Scar Tries: Death of A Wish
I always appreciate games that challenge me. I appreciate them even more when they give players the option to tweak to their liking. It might be why I struggled to get into Elden Ring. I love the game but I am terrible at it. That’s not the game’s fault of course! It’s me, not you.
You may have noticed the new title. Before I go into today’s article, I have a few updates. Things are going reasonably well on the writing side. Steam Next Fest starts soon, and I’m looking forward to covering some games in that. Whether I’ll write an article about it will depend on my free time, but we will have to see! Between writing for Steam Deck HQ, TheStrategyInformer and here, that’s a lot to manage. I apologise to those waiting for me to send interview documents, post-up interviews, and reviews! Over the past months, I have built up quite a backlog and I’m disappointed in myself. Due to ongoing health and new work coming in, I feel like a puppy presented with a million different plushies to play with.
While it is my intent to cover as many games as possible, I’ve decided to try something new. “Scar Tries” will be for experimental games. They won’t be all that different from my Bite-Sized Reviews, but they might not go into as much depth. I have not been able to play as much Death of A Wish as I would like, but hopefully, this little piece will tempt a few people into picking it up.
It is rather pleasant weather here in old Blighty. A couple of thunderstorms last week that were a delight to watch (they are always more pleasant watching from indoors), but it’s slowly getting warmer. Hopefully, I can get out for some more walks!
Anyhow, that’s my introduction rambles done for the day, let’s talk about Death of A Wish! This game launched back in March, and it’s only recently I have found some spare time to play it. I only wish I played it sooner because Death of A Wish breathes class from every pore. While it is one of those difficult games I usually run away from, it offers a ton of ways to customize how you want to play it. To those who know my reviewing tastes, I prefer customisation and accessibility in my games. I’m happy to play tough games, and running into a boss fight over and over again is sometimes a delight. I’m experiencing that right now with No Rest For The Wicked. I’m still in the first bloody map, dying constantly against the big knight boss blocking my way to Sacrament.
Is it frustrating? Hell yes, but I’m loving my time in No Rest For The Wicked so far.
Death of A Wish feels like that too. I spent about an hour on the first real boss fight, dying about twenty times until I figured out the best way to handle him. I’m no shakes with these fast, violent action RPGs, and it always takes me a while to get used to them. Death of a Wish is no exception, favouring frantic close-quarter combat where enemies hit hard. You have to be on your toes constantly to stand a chance, and DeathWish offers plenty of combat options. Yes, I’ll call it DeathWish from now on. I like giving nicknames.
While I enjoy the gameplay, what drew me to DeathWish is the visual design. I know that sounds strange given the abstract graphics on the show, but they blew me away. Set in a dark, occult world, your job as the player is to gain revenge upon the cult that fathered you. The worldbuilding is top-class as the player delves into this broken world of nightmares. The environments feel like a demon has ripped them from the fabric of reality itself, and the character sprites reflect this. DeathWish is a brutal world and pulls no punches: the Store page is full of content warnings. Combined with a chilling soundtrack, DeathWish punches above its weight class.
In combat, Deathwish offers plenty of customization both with its Aria system and the accessibility settings. There are tons of ways to tailor your character by equipping different ‘Virtues’ and it adds to the fluid movement and tutorials. It looks like a lot, but the early game was fantastic in teaching me how to play. If things are too difficult or easy, you can turn on modifiers with just a button click. In-game cheat codes without needing to unlock them? They are always fun to play with.
I will feature Death of A Wish in a more in-depth ‘Bite-Sized’ review later, but I’m pretty impressed with it so far. What do you think of the ‘Scar Tries’ format? Have you played Death of A Wish? Let me know!
