Consoles: PS4, PSVita, Xbox Series One, PC, Nintendo Switch
Published: Arcade Distillery
Developers: Arcade Distillery
Released: March 2017
Death Tales is a game developed and published by Arcade Distillery. A company that worked on a couple of small indie games. Deathtales was originalluy released on the Ps Vita back in March 2017.
The game was met with mix reviews as both the aesthetic and the art style of the game looks very good but the gameplay seems to be lacking.
The game had a limited time physical release on the Ps vitta and was later release on Steam and on other platforms. Yet again the game was met with mixed reviews with most bringing back the same arguments regarding the looks
and the gameplay. It also seems that in 2024 the company is pretty much inactive.(Not confirmed) They havent post anything on their social media since the release of Death Tales in all platforms and they havent updated their official page.
At the time of writting(June 2024), their official webpage has Death Tales as a comming soon title which we all know came out in 2017 and 2020. The CEO's ofcourse have been active in other projects so maybe they ll return to their company when
they stop dealing with their other projects or when they have a new idea for an IP.
Story of the Game
The game opens up with an introduction to the overall universe. The idea is that Death got tired of her job as she needed to get a break or even work less. For that reason, she went on ahead and created the Reapers who would do her job
for her. The reapers were former Mortals to whom Death granted the powers to claim souls. She also made sure to steal the memories of all the reapers and locking them away, resulting in them forgetting their past lives and have them follow her orders.
And so the reapers did exactly what they were told. The players are then introduce to the two main characters, the Reaper( a knight figure with a red hood) and Spaura, his companion who is there to help the player. They were both on their way to claim the soul
of a woman as instructed by Death. This acts as the tutorial of the game.
On their way they meet a magician named Inan who claims that the two reapers seem very different than the ones she encountered as they seemd to have a kind heart. For that reason she gives the reapers the ability to cast magic. With their new abilities the two
foundthemselves out of the forest and into the city where the soul was to be claimed. However, although the objective was right infront of them the reaper denied claimming her soul and walked the other way leaving Spaura very confused. Death became aware of the fact and
visit the two heroes asking for an explanation. Spaura was confused and desrcibed the incident leading Death to the conclusion that the young woman who was to die, maybe was someone the Reaper knew,"a daughter perhaps", and seeing her woke some memories from within.
Annoyed by the dissobedience and the failure of the mission, death banishes both reapers into the souless realm. There the Souless Queen finds the reapers and becomes aware of what occured. She explains how Death has been corrupted and she is making alot of wrong decisons
as she bans and kills everyone who is not agreeing with her. She then tells the reapers that they can escape this realm as they possessed a small fraction of Death's powers. However, in order to escape they should be carefull. The duo successfully made their way back by oppening a
portal just to bare withess of the Souless Queen torturing Death. The queen saw them and tried to kill them but the two were saved by a spirit fox.
The fox explains the Queen is infact War, one of the two sisters of Death who was very corrupted and had her two sisters banned her in the souless realm. War was always searching for someone to free her in order to bring back her tirany. The reapers goal is to find out what War is up to
and who they should follow, Death, War Or perhaps, the third sister Femine who will explain the relationship between the three of them.
Thoughts on the story
I personally enjoyed the story part of the game although i would ve loved to see more. The delivery of the story is through some hollow images that dont have details and occasionally the characters simply interacting with each other with their portrain center top. Despite all that the plot
was interesting and had some parts that were executed really nice. There are a few nitpicks but as mentioned overall it was good. There are even smaller details regarding the personality of the hero as some side quests such as the mother with her baby, the frog and others will have you make decision
that will trigger certain speech bubbles. The game doesnt have any voice acting which i believe is for the best.
Gameplay
I've already mentioned that the gameplay was heavily critisized by journalist and gamers alike, but how do i feel? Well to be fair i completely agree with most of the critisisms. The game is a 2D side scroller beat em up where the players control the Reaper. The game can be played on Local co-op where
player 2 will get control of Spaura. Both the heroes are the exact same with the exact same game mechanics. The aim on each level is similar to the old Super Mario games, the players start from the left side of the level and have to beat their enemies to reach all the way to the right.
The players move around in a 2D environment and their movement is quite minimal. They can move left, right and have a single jump(not a double jump). Basic movement alone is very basic and it doesnt get to add much to it. Sure, there is a small ways to increase your options using the attacks but they
re also quite limited which results in a non fun manuver. For example, the player can use the dodge to cover small distance by floating towards a certain direction(left/right). Eventualy the player will unlock the Reapers wings which pretty much delays the speed of the reapers fall, and can also be used to jump
and float to a distant platform.
Despite the monotonous manuvering of the game the combat doesnt do much to favor it either. From the beginning of the game both the reapers hold their scythe which is their mellee weapon. The players can tap a button which will have the reapers swing their scythes up and down. Holding down the button will make the
Reaper slice once, but that will have more power to it. Morevover, using the attack button and a direction between up and down results in a directional attack. Attack up has the Reaper spinning his Scythe vertically and attack down has him heavily hitting the ground. When it comes down to dodge/block the game only gives the player one
option. Dodge. Dodging works in a simple way where the player taps the button and dodges to the direction the reaper was facing. The dodge has the reaper spinning his scythe sideways which also attacks the enemy. The problem with the dodge is that you have to stop whatever you re doing and dodge. It doesnt cancel any animations to trigger it
and similarly cannot be interupted. The frames of the dodge can also be questioned as the reaper can still be hit when used. Its honeslty very frustrating to use effectively and the player might as well commit on hitting the enemy and tank the damage than trying to dodge. With the help of Inan, the player can use spells for long range attacks.
Spells and Weapons
For what it's worth this is where the game showcases it's lost potential. To my surprise the game has alot in this section to offer. First, the weapon and armor. At the end of Each level there is usually a box which offers the choice between increase mana, increase life, and armors. The reaper can change his appearance by wearing a different
color hood, different armor and hold a different weapon(stilll scythe.) There a commentable ammount of equipment that offer their own unique buffs. For example there is armor which is resistand to poison, fire etc. Other's have more Over powered abilities such as slow heal, deflect and others. Not only do they offer this abilities, but they also
have a optical change when equiped making the reaper more stylish. The scythes on the other hand offer their own unique abilites. Aside from the standard effective againts a certain type of enemies they also have their attacks. For example landing attacks will launch mini scythes in 4 different directions, summon a unicorn to attack, have unicorn thorns attack
and others. This is summething that will make the player invest in a different offensive way. Changing appearance can happen in the pause menu. Spells can be triggered with a tap of a button and they consume mana( the blue bar under the Reapers life). The player can equip up to two magical cards at the time. These spells can be purchased from the store,
obtained as a reward or given to you by NPCs. Depending on the spells power, the mana consuption and the cooldown differs. A visual representation will appear under the mana bar. When a spell is cast, it will appear under it and will dissappear when the player can re cast it. There's a variety of spells which can alter the gamestyle
What to expect
Pretty much the game has a level selection similar to old Mario games. The player is placed in a board like hubworld and the player moves to the direction they want to go. Sometimes there re multiple roads which will have the main story and side story. Once a level is selected the player will have to move from one side to another in a linear 2D level.
Each area has a number of enemies that the reaper will have to defeat in order to proceed to the next area. For example the player will hit an invizible wall preventing them from moving right as long as there is one enemy alive. Each time a player kills an enemy they release red, blue and yellow skulls. These are the soul pieces and they restore the players HP, MP and currency.
The reaper's HP is represented with the hearts on the top right. These hearts take 3 hits to be completely hollowed. The number of hearts can be increased given that the player made the choice to increase their lives as a reward from clearing the level. Falling of cliffs is an instant death and respawn. Every level has a statue of the hooded reaper representing the
half way into the level and also as a checkpoint. At the end of the level a chest is waiting to reward the player.
Thoughts on Gameplay
Honestly, in the beginning of the game i was happy with all the limitation i was given in both my movement and attack patterns. However, when i realise that this is it, i was very dissapointed. It's a hack and slash beat em up that is missing its soul(pun not intended). Both the combat and manuver are very monotonous and honestly in the first 30 mins you get to see everything the game
has to offer. The enemy variety is not there as most of them are similar and there's only a few with unique gimmics and attacks. You know there's something wrong when the core gameplay is putting you character's sprite on top of the enemy and simply spam the attack button. There's no real reason to dodge as most of the enemies will drop enough healling upon being defeated. The boss fights were nice
but that alone wont save the game. Commiting to attacks and dodge is also frustrating, cause you see the attack comming from miles away and although you press the button the reaper wont react as he is attacking/dodging. And to clarify no, i wasnt mashing the attack and got punished for it, its just the game not responding. This game came out in 2017, the same year with games like
Hollow Knight and Cuphead, two Indie games made by new developers(who had no experience) and have absolute control over their character, where as Death tales developers made atleast 4 games before it. Even its 2020 and 2021 release has the same issues. The level design is not iteresting as most of them consist of walking straight, jump one
two cliffs and voilla.
Sound and Graphics
When it comes down to Graphics, the game is mostly stunning and fun fact, the art style plus the scythe as a main weapon were the reasons i bought the game in the first place. Wiht one look at the pictures you can tell this game has a characteristic art style which is similar to other games made by Arcade Distillery. The colorful images with unigue designs are stunning. The character designs is also
nice to look at. Whether it's the heroes, the NPCs or even the enemies their silhouette are done nicely. They only problem regarding the graphics, is the fact that it can mess with a gameplay, which usually is a major sin in game development. For example, the better armors and weapons usually have an optical effect, such as fire or glowing illusion. When attacking that aura pretty much hides the reaper.
The same happens when an enemy attacks who usually(most of the time) have fire as their attack. Now, picture this, your knight is fighting with his special weapon, againts an enemy who also attacks back, both heroes turn red for being hit in abackground that is either orange, brown or red. Again given it's nature, it is not as big of a deal as it could ve been but it is an issue worth pointing. Unfortunately, when
the community raised issues regarding the game, both grafically and gameplay wise, the developers said, sorry cant do as they re busy with other projects. An excuse that aged poorly in the community. The "cutscene" story expositions are very nice as the imagery is most of the times very good. When it comes down to the audio department the game is just ok. Nothing memorable but nothing i felt complainning or
praising/noticing whilst playing the game.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion Death Tales is a game i wouldn't recommend as it feels hollowed. The art style of the game is the only thing worth praising. The story of the game is good and it has some interesting ideas but the idea and implementation is poor. Simply put, the story exposition when put together could be a 4 minutes video. The presentation of the story is given in an art form with text to read. The gameplay is the
weakest part of the game as it feels like a souless effort on a beat em up hack and slash genre. Both the combat and the manuver are monotonous as nothing changes after the first level with the exception of the wings which dont add much to begin with, might as well not have them. As mention most of the time, your reaper will be placed ontop of the enemy and you will be spamming the attack button. You wont have to dodge
as the Hp reward will be more than enough. Adding to the reason of not trying to dodge is the fact the the buttons wont respong to imidietly to the button. They do have a nice variety of armor, weapons and spells but when the core gameplay is boring this means nothing. The audio department
is very forgetfull and has no track worth remembering. It does offer co-op experience which to some it may be worth it. Overall, to me this game felt short and given its time of release i would ve been 100% upset if i bought this other than other games of its time.
Gameplay of the Game
This is a video showcasing some of my time with the the Game
