INTRO:
Salt & Sanctuary proved that it is possible to apply Souls-style gameplay to a 2D setting. However, it also sets the bar at a high level. Not many wanna-be’s could reach that bar, and the original version of Death’s Gambit was one of those that failed.
Death’s Gambit was intended to be both a Metrovania and Souls-like title. However, it was criticised for being too short and not up to par with its more competently made peers; comparisons with Salt & Sanctuary are especially harsh.
Afterlife is intended to address all those criticisms. This is a massive update to the game, and one that is provided for free to those who purchased the license for the original version. For the people who steered clear of the game, this would be the best time to reconsider looking into Death’s Gambit.
PREMISE:
Much of the story in the original version of the game has been retained, though the prologue has been hurried and condensed.
Afterlife is still set in a fantastical world with serious inequalities. In particular, there is one nation that has a source of magic that renders their inhabitants immortal and undying, though not without consequences. In particular, that nation has fallen into despondency due to not having the certainty of death.
Nonetheless, this source has caused the nation to be frequently invaded for all kinds of reasons, though most of these invasions would fail because the source of magic also endows its defenders with considerable power.
That said, the player character is Sorun. He is one of the soldiers that have joined an expedition to reach the source of magic. This expedition, just like the previous ones, would fail. Sorun appears to be the only survivor, but that is because he, of all people that could have been chosen, has been selected by the personification of Death to be his contractor. As the bearer and executor of the contract, Sorun has to reach the source and somehow set the world right.
However, Sorun loses most of his memories; they return slowly, but only because he gets into situations that have him recalling bits and pieces. Sorun also looks like a walking corpse, because Death has not bothered to or could not restore his mortal appearances. Thus, in addition to the (mostly mindless) immortals that defend the source, he has to contend with people who recognize him (and don’t like him) while also dealing with people who have a low opinion of him. The worst of these are phantoms of himself, who hound him throughout the game.
SILLINESS IN SERIOUSNESS:
As baleful as the premise would suggest, there are more than a few whimsical things in the story-telling of the game. Chief of these is Death himself; he has a side job as a sous chef, plays video games and breaks the fourth-wall at times. There are also small reptilian creatures who are there as comic relief. These can seem a bit jarring, especially if the player is expecting a grim-dark experience.
SOULS-LIKE GAMEPLAY:
The game makes itself clear early on that it has Souls-like gameplay, especially if the player has Sorun dying to some mook. If Sorun dies, he returns to the last shrine that is dedicated to Death (who also makes a remark about Sorun having died). However, the enemies that he has defeated return too, either due to their curse of immortality or their having been replaced with clones/descendants that are exactly the same. Alternatively, they also return if Sorun rests at any of the Death shrines.
Thus, the player could have Sorun traipse through places with mooks that the player knows how to defeat, taking them down again to repeatedly harvest them for the resources that they would yield and, more importantly, their Essence.
Not unlike Souls-like titles, the player character also has consumable items that are replenished whenever he returns to a shrine. Managing the consumption of these will be a major part of the gameplay, namely in how the player would minimize incoming damage and finding opportune times to restore health.
METROVANIA GAMEPLAY:
The nation with the Source of Immortality happens to be in shambles, and apparently has been so for quite a while despite the many invasive expeditions. Many structures are crumbling and travel paths are in disrepair.
This is the excuse that is used to explain the presence of Metrovania gameplay. There are many places that Sorun cannot reach because the means to do so are not there. Furthermore, his undying state has not granted him otherworldly powers to overcome these obstacles, at least not initially.
Amusingly though, in a manner that is not unlike Metroid (or RockMan for that matter), powerful immortal beings that he defeats yields essence that he can take for himself, thus gaining superhuman powers. Incidentally, these powers are reminiscent of those in typical Metrovania games, such as the power to double-jump.
After the player character has obtained new powers, it is up to the player to do the usual backtracking to places that the player character could not access earlier, as to be expected of a Metrovania game.
MAP SYSTEM & ITS SHORTFALLS:
The map system happens to somewhat help in this matter, when it is actually being accurate.
Although the map shows the outlines of the locales that Sorun would be going to, they are not always to scale with the actual levels and do not show the presence of walls and floors. Compared to the other problem with the map system though, this is a small issue.
The other issue is that Sorun’s location as marked in the map system is sometimes erroneous. There does not appear to be any consistently observable reason for this. Fortunately, the deviation between Sorun’s actual location and his location on the map system has its distance limited to just within the same locale.
The map system allows the player to mark points on the map system. However, the player can only make a limited number of markers.
It is unfortunate that despite the many improvements that Afterlife has implemented, there are still problems like these.
ESSENCE:
Coincidentally, almost all of the enemies that Sorun has to fight have been invested with the energies from the Source of Immortality. Killing them releases some of these, which Sorun can then absorb to empower himself, or to somehow use as currency. (As with the Souls games, and Souls-like titles in general, the means of transaction is unclear.)
Essence is automatically collected, which is convenient. There is no limit to how much can be collected, and they are never lost upon any death, i.e. Sorun retains any essence that he has gained (or rather, robbed). Thus, the player always has the option of spending any essence that has been gained if the player needs a power-up before re-attempting whatever that got Sorun killed earlier.
STATISTICS:
Like other Souls-like titles, the player character has a set of statistics that determine his performance in combat. They are the things that would receive the most attention from the player when choosing which things to spend Essence on. They would be familiar to players who are veterans of such games, such as Strength, which determines the damage output of melee weapons.
There does not appear to be any soft-caps for the benefits of increasing statistics, which is a notable departure from most other Souls-like games. However, there is the matter of gradually increasing costs of doing so; Essence so happens to be not so quick to accumulate. There would be some hefty purchases that the player would be eyeing too.
STARTING CLASS:
Unlike other Souls-like titles, the player will not be having free-form shaping of the player character’s combat performance in this game. The player must pick a starting class, which will define the player’s playstyle throughout most of the game. The main reason for this limitation will be described shortly.
CLASS-SPECIFIC TALENTS:
The main reason is the presence of class-specific “talents”. Some talents provide benefits that are always available, though some do have conditions that are situational. Speaking of which, the benefits only manifest if Sorun is using capabilities that happen to be associated with the class that the player has chosen for him.
For example, the mage class gets talents that make him more efficient at conjuring the orbs that he expends when casting spells. These talents are useless to every other class.
Some other talents unlock abilities that have to be equipped in order to be used. These have even more situational uses, but where they happen to be useful, they would be potent indeed. For example, there are melee attacks that have Sorun zipping past entire lines of enemies, hurting all of them while being protected by invincibility frames.
TALENT POINTS & TREES:
The player cannot invest Essence into talents like the player can with statistics. Rather, the talent points are only awarded after Sorun has defeated a boss, and when he has the first successful rematch with said boss. Talent points can also be obtained from Seeds of Knowledge, but these are very rare.
SECONDARY CLASS:
Late into the first playthrough, the player would be given the choice of taking on a second class. As exciting as this would sound, this is actually not much of an improvement. This is because the classes play so differently from each other, there is not a lot of overlap in their tactical capabilities. In some cases, they may not even be complementary; for example, the mage class has very few compatibilities with other classes.
Still, there is enough compatibility for the player to spend some talent points into the secondary class. For example, the assassin class has a passive talent that allows it to create zones that accelerate cooldowns after having used phoenix plumes (more on these later); this is useful for the mage, who would be staying in one spot in order to cast magic.
“ADVANCED” TALENTS:
After a long way into the first playthrough, the player gains access to the “advanced” talent tree. These have perks that benefit the mobility options that Sorun has. For example, there is a passive talent that grants invincibility frames to Sorun’s equivalent of the double-jump.
However, these talents are only active if Sorun has already gained those mobility options in the current playthrough. Although talents are retained in consecutive playthroughs on the same save-file, mobility options are not retained because they are tied to the progression of the story. The talents are re-activated if the mobility options are gained again, by the way.
MOBILITY OPTIONS:
Speaking of which, the mobility options represent the Metrovania parts of the gameplay. Although Sorun is not prompted on the need to gain them in order to get somewhere that he has to go to, there are locales with obstacles that are obviously preventing him from going any further.
As mentioned earlier, these options are gained from defeating mandatory bosses for the first time; this must be done in every playthrough, because these options are removed upon starting any New Game Plus.
Incidentally, most of these mobility options will also be of importance in combat. The double-jump, in particular, will be useful in dodging enemies with low-aiming attacks.
PLATFORMING:
For better or worse, there are quite a number of platforming segments in the game. Fortunately, Sorun’s motions for jumping are quite responsive and there is decent air control. Dashing also occurs quickly, so not being able to cancel out of them is not an issue.
For someone who is experienced in games with platforming gameplay, it would be easy to know whether Sorun can reach a platform or not, mainly due to the fixed distances of the dashes and the predictable physics of the jumps. Incidentally, Afterlife has somewhat toned down the difficulty of platforming in some places, such as the poorly-lit environs of Garde Turm.
BLOCKING:
One of Sorun’s equipment slots is for a shield. This slot cannot be filled with anything else, so blocking will be part of the gameplay even if the player does not favour blocking in the matter of avoiding damage. After all, dodging attacks is still better than any other alternative.
That said, a successful block will block all incoming damage; there is not even any “chip” damage. This applies regardless of the shield that is used, even if it looks flimsy. Different shields may have different grades, but there are only seven grades and these merely determine how much stamina is lost when blocking hits.
Indeed, the main differences between shields are the secondary benefits that they impart. These secondary benefits are also the only compensation for having an equipment slot that is strictly for shields.
For better or worse, the player must manually face the incoming attack for a block to be successful. Fortunately, the facings are almost 180-degree arcs; attacks that are coming from diagonal directions can be blocked too. Only attacks that are directly from above or below cannot be blocked.
There are rewards for getting a block timed right. In addition to having the opponent stagger (which they visibly do, regardless of their corporeality), Sorun also heals a bit.
WEAPON SLOTS:
There are two weapon slots, one for each of the two attack inputs. Any weapon can go into any slot, though they would only be useful as long as Sorun has the appropriate class and the abilities that are enabled by the weapons.
CHOOSING WEAPONS AND ABILITIES:
Speaking of which, the player would be equipping weapons according to the following factors: the class that is chosen for Sorun, the default animations for the weapons, the abilities that are enabled by the weapons and the invincibility frames that are provided to the animations of the abilities. Later in the playthrough, the player’s choices are also determined by the passive talents that affect the abilities or weapons.
This means that the player’s choices in developing Sorun’s talents and statistics will be important. There does not appear to be any readily available means of resetting these. Actually, there is one in-game, albeit it is tucked underneath some obscure scripting; it is likely that the player would need to consult third-party documentation to find this feature.
MUST CHANGE ABILITIES AT DEATH’S STATUES:
For whatever reason, Sorun can only use a few abilities at any time, despite purportedly having learned them. Of course, this would have been an acceptable limitation, but only if it had been the only one.
The other limitation is that Sorun can only change abilities while he is resting at Death’s statues. This limitation has never been made clear, and would reduce the fun that could be had from using abilities.
UPGRADING GEAR:
Not unlike other Souls-like titles, this game has the feature of upgrading pieces of gear in order to improve their performance. There are four categories of gear that can be upgraded: weapons (of course), helms and cowls, footwear and capes. (There are no armor pieces, because Sorun will not swap out his armor for others.)
As for the costs of upgrading, they only require the expenditure of materials that are specifically meant for upgrades: Soul Stones, Immortalite Stones and Dark Matter. Essence is not one of the expenses in Afterlife.
Any further upgrades require increasingly greater amounts of materials. Soul Stones can be readily gained throughout the game, typically from scrapping things. This is just as well, because they are needed for the first five tiers of upgrades. However, the other materials are rarer and ultimately limited in supply within a playthrough. Indeed, the player may have to start a New Game Plus in order to get enough materials to further upgrade a piece of gear.
There will be a warning here that any upgrading of gear cannot be reversed, unlike talents and statistics. Superseded gear can be broken down, but this will not recoup much of the costs that went into upgrading them. Thus, the player will want to do some research into the game’s content if the player wants to be efficient with the expenditure of the materials, at the risk of getting some spoilers.
HEALING PLUMES:
Phoenixes so happen to occur in the fantastical world that this game is set in. They are highly magical, if rather temperamental creatures. That said, they are valued for the fiery plumes that they shed. The plumes can be charged with the energies of life and death, and then expended to heal oneself. Incidentally, Death includes the recharging of any plumes that Sorun has collected as part of his employee perks.
However, for whatever reason, Death cannot be entirely thorough in reclaiming Sorun’s remains when the latter dies; one of the plumes is left where he went down. Thus, the player character has less means of healing himself with each consecutive death. As to be expected of a Souls-like gimmick, the player character can return to where he went down in order to retrieve the plume.
(Incidentally, there is a certain talent that grants him a short buff upon regaining the plume. The player might want to hold off on retrieving it, if the player plans to unleash a barrage of attacks on whatever caused Sorun to die earlier.)
Conveniently, if the player wishes to retrieve the plumes without the hassle of getting back to where Sorun died, the player can expend Essence to regain them (presumably paying off Death for him to do so). In addition, in lieu of using the plumes as healing reserves, the player can choose to expend them to augment Sorun’s damage output. This buff can be managed at Death’s statues.
SOUL ENERGY:
Soul energy is a gameplay mechanism that is not entirely explained in the narrative. That said, soul energy is gained as Sorun lands hits on enemies. Certain other things, such as vials of magical liquid, can grant soul energy too, but landing hits is the main means of doing so.
Soul energy is expended on the use of abilities. More powerful ones generally cost more energy. However, the player cannot hoard soul energy; it eventually dissipates, meaning that the player would have to use it or lose it. On the other hand, using it will not be easy, because many abilities have elaborate animation sequences that might render Sorun vulnerable to interruption.
For much of the first playthrough, the meter of soul energy is limited; the means to raise its maximum only occurs much later.
CANNOT HARM ENEMIES OUTSIDE OF SCREEN:
For better or worse, the player character cannot harm enemies that are not entirely on-screen. Any of Sorun’s ranged attacks that go off-screen and hit something will do nothing. Those that hit enemies that are partially on-screen, e.g. only their legs are visible, will do nothing either. Fortunately, in compensation, these ineffectual hits will not alert those enemies to Sorun’s presence, if they are not already aware of Sorun.
On the other hand, the same rule does not apply to the ranged attacks and projectiles of enemies. If these are on-screen but their originator is not, they will hurt Sorun if they land on him.
ENEMIES – OVERVIEW:
The ruin of the nation with the source of immortality has its cause lying in the corruption that eventually besets its undying defenders. Immortal beings that were previously sapient have been reduced to bestial things, or otherwise dormant living weapons awaiting the summons of those that have wills stronger than theirs.
In other words, most of the enemies that Sorun would face are mindless things. There are some sapient ones, but they see Sorun as a troublesome meddler, intruder or invader that has to be stopped – though this is of course futile, since Sorun happens to be immortal too.
ENEMY SOLDIERS:
Some of the enemies are trained soldiers. They wield melee or ranged weapons - sometimes both - and shields, and may drop these as loot if the player is lucky.
The first set of soldiers are push-over grunts that are quite easy to eliminate; they have slow responses, likely due to their mental degeneration. The later ones have much more elite training, or have been endowed with more power than mortals should have. These are tougher and more complicated to deal with, but yield more essence when slain.
BEASTS:
Beasts lope around, pouncing and lunging. Rolling past or jumping over them will likely be more reliable means of avoiding harm than blocking their attacks.
Unlike soldier-type enemies, beasts are not so aware of falls. Thus, they might jump off ledges and such. There is no fall damage, however, so the player can expect them to be still alive if they landed on a platform somewhere.
FLOATING ENEMIES:
Floating or drifting enemies are generally slow, if they move at all. However, they pass through everything, including level boundaries. Some others do not drift at all, and instead disappear and reappear at will.
These enemies would not have been a problem if the player could directly aim any of Sorun’s attacks. This is not the case. Only arrows and bullets (there are sci-fi weapons in this game) can be freely directed to where the player’s cursor is. Even the projectiles that are cast from tomes can only be partially aimed. Thus, such enemies may be floating at places that Sorun cannot readily reach with his primary attacks.
FLYING ENEMIES:
Flying enemies move much faster than floating ones, but are limited by the level boundaries. However, they can fly past platforms.
Interestingly, almost all flying enemies have both ranged and melee attacks. Together with the awkward aiming of most of the player character’s attacks, tackling flying enemies can be noticeably more difficult than grounded ones of similar size.
HUGE ENEMIES:
Then, there are mook enemies that happen to be quite large. Part and parcel of their designs include attacks with wide hitboxes, though some are worse than the others. For example, there is a certain large enemy that appears very late in the game, if the player wishes to pursue one of the two endings that the Afterlife expansion introduces.
Amusingly though, it may be possible to escape them by having Sorun run to someplace that they cannot go into. Indeed, it might be easier to just do this, because these enemies take so long to be taken down.
BOSSES:
Bosses are the only enemies that have significant sapience, or at least any sapience left. Most of them will speak (or ramble) about story-related things, typically before they attack Sorun. There are exceptions; some bosses are just mindless monsters.
Bosses are of course the nastiest enemies that the player would encounter. Most bosses fight on their own, though there are some bosses that do not. An example of the latter is the Forgotten Gaian, who is supported by mooks and a certain deuteragonist; this boss would have been otherwise easy if not for the additional enemies.
The individual ones often compensate for their solitude with esoteric powers or transhuman capabilities. Examples of the former are sorcerers that can teleport about, sometimes out of sight so that the player has to chase after them. Examples of the latter often twirl and pounce around, resorting to attacks with wide hit-boxes.
Archetypes aside, each boss does have a unique set of attacks that can be observed. It would not take long for a veteran of Souls-like games to figure out when to attack them, though figuring out when their attacks have active hit-boxes or not might be a bit tricky.
A few boss fights have their gimmicks worked into the environs. Narrow platforms above spikes are an example (and a genre staple too). There is also a boss fight that occurs on a see-saw platform, which is only affected by Sorun’s location regardless of anything else.
HEROIC BOSS FIGHTS:
The player might have developed Sorun such that the regular boss fights are quite easy. Indeed, many of them would be, if the player has been diligent in pursuing opportunities to power-up Sorun.
Thus, the game makes use of the story element about immortality to implement “Heroic” boss fights. The bosses can be prompted to return, in which case they fight with everything that they have. Understandably, they are much fiercer and more troublesome opponents. For example, the phase in which the Phoenix Rider clones herself gets much worse in the Heroic version.
BOSS TOMES:
There are floating books that contain snippets of lore on the bosses. They also happen to have a gameplay effect: they give the player a temporary buff on the damage that can be inflicted on bosses, upon the start of the fights. This is particularly useful for the Heroic Boss Fights.
CRAFTING:
The Afterlife expansion introduces an NPC for the Central Sanctuary (and who is fortunately beyond the notice of a certain other NPC). This NPC is a large sapient snail who is somehow able to craft pieces of gear meant for humanoids, provided that he is given the “recipes” to make them.
These recipes also happen to be introduced in the expansion. They occur in the game like the Boss Tomes do, but they are in places that are even more difficult to reach.
After getting the snail a recipe, the player can see the options available, together with the costs to make them. The NPC only requires the materials to craft them; no essence is required.
As for the materials, they usually have to be found as loot from exploration; enemies rarely drop them. Therefore, most of them are limited in a playthrough. Only Armor Scraps can be readily purchased from another NPC, provided that this vendor survives certain scripted occurrences.
CHALLENGE CHESTS:
As is typical of a game with Metrovania gameplay, there are chests that are just waiting to be looted in this game. However, these chests would have the player working to get them open. There are two types of chests: the crimson one, and the golden one.
The crimson ones can only be opened with violence; they have hit point meters that have to be emptied. However, they also happen to regenerate very quickly, so the player character must have sufficient and consistent damage output to eventually break them open.
Furthermore, some of them might be located in places with hazards, or is simply not convenient for the attacks and abilities that the player character has. Indeed, the player may have to retool Sorun for a specific chest.
The golden ones can only be opened if the player has not used any phoenix plume since the most recent visit to a statue of Death. This is easier to achieve if the player has unlocked shortcuts, if any. Otherwise, this would take deft platforming on the player’s part.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
When Death’s Gambit debuted, there was some consternation about the art direction of the game. There are sprites with pixels for their features, but the graphics are not entirely pixel art either because there are spliced sprites. This is notable in some of the larger enemies, like the Owlbears. The most notable though, was Sorun himself. This mishmash of designs did not endear to everyone.
The Afterlife expansion will not provide a complete makeover. For one, Sorun still has some spliced sprite animations, especially when he is handling weapons that had been there since the original version of the game. Yet, there are also characters with sprites that are entirely animated with pixel art, such as those that appear much later in the game; the true final boss is a major example.
Then there is the still artwork that is used for the characters when they converse. The player can expect a lot of barbed armor that would have been quite impractical and also dangerous to put on, though of course they look very edgy if edginess is the intended look.
The faces that are still human look the least impressive of the lot, especially those for the characters that happen to be children. The artist also resorts to variations with slight differences in their appearances, darkened eyes being particularly prominent.
Sorun gets most of the animation efforts, as befitting the protagonist of the game. Since the Afterlife expansion introduced quite a number of character classes as well as many abilities, Sorun has the bulk of the sprite-work in this game. Many of these are full-sprite animations instead of being spliced-sprite, which speaks well for the additional effort that the developers have put into their game.
SOUND DESIGNS:
There are quite a number of music tracks in the game, though several of them happen to be variations of the one that is heard in the main menu. The game switches tracks quite smoothly, usually with the most appropriate one being selected for the current situation.
Some of the tracks are melancholic, which is perhaps fitting considering the theme of a slow decline to ruin. Some others are ominous, which are appropriate for the more unwholesome locales in the game, such as the oubliettes of Journey’s End.
Most characters are voiced, with the exception of Sorun, who curiously does not get any voice-over until the player unlocks the true ending. Some characters are voiced by the same persons, though they did a good enough job that the similarity is not immediately noticeable. (Of course, there is also the matter that many characters are not human and therefore do not sound human.)
Most of the sound effects that the player would hear only occur during combat. There are a considerable variety of them, which is just as well because they go along with the great amount of combat animations in this game. There is a noticeable lack of an audio alert for when Sorun’s health is low, however.
SUMMARY:
At this time of writing, the Afterlife expansion has had several major bugs having been fixed. That said, the additions that it introduced to the game would make Death’s Gambit so much more palatable than the original version.