Have a Nice Death is a creative and unique indie roguelike video game that has the player take on the role of the Grim Reaper, the C.E.O. of Death Inc. After years of reaping souls and longing for things to be done differently, he summons beings known as “Sorrows” to do his job while he simply takes care of the paperwork involved. When the Sorrows get out of control, it’s up to Death to put a stop to them. In true roguelike fashion, the player uses unlocked weapons and upgrades to create a build in order to see how long of a run they can make through the underworld as they battle these Sorrows. I was really excited to get my hands on it when I first heard about it, and I genuinely enjoyed my time with it, but the game is ultimately a mixed bag.

The game is very well made and is a ton of fun. The controls are extremely fluid, the combos are especially satisfying, the aesthetic and animations are gorgeous, and the story is fun and filled with dark humor. The upgrades allow for players to find the playstyle that works best for them, and mostly have names that are puns. It’s perfect for fans of The Grim adventures of Billy & Mandy and other similar cartoons, with the addition of fun attack combos and fantastic platforming.

However, there are some glaring issues that do hold it back from being something truly great, and they’re big enough problems that they’re impossible to ignore. One crucial issue is the game’s balancing. This isn’t a complaint that the game is too hard. Challenges can be fun. The difficulty here, though, is just plain weird.

The levels you play through and the basic enemy types, with the exception of one or two, are insanely easy. Once you learn the game enough to feel comfortable with moving the character and dodging, it all feels like a breeze. They’re so easy that they start to feel boring and repetitive. Then there are the boss fights, which are the total opposite. Many of them either take up most of the screen, or their attacks do. They hit so hard that, regardless of how upgraded you are, they can take you out with about two or three hits. It’s like Cuphead if you had to replay several levels every time you died on a boss instead of just choosing which bosses to battle. With most of the game feeling so easy that it gets boring and the bosses being so impossibly difficult that they’re frustrating, it’s clear that some rebalancing can and should be done.

Another major downside to the game is that it’s far too luck-based for the genre. Sure, random upgrade drops and randomly generated levels can always be exciting and shake up the gameplay in order to keep things from feeling too stale. Here, however, every single weapon and ability you carry with you is completely randomized. While this could work for some games, it doesn’t with Have a Nice Death. The game relies on you creating and fine-tuning a build that fits your desired playstyle, but it’s impossible since you’re left hoping the RNG gives you things that actually work well together. The more you unlock, the more random it all is, so it feels more like a detriment than an accomplishment.

These issues take what should have been an excellent gaming experience and turn it into something that feels more tedious the longer you play it. Instead of craving hours and hours of gameplay and embarking on countless runs, I finished the main story in about fifteen hours and put it down, not caring enough to go back to it.

That being said, a sequel or some sort of spiritual successor would certainly pique my interest. A new game that fixes these unfortunate issues would be an absolute blast to play.

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