Curse of the Dead Gods - Review

Curse Of The Dead Gods by Passtech games, who in the past produced Space Run, Space Run Galaxy and Masters Of Anima, is the latest rogue-like game to hit the ever more crowded genre. Curse Of The Dead Gods brings the lure of seeking out untold riches, eternal life and divine powers with the threat of accursed temples, endless labyrinths and deadly traps and monsters standing in the way, what could possibly go wrong?

If you are looking for a game heavy on story then let me say it straight from the start, Curse Of The Dead Gods might not be your cup of tea, you control a nameless hero and the games back story basically consists of a cut scene of you entering a darkened room through a door that quickly closes behind you leaving you trapped inside as you try to scurry back out. Not a Hollywood worthy script by any stretch of the imagination, but not all games need a story especially if the mechanics and gameplay loop is designed well. Thankfully when it comes to Curse Of The Dead Gods there are quite varied and innovative game mechanics involved.

The game sees you travelling through various randomly generated chambers in different dark and gloomy temples in search of riches and more importantly immortality. Of course, you can’t just stride through these temples and open the treasure chest at the end, where is the fun in that? There are various monsters, traps and bosses that will attempt to thwart your plans along the way. And this is where the interesting part comes in because the game mechanics and combat are great. You have the ability to hold two weapons each tied to the Y and X buttons if playing on the Switch and also a torch which is activated by use of the A button. Both of your weapons can be used in conjunction with each other to pull of highly damaging combos or a long press on either button will release a power attack that carries a lot more damage than a normal attack. With ranged weapons you need to hold down the button until two lines on the screen indicate the perfect time to fire, timing it correctly will make sure you inflict the maximum amount of damage on an opponent. You can also hit enemies with your torch but this doesn’t damage them as much as using your weapons, this is because the torch has a second use and that’s where the brilliance in this game lies.

While holding the torch this lights up whatever chamber you are in, however when you switch to weapon attacks the torch is no longer in your hand which plunges the room you are in into semi-darkness, you are still able to see well enough to fight, however whenever enemies strike you in the dark you receive much more damage than if you are standing in the light or have your torch equipped. Thankfully, chambers in the temple do have stationary torches on the floor that you can use your torch to ignite thus lighting up the area you are fighting your opponents in. This makes for a frantic breed of combat where you dodge roll around the room lighting up torches whilst trying to avoid enemy attacks to ensure you are fighting in the light and tipping the odds in your favor, that is until you realise that the enemies you are in combat with are sneaky and they will do their very best to thwart your progress by extinguishing the torches you have set flame to. This leads to frantic and sweaty combat encounters that see you not only trying to time parries and dodge rolls perfectly but also scrambling around the room in an effort to avoid enemy attacks and traps relight torches in order to ensure you stay alive, it’s hectic but it’s also a load of fun. 

As you travel through the chambers of the temple dispatching foes along the way, they will drop various forms of loot and stat boosts which will give you boosts to stats such as strength or dexterity, if you decide you don’t want or need a particular piece of loot you can elect to offer it as a sacrifice to the blood gods on the spot which will obtain you certain advantages such as healing you on the spot or even reducing your characters curse level. Speaking of curses, these are something you will unfortunately be inflicted with on your journey through the various temples in the game. Once you complete a chamber you will be presented with a map of branching paths leading to the final chamber of the temple, it is your choice as to how you wish to travel, you can pick a path that leads you to more gold or decide against that and go for a path that is going to provide your character with stat buffs to help you in combat, however, for every chamber you pass through in the temple you gain curse points that fill your curse meter located at the bottom right of your screen, once this fills up you will be inflicted with a random curse that will be slotted into one of your characters five curse slots, curses are not nice, nor helpful in any way and will range from reducing your health all the way through to limiting your prowess in combat.

This is a really great mechanic that will see you trying to find ways to lower your curse level at every opportunity in order to progress more easily through each temple. The inevitable will happen in this game though, and it will happen over and over again, you will die. Fortunately, when you die you get resurrected in the underworld, unfortunately, you lose all the equipment you were carrying at the time. Not to worry though as you will always find a set of basic weapons available for free in the underworld and you also have the opportunity to use some of the crystal skulls and jade rings you have been collecting through your adventures to purchase blessings which are randomly generated perks that do a range of things from increasing your health or increasing your damage output and resistance, you can also use your currency to purchase better weapons than the free ones you will be provided with upon your death. After picking yourself up off the floor and dusting yourself off it is then time to venture forth back into a temple again, this can be the same one or a different temple of your choosing.

Graphically the developers have gone with a hand drawn cartoon art style that has vague similarities to World of Warcraft, the aesthetic works very well in this game, especially the animation which is very smooth and fluid. There isn’t much diversity in location seeing as all of the action does take part in dingy and dark temples and chambers but what is here works really well and you will honestly be too busy rolling and dodging around the screen fighting enemies to have the time to take too much notice of your surroundings. The games musical score is very dark and foreboding and suits the game really well as it raises your heart rate and anxiety with every step you take through the games dangerous temple locations.

I am usually not that much of a fan of the rogue-like genre most likely due to the fact that I don’t like losing all of the rewards I have spent the last few hours working for (Dark Souls is the main reason I go to therapy) but Curse Of The Dead Gods has changed that for me, and this is mostly down to the fact that even though the game is so easy to pick up and play there are also so many intricate and interesting game mechanics at play, not to mention the combat is so frenetic and action packed that you really won’t have a chance to get bored. Currently there are only a limited number of temples to play through in the game, but there are also limited time challenges that you can complete to earn yourself some pretty nice rewards so longevity should not be a problem here as long as the developers keep adding further challenges into the game. It’s a shame that there is no co-op option here as I believe it would have the potential to make this game an instant classic.

The Score

8.5

Review code provided by Focus Home Interactive

The Pros

+Beautiful hand drawn cartoon graphics and animations

+Fluid controls and fast and sweaty action

+Unique and interesting mechanics and upgrade systems

+Perfect to play on train or bus journeys

The Cons

-Text is very small and really hard to read on the Switch’s screen playing in portable mode

-The lack of varied locations may cause some players to lose interest