From the shop menu, you can see what weapons and health items you're working towards before even trying to go for them, allowing you to determine whether they're worth the pursuit. But Have a Nice Death is novel in how it allows you to see what you're striving for. Some task you with getting kills with a specific weapon, while others ask you to find a way to deal a huge amount of damage with a weaker weapon or reach an area or overcome a boss a number of times.īecause of this, I'm actually spending the first dozen or so runs of Have a Nice Death striving to accomplish smaller goals-one far more achievable than "beat every mandatory boss and level in a single run." I'll get to that challenge eventually, but for now, I'm content with simply growing stronger and seeing how my efforts are contributing to me doing a little bit better on those early levels.Īnd granted, plenty of roguelikes divide their seemingly insurmountable goal of beating them into more manageable tasks- Dead Cells features metroidvania elements that allow you to chase after small upgrades that make it easier to surpass chunks of the game, and Hades has episodic stories tied to each of its main characters that you can pursue while trying to escape the underworld. So even if you're not completing Have a Nice Death on your first, second, or third run, the act of simply killing enemies during those early attempts is increasing the likelihood you can afford this permanent upgrade.Īll of the upgrades are similarly tied to challenges that allow you to earn discounts and speed up the process of acquiring stronger weapons and healing items. By the time you've killed 50 enemies, the price is discounted to one ingot. Kill 15 more enemies and it drops even further. Kill any 15 enemies over the course of the game (a very easy goal) and the price of that weapon drops by 25 percent. But Have a Nice Death incorporates a challenge system into its upgrades. Unlocking the Shake Spear costs a whopping 105 ingots to start, for example (you're typically only earning 10 or so a run if you're stuck on the first area of the game). You buy these upgrades with ingots, which can be found during runs and earned by killing enemies.Įarly on, the prices for unlocking these new weapons and health items are pretty steep. Failing to do so sees you having to start over without all of the fancy weapons and items you managed to find in your last run, though there are permanent abilities connected to three skill trees that you can unlock to make subsequent runs a bit easier.īeyond that skill tree, Have a Nice Death also features ways of permanently improving Death's arsenal and survivability with new weapons and health items. Like most roguelikes, the overall objective of Have a Nice Death is to complete a perfect run-completing every available level within a single session. Instead, Have a Nice Death appeals to me by making the loop of a roguelike more approachable. The evolving narrative and incredible characters are what convinced me to stubbornly work through the challenging gameplay loop of Supergiant's game, and though Have a Nice Death implements similar storytelling devices, they don't quite reach the same highs. I don't really like roguelikes, despite dropping an ungodly number of hours into Hades. On paper, I shouldn't be a big fan of Have a Nice Death. Despite the dark nature of the narrative, Have a Nice Death posits that this situation is more a case of "business as usual," and that these characters are simply your run-of-the-mill office workers trying their best to just get through the day. Have a Nice Death doesn't seem to achieve any narrative depth beyond the simple messages that "crunch is bad" and "burnout isn't healthy." Important stuff, but the game's early hours are more concerned with inviting you into its charming world. Narratively, I don't think this setup is anything to truly write home about. Now Playing: Have A Nice Death Trailer Reveal | Game Awards 2021 By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
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