampede]

i suggest these games if you like being impressed with visuals and music:- bastion, Dust: an Elisian tail, transistor, salt and sanctuary, cave stroy, sundered, outland, ori and the blind forest, Axiom Verge, owlboy, and Jotun.

[darksoul]

Originally posted by mrguythestampede:

i suggest these games if you like being impressed with visuals and music:- bastion, Dust: an Elisian tail, transistor, salt and sanctuary, cave stroy, sundered, outland, ori and the blind forest, Axiom Verge, owlboy, and Jotun.

I have played and actually beaten all of these games except Jotun; Outland is to this day one of my favorites. Ori was great as well, but concentrated a bit too much on traversing the environment (and upgrades for that) instead of combat for my tastes.

In a couple of days Death´s Gambit will release, also with an awesome Pixel Artstyle, Soulslike combat and Metroidvania-aspects; but without all these Roguelike-shenanigans. Hope it will turn out great.

[👽🐬 Old Black Nerd🐬👽]

this game isn't a rogue-like. it's a rogue-lite.

Rogue was a turned-based game. It's really annoying how the term "rogue-like" got twisted to mean anything nowadays.

Rogue-like, like Rogue. The game? Came out before you were born?

[Seinekar]

Im agree with the little to no sense of progression (alrady made a post about it)

It would be nice if you at least retain a small number of cells (like 20%?) so a death run is not a total waste.

[darksoul]

Originally posted by 👽🐬 Old Black Nerd🐬👽:

this game isn't a rogue-like. it's a rogue-lite.

Rogue was a turned-based game. It's really annoying how the term "rogue-like" got twisted to mean anything nowadays.

Rogue-like, like Rogue. The game? Came out before you were born?

Just to speak for myself, I´m aware what Rogue was and is. But to be perfectly honest, because I´m not not into this genre THAT much, I don´t talk about it so much as well. Most of the time I simply write roguelike/lite, because I know they´re not supposed to be the same thing. But sometimes I just call it roguelike, even if it´s technically false, but everyone knows what is meant.

And again only to speak for myself, if I remember correctly Rogue came out in 1980 or 1981; so 3 /4 years after I was born (1977).

Originally posted by >9K:

Im agree with the little to no sense of progression (alrady made a post about it)

It would be nice if you at least retain a small number of cells (like 20%?) so a run is not a total waste.

As I said before, I´m pretty sure these suggestions came up several times during Early Access. But due to the fact that things like this weren´t considered during Early Access, I´m somewhat sure these things aren´t up to debate anymore. But I agree with you, some better sense of progression would be very welcome.

[NeedtoDie]

@DaemonX_HUN

The flaws you mention only apply to new players, still learning their way through 0-cell difficulty.

With enough progress (in knowledge more than items), you will then complete most of your runs (or be killed by HotK), and due to the RNG involved, repetitivity is not an issue.
Plus, the early stages are the hardest in higher difficulty (special mention to prisoner's cells).

I'd suggest you to persevere until you are able to beat the game, but like people said, you might just not like the genre. It requires you to enjoy the limitations the game throws at you, and the challenge to overcome difficulties.

[Sanglaine]

This is the same problem palace of the dead has where youre forced to retread ground youve proven more than capable of completing while not providing new environments or gameplay mechanics. This game suffers the same problem to a lesser extent.

To explain why it works for something like binding of isaac your progression varies and your fighting style can change dramatically while there are also more things to explore.

And another example is rogue legacy. Rogue legacy does the rogue lite element better because youll eventually become strong enough to push past most difficulties.

Dead cells doesnt really do that too well instead mildly hedging your bets with the forge system. The short term of dead cells is fantastic, but this game ABSOLUTELY does NOT respect your time.

[DaemonX_HUN]

Originally posted by Marufrozen:

This is the same problem palace of the dead has where youre forced to retread ground youve proven more than capable of completing while not providing new environments or gameplay mechanics. This game suffers the same problem to a lesser extent.

To explain why it works for something like binding of isaac your progression varies and your fighting style can change dramatically while there are also more things to explore.

And another example is rogue legacy. Rogue legacy does the rogue lite element better because youll eventually become strong enough to push past most difficulties.

Dead cells doesnt really do that too well instead mildly hedging your bets with the forge system. The short term of dead cells is fantastic, but this game ABSOLUTELY does NOT respect your time.

You explained it very well, thank you. You also made me interested in checking out Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac. I think I'll check them out.

[ODDity]

I think Enter the Gungeon has a similar issue, the first Gungeon isn't exactly a challenge, it's just a slog to get through and if RNGesus doesn't favour your weapon drops during that stage, the boss can either be a long drawn out battle or you just die there.

They've combated it somewhat by making the first gungeon have more places and item drops far as I know but it could just be something inherent to the genre which is really difficult to solve.

[Jayde]

My biggest issue with the progression of the game is not the repetition--I love Roguelites and I loved Rogue Legacy, in particular.

My issue is that despite the fact that the later biomes are harder to reach, are tougher, require bosses to get to, etc.. the *rewards* from doing the later biomes are pretty poor.

For example, in one of my full play-throughs from start to the final level, it was about an hour and 20 minutes. I died to the end boss, OK.. that's fine. But what did I get from clearing the last half of the game? Really nothing. 1 blueprint. That's about it.

I would have been better off speed-grinding the earlier levels for souls than pushing the harder levels, because the rewards don't scale with difficulty. I would like to see the soul gains from the later levels be increased a bit. Nothing I did in the later levels helped me get stronger to push past the earlier stages faster, so it all felt like a waste of time.

That's not ideal for a Roguelite, though. There should be a sense of pushing higher to make yourself stronger the next time around. But right now the blueprints/souls mechanic is not rewarding enough in the higher biomes to manifest this concept.

I'd also like to see gold have more of a purpose, since half the time I just end up with giant piles of gold and nothing to do with it. (I feel like they should be using gold to pump into the guy to raise drop power levels rather than souls...)

[Seinekar]

Yep so bad i mostly love the game but the poor mechanics (usdually hidden) made me to finally review it negative. I hope those issues gets adressed given the time...

[Sugam]

Well, luckly that there are other games out there if its too hard to enjoy. Also, 20 deaths in 4 hours...thats a lot of deaths but if its that hard I guess thats normal. Ya, there is a hefty amount of exaggeration but thats OK, this is the steam forums.