Curse of the Dead Gods

Developer: Passtech Games
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £17.99 Gog.com, Humblebindle, Steam, Epic and Origin
Released: 23rd February 2021
Available on: Gog.com, Humblebindle, Steam, Epic and Origin
Played Using: An Xbox One Control Pad
Approximate game length: 22 Hours +

They say that great power can be found within the temples of the dead gods, but only if you can survive the many curses they lay upon you. Within those halls you’ll find the twisted remains of all those hopefuls that came before you. If you truly feel you can brave all these and survive… then you are a fool, but such is the way of fools.

Curse of the Dead Gods is a isometric roguelite game in which you attempt to work your way through three temples to gain powers beyond mortal reckoning. That really is about it when it comes to the story, however, I’ve found that being light in the story department is a strength for most roguelite games (with the notable exception of Hades). Most players don’t want to be bogged down with a complex narrative and simply want to get back into the action and in that regard this game doesn’t disappoint.

The temples of the dead gods are sealed shut with no natural light apart from a few lit braziers, well that and your trusty torch. However, you have a choice to make you can either have your torch out and illuminating your way or your weapons. Both light and darkness have their benefits and drawbacks. When in light you can see hidden traps and have (slightly) more warning of upcoming enemies, but in the darkness your attack damage increases significantly, in fact certain builds rely upon you fighting in the darkness rather than the light.

Your character (whose name I only found out was Caradog when doing some research) has stamina points, five of them actually. One of these stamina points is depleted each time you dodge, use your secondary weapon or perform a finishing attack (which is the final attack in a string of them with your main weapon) and using your two handed weapon drains two stamina points each time its used. These points regenerate quickly after use and can even be earned by performing a perfect dodge, meaning you dodged out of the way at ‘just’ the right moment.

Each time you go through a door you gain corruption which will start to fill a gauge in the bottom right of the screen, when it fills up you are ‘gifted’ a curse upon entering the next door. These curses add additional rules that make the game more challenging. You can have five of these curses which range from being mildly annoying through to deadly, however its the fifth and final curse thats the worst usually directly affecting your health (like draining it away).

At the end of some rooms you will find altars where you can make an offering, the various altars relate to weapons, relics or attributes and they will accept an offering of either gold or blood. Expending the gold will use the gold (that doesn’t stack between runs) you’ve gained to purchase what you want, an offering of blood increases your corruption instead.

Normal enemies will sometimes drop crystal skulls, weapons or relics when they’re killed. The occurrence of these drops happening is influenced by your Perception attribute. If you kill a champion (end of level boss) they will drop jade rings, crystal skulls, relics and weapons (and if its your first time killing them they also give blood emblems). Jade rings, crystal skulls, and blood emblems carry over from playthrough to playthrough and you spend them to upgrade your characters situation in the underworld.

Now you may have noticed that I’ve made no mention of the enemies dropping gold, that’s because they don’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get gold from their deaths. This game rewards the player for skillful play with its ‘Greed Kills’ when you chain kills the greed kill counter will appear and start to count down (it lasts approximately two seconds) the more enemies that die while the counter is on screen the greater the multiplier becomes. If you take damage during that time though, the greed kill timer disappears.

As you play you’ll find relics and weapons that will grant bonuses if they are equipped. However, you can instead choose to offer them up to the gods who in turn will reward you with a reduction in your corruption, gold or sometimes a increase to an attribute.

I’ve mentioned attributes a few times now so I should probably explain what they are. There are three attributes, Constitution, Dexterity and Perception. Consistution increases you maximum health, dexterity increases your damage with weapons and perception influences how often enemies will drop items.

Inevitably, your character will die either to an enemy or a trap, and when that happens you’re sent to the underworld, its here that you can spend the crystal skulls and jade rings on blessings, unlocking weaponry and improving your starting arsenal. Thus improving your chances at success in your next run.

The game comes with an ‘assist mode’ that can be activated in the system menu. Turning on this mode will allow you to customise the difficulty of the game somewhat, for example you could increase your stamina or remove the final curse. However, activating this will stop you from gaining achievements (if that matters to you) and will put a permanent marker on your save slot, I know a lot of people who would find that very off putting.

My thoughts on this game? It’s pretty damned good. I liked it enough to purchase the soundtrack and even when I finished the game I kept coming back to try my hand at the daily challenge events that appear. So yeah, I recommend it.

If this appeals to you perhaps try;

Hand of Fate 2
Hades

—-

If you’d like to support me I have a Ko-fi, the reviews will continue to be posted donation or not.