Curse of the Dead Gods

Very solid run cycle. Refreshingly doable after Hades.

A fun little game with great art direction. Good experience if you like dungeon runs.

6/10 I'd recommend this game because its fun enough and I can see myself finishing it eventually, but it's very repetitive. Its pretty obvious that the first temple is going to be the same as the next temple, which will be the same as the last, with only a few cosmetic changes. The main reason I gave it such an average score is because the games combat feels a bit unfair and forced, especially at first. Each enemy has a trigger that pops up showing when they about to attack, but often times there are so many enemies that you get caught in an attack animation and cant cancel out of it or dodge. Your success is very dependent on the weapons you pick up along the way, which are random. Sometimes you get a favorable set up, sometimes you get sh*t. I've had a few runs where I started a boss fight with very low health, because there were no options to heal before it. You can argue its strategy on which rooms you choose before you get there, but I've had plenty of runs where a healing room wasn't even an option near the end. This game also throws a lot at you right off the bat, which doesn't do it any favors; especially for players new to this style of game. There's a lot to the mechanics, weapons, items and upgrades to sift through and it's taken me a few hours of game play to really start to understand whats available to me as I progress through the levels. I consider it a positive when a game doesn't hold your hand, but they could have easily introduced and explained these concepts a little better during your first run. This game has a lot going for it and all the positive reviews are probably pretty accurate. I wouldn't say its a bad game by any means, but for me, its incredibly frustrating knowing I know how to manage my stamina and look ahead in the heat of battle just to get railed because the enemies are faster and I get left open because I'm still in an attack animation from a few seconds ago. There are plenty of times when I f* up or mismanage my stamina and get punished for it, which I'm cool with. I can tell that's 100% my fault. But there are also a lot of moments that feels like my skills are being handcuffed for the sake of making the game seem more difficult than it really is. It really starts to feel cheap after awhile.