Sometimes I play a game and I wonder what exactly said game is trying to do. Is it trying to be this genre? Is it trying to be like this other game? It’s like an identity crisis of sorts, and that’s basically my experience playing through Gods Will Fall.
So let’s start with what exactly this game is. It’s part action roguelike, part hack and slash, part platformer, and part adventure game – all bundled up into one little package. Does it do any of these well? Not really. The basic concept is that you’re given this group of warriors and have to go through a series of dungeons to defeat the god residing at the end of each. You select which character to use before entering a dungeon and then are locked in the dungeon with that character until you die or defeat the boss.
Dying kicks you out of the dungeon, but keeps the character locked within, preventing you from getting them back until you clear it with another character. If you run out of characters, it’s a game over and you’ll have to start a new run. The idea is that you’ll have to go through a few of these runs before you get that perfect one and are able to take down all the bosses without losing your party, with the difficulty ramping up each time. At least, that’s what other players and reviews seem to be saying.
I say that because I literally beat the game on my first run and it wasn’t difficult in the slightest. Most of the time, I was able to facetank the bosses and just get in a bunch of quick heavy attacks to be done with it – usually in under a minute. In fact some could be as short as seconds. It was to the point where I was wondering if my game was somehow bugged or I had missed a difficulty setting somewhere, but no, it’s apparently the result of the game’s randomly generated difficulty.
So the roguelike element completely went out the window there and what I was left with was instead just a boring hack and slash game with the bare minimum of content. You get the same handful of enemies scattered about these large and barren maps. And you would think that having such large maps would warrant exploration, but no, there’s very little in the way of that – it’s mostly just large empty rooms and fields with the occasional enemy or two slapped down to give you something to do. Killing said enemies is entirely optional as well. All it does is decrease the boss’ health based on how many you kill before reaching it – which I won’t deny is a cool mechanic in theory but felt mostly wasted here given that the bosses pose little challenge.
It’s an extremely repetitive experience, and I’m talking as a one-off thing. That’s before you consider the fact that this is supposed to be a roguelike with multiple playthroughs encouraged. I had already suffered enough with my own two-hour playthrough, there’s no way I could have made it through another. I really don’t understand what they were going for here. The lack of variety really kills the roguelike element, but playing it as a one-off experience just leaves it as a forgettable hack and slash game with clunky combat.
I mean, the game does at least look fine and have some decent music – as well as run flawlessly at 1440p 144 fps on my system. It also has a story, but it’s one of those just thrown in there to give the gameplay a basis to exist – there’s hardly any development and it’s honestly not a game that needs it anyways, especially with how short it is.
Gods Will Fall doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. The gameplay is too repetitive for it to work as a roguelike and the combat is too clunky for it to work as a straight hack and slash game. It’s an extremely shallow experience overall, with little in the way of story, gameplay variety, or depth of any kind. The problems are so deep-rooted that I doubt even patches can salvage it. It took me just two hours to clear and I’ll probably have forgotten about it by this time next week.
Quote: Gods Will Fall doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. The gameplay is too repetitive for it to work as a roguelike and the combat is too clunky for it to work as a straight hack and slash game.
You can buy Gods Will Fall on Steam here. It retails for $25 USD and is also available through GOG and on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and Stadia.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
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