Introduction

The gaming landscape seems to really love soulslike games just as much as it does its deck-based RPGs. Yet, I can’t name too many that take both genres and fuse them together for one title. Enter Death Howl, a game that almost immediately had my attention when we received a review copy here at SunsetNerdVerse. Developed by The Outer Zone (that has to be a reference to The Outer Limits) and published by 11 bit studios, Death Howl examines what a parent would do to stop death from claiming their child and the harsh reality waiting for those willing to battle it. Can Death Howl take two very overused genres and make one exciting game? I’m about to find out in my review of Death Howl for the PC!

Gameplay

Reading that Death Howl is a soulslike with card-based strategy mechanics seems… weird. Again, I’m not unaccustomed to seeing these two themes in games by themselves, but together is on a whole new level. Sit back while I try my best to explain the depth that is Death Howl.

Ro, the main protagonist of our story, has entered the spirit realm to save her son from death’s grasp. Within this strange spirit world, Ro is forced to battle strange entities that mirror themes from her own world, all while trying to find her child. Thankfully, as the player guiding our mother on a mission, you have a means of fighting back—but the battle will not be an easy one.

As Ro you must explore strange lands and fight off baddies. First, the exploration, which is simple enough. Death Howl is an isometric adventure game at first glance. You will scour various otherworldly landscapes searching for your child—who is in deer form—and find various paths filled with enemy encounters. Enemies can be seen before you approach, and entering their domain begins a battle. Death Howl isn’t the easiest game to explain without visual cues, but let’s break it down into what you can expect and what awaits you.

Battles are on a grid-like plane where you face off against creatures like tree-beings, frogs, crow heads, and other oddities. Ro isn’t holding a special weapon but instead relies on supernatural powers that come from cards. When a battle begins, you first choose your starting location—which is important—and then engage. You’ll draw a random lot of several cards, with each having a specific amount of stamina they take, the amount of damage or effect they do, and some other consequence or effect. Case in point, Ro has a card that lets her throw a stone for 2 points of damage from several spaces away, but using this card forces you to discard a card. Likewise, there is a card that deals a lot of damage, but the cost is reflected more by how many cards you used that turn. There’s an absurd amount of stratagem that comes from how you handle cards in Death Howl, and that’s only the beginning of it, as there are even more levels to this card-based gameplay.

Your grid that you fight on can be a simple one with just enemies scattered about, but it can also be filled with spots that deal more damage—which also means you can take more if you’re on them—or destructible items that can either damage foes or give you temporary cards with special effects. How you move Ro and how you utilize your cards really can make or break a battle, and with a low amount of HP, even a simple 3 vs. 1 battle can be quite difficult. Players can make more cards—more on this in a moment—but even the best cards can be mismanaged and lead to a quick defeat.

Now here’s where the soulslike gameplay comes in. Ro can “rest” at specific areas, but rest does three things. One, it revives every enemy on the map—ala Dark Souls. Two, it allows you to input fallen enemies’ souls and put them into a pool to use to unlock special powers. And three, these rest areas recover Ro’s health. Unlike more traditional souls games, Death Howl makes you really think about resting at these spots. You can get much-needed HP and points for your special abilities, but reviving an enemy on a path you need to take means you will need to beat them again—and that might be tough to do. Likewise, making cards sometimes takes souls of fallen enemies, and if you used them for rest or to upgrade your powers—which you do both automatically when you rest—you will need to kill more enemies. This really makes the traditional resting at a safe spot even more thought-provoking than most soulslike games. Do I use the souls to make that OP powerful card or do I just rest and refight the same battles, maybe getting luckier or using more strategy to lessen my own damage? I won’t lie, this was quite the question while playing Death Howl. Add to this various regions that also have their own skill systems and cards linked to these level points and Death Howl truly earns that soulslike title.

In order to make cards too, you must gather items from both enemies and the landscape. This I kind of disliked a bit in Death Howl, as some cards require a decent amount of items and having to fight the same foes over and over or look for the materials on the map ended up being a bit too repetitive. Let’s not forget that these battles can be quite taxing. Sometimes a fight can last a few minutes; others can last a dozen minutes, requiring high levels of strategy to avoid being obliterated. One of the earlier fights where I had two crow heads, a tree beast, and a frog was annoying, as the frog could literally grab me from a distance, bring me into an enemy’s range, and make me take more damage than I was expecting—all for a few items that honestly, I didn’t need at the moment.

I think my biggest gripe with Death Howl is that even with the exciting battles and interesting mind games some require, the game after the first few hours can be quite repetitive. Battles do change a bit as you gain new cards and powers, plus there are totems you can equip that give you various starting boosts in battle, but the brunt of the game plays the same way. Explore an area, fight several battles, fight maybe a boss, and risk losing your souls for cards or to recover your precious health. Yeah, this system of gameplay is fun, but for some it might be a bit tedious after several hours.

Graphics

Death Howl’s visuals remind me of a mixture between old folk art and early adventure games from the 90s on the PC. There is so much personality embedded in the visual style of Death Howl that I can’t express my love for it any more than saying I adore the visual design. Despite how simple the backgrounds and character models can be at times, more often than not the game is just a mural come to visual life. I could almost see Death Howl becoming an animated movie or a comic book/graphic novel. The cutscenes are equally gorgeous and, despite the simple feel, they have so much personality I don’t often see in the gaming landscape. I can’t say this enough: Death Howl is a visual treat that just is perfect.

Sound

As barebones as the sound design is for Death Howl, the haunting sounds of movement, the eerie combat tunes, and the strange yells and cries just make Death Howl comparable to a pseudo-horror title. Usually, I’m all for voice acting in games and love to hear characters acted, but I almost think it was The Outer Zone’s best option to not voice many of these characters. The sound design for Death Howl is without a doubt the needed element to make the game work in not only setting but theme. If it was overly action-themed or had too much traditional RPG flair, it would oddly ruin the feeling in Death Howl.

Story

In Death Howl players take on the role of a mother named Ro who has just lost her child, Olvi. Unable to give up on her child, Ro decides to invoke ancestral rites to take her to the spirit realm and grab Olvi from death’s grasp. However, Ro will soon come to realize that death isn’t too keen on giving up a lost soul, and to regain her child’s life she will need to survive a world filled with entities all too ready to stop her goal.

When I at first read the synopsis of Death Howl, I thought this would be yet another examination of death and the stages of grief one must go through. I happily say I was so absurdly wrong… well, in the sense that Death Howl just uses the generic formula of death and the stages with it. Not to spoil Death Howl, there’s a deeper story going on here than I think is directly shown. Yes, the ideology that one can overcome death and/or the thought that someone would go through hell and back for their family is here, but there’s much more than presented. Death Howl examines the ideas of how a person would go through even the darkest worlds to reclaim a loved one and what one is willing to endure to battle death. I was pleasantly surprised that Death Howl constantly kept me wondering what would happen next and if Ro could save her child.

Overall Impression

I was very impressed with my time with Death Howl. I didn’t think these two genres could be melded together, but oddly enough they do mesh quite well and make for a tough but rewarding experience. I cursed several times while playing, but with some luck and fine-tuning of my deck/strategy, most obstacles I could overcome even if I didn’t rely on grinding for resources. Gameplay did get a bit repetitive the more time I invested in Death Howl, but that didn’t sour my experiences with it. I want to keep going through Ro’s story and save Olvi even if it means suffering sometimes through annoying enemy abilities and occasionally grind-heavy scavenging.

Conclusion

Death Howl is a great indie game that pulsates with innovative ideas on two gameplay mechanics I didn’t think could be used in the same sentence. While there are little nitpicks that can be made while playing, I still think Death Howl does an amazing job being a tough but rewarding game. I fully recommend Death Howl to anyone who loves card-based strategy games with the toughness and soul that is a soulslike game.

—Aaron