I've had Dead Cells on my radar for a while now. Its aesthetic is right up my alley and the gameplay looks fun. It's finally about to be released on consoles (even a physical version!) and I'm all set to buy it. There's just one problem: I don't like roguelites. (roguelikes??)

I thought I would like them, but after starting and giving up on both Risk of Rain and Enter the Gungeon, I think that what I really like are 2D action games with cool sprite art, and not the whole procedurally generated/permadeath thing.

I'm posting this in hopes that someone will pop in and say, "But Dead Cells is different, and even if you don't like rogue[----]s, you'll absolutely love this!"

Someone please say this, because I really want to want this game.

Has anyone who feels the way I do about the sub-genre played it and enjoyed it? I'm not completely opposed to these types of games, but-- Well, I don't know how to finish that sentence. I played Enter the Gungeon for a while, but I eventually started feeling as if I wasn't making any progress. It was hard mustering the motivation to keep trying when I returned to the character select area again and again and again. But Dead Cells' siren song (those visuals) is so sweet... Help me!

It's like more of a rouge lite fused with Metroidvania. Won't lie to you, it's certainly a rouge lite. I'm not a fan of them either but I like this one. The genre hybrid is very enjoyable to me. You do start over when you die but you collect Cells which purchase permanent upgrades in some cases. Also the gear gating opens up Alternative routes and progression paths so it's very Metroidvania in that respect. Until later areas it's actually not super difficult. The success of each run is largely dependent on random chance but it's a game that's easy to be good at. Trust me this is not enter the gungeon. I don't want to assume but I think you'd really enjoy this one. Maybe wait for a sale? It's regular $20 but it goes on sale a lot. I personally think it's worth your time.

Also the ost is fantastic. Absolutely beautiful and invigorating. It's constantly driving you on. Bought the ost within an hour of playing for the first time. I recommend the ost too!

Alright, I'm going to give it a go. I found a review by someone else who usually doesn't like the style, but recommended this. That, plus your insight gives me a bit more confidence about diving in. Thanks a lot.

And yeah, I heard good things about the soundtrack, as well. That certainly doesn't hurt the proposition!

Hope you like it! I think you will.

A bit late to the party since you decided to give it a go but ill throw my 2 euro cents into the mix

There's one significant in my opinion aspect fo this game that makes upcoming deaths a bit less frustrating. You don't lose whole progress. During your runs, you gather blue orbs that you can use to upgrade/unlock things between stages and those unlocks are permanent. Like you get additional health potion, or you get random sword at the beginning of a new run. This way you make each run noticeably faster and deaths get less frustrating. It also makes it a good "couple of runs to unlock this" kinda game. Even if you don't have time you can do something.

Nice, macstat! I'm feeling even more confident in my decision to give it a go. (haven't played just yet, as I'm going for the physical release — if you're gonna do it, do it big, right? )

macstat wrote: ↑July 13th, 2018, 11:20 am A bit late to the party since you decided to give it a go but ill throw my 2 euro cents into the mix

There's one significant in my opinion aspect fo this game that makes upcoming deaths a bit less frustrating. You don't lose whole progress. During your runs, you gather blue orbs that you can use to upgrade/unlock things between stages and those unlocks are permanent. Like you get additional health potion, or you get random sword at the beginning of a new run. This way you make each run noticeably faster and deaths get less frustrating. It also makes it a good "couple of runs to unlock this" kinda game. Even if you don't have time you can do something.

Sounds a bit like Rogue Legacy in that regard. Which was also great. I'm looking forward to playing this at some point, just wish it was coming to Vita.

I can't be the only one that sees the similarities in the way these mob's move and shoot.



I see it every time I aggro one in Dead Cell's, makes me smile.

How is this on Switch? Heard it needed a patch for the frame rate.

It does.

The Xbox One version has very infrequent stutters which can prove frustrating

Switch version runs very smoothly with the very occasional stutters/skips mentioned, which are present on all versions. The frame rate complaints are massively overblown.

That’ll depend upon your personal sensitivity to framerate consistency. It’s largely put me off playing the game for now.

Fair enough. Aside from the odd teleporting stutter, it has barely registered for me.

Yeah, I have it on the Switch, there is the odd second long skip/pause/jump, to which I can't seem to attribute to any particular action, or input but it tends to happen during double jumps, or ground pounds - very odd.

It's not stopped me putting tens of hours into it though and not once has it caused me to get hit or die.


I was convinced I had put together the perfect build last night, to which everything was going to plan and I totally messed up boss phases and forgot to use a health potion and died.

I had to sit there for a while and contemplate my total balls up, just starting at my switch and the reload sequence it goes through as you drop back in as a pool of goo.

The Xbox one version has a nasty frame rate hitch whenever it changes music track, for some reason. Most noticeable whenever you’re about to enter a shop.

(For the code inclined, I suspect they’re kicking off a call to start streaming the track but they’re blocking on the call result instead of deferring, so the game code halts until the track starts to stream. And on PC, which is almost certainly their lead platform, the delay is tiny so they don’t notice it, but on console the spin up time for streaming is a lot longer)