Death Howl

Death Howl is a finely crafted souls-like deck builder. It features fantastic pixel art and strategic combat, as well as a heartfelt story. You will end up building multiple decks, one for each area as your cards from previous areas are no longer as viable. Building your deck while exploring and fighting bosses is the main gameplay loop, which makes the game continue to feel fresh as you go from area to area. It all just feels really well made, which is why I would recommend it strongly to anyone who is a fan of deck builders.

Fun deck builder, kept me entertained for the whole game with the need to build new decks in each new region. Touching story of grief.

Death Howl is a grid-based tactical battler that primarily uses cards to carry out attacks. That simple description doesn't capture the depth of tactical options it has. This game is a definite recommend. The game describes itself as a Souls-Like and it is extremely difficult. But, much like one of my favorite all-time games Underrail, the difficulty never feels impossible because there's always a new way to approach a fight. Throughout the game, acquiring new cards as well as other abilities and then balancing what cards you want in your deck is as important as the fights themselves. And the stamina limitations you face force you to think about each card selection and each move and attack carefully. For the gameplay alone, this game definitely makes it into my top all-time tier. The story is relatively simple; a mother is mourning the death of her son and enters the spirit-world in an effort to bring him back to life. As a parent myself, that story alone pulls at my heart strings so it's effective. I played it on my Steam Deck and you should play it on yours if you like these kind of games.

6/10. The game has a few issues. The main things I really enjoyed about the game was the setting, artstyle, and gameplay are all in my opinion really good. But what really kills any enjoyment I have for this game is its grind. When you reach a new area all your cards outside of the static set become more expensive. I understand this is to encourage you to use new cards unlocked in that area but they do not give you enough cards to start that deck. The new areas are not really balanced around the static set of cards either. So the early game of a new area just boils down to finding a save area, then farming the same 2 or 3 fights till you have enough materials to build a proper deck. This grind just kills any and all good pacing the game has. I wanna suggest it as it has so many other things that make it great. But this game would do well with a directors cut or some form of 2.0 release. The grind just is not fun sadly.

I pondered all day, how can I express the beauty and profound artistry of Death Howl? This is one of a kind game, of those you find once every thousand. An obligated suggestion for lovers of deep moral driven story games, but I warn you, this is a really hard tactical game, think of Darkest Dungeon or the Souls games; fair, but still challenging throughout. Games like this make you sob, cry and connect with your spirituality, if there is any in you. I think that besides that, the approach regarding death and the lost of love ones is powerful and thrives through without feeling forced or a contradiction. That being said, I hope you enjoy the masterful work as much as I did.

Really awesome experience