There are already so many Soulslike games that you can open Steam, bang your head on the keyboard and accidentally buy one. Despite this saturation, the small Danish studio The Outer Zone decided to combine card mechanics with a soulslike structure. It might not be the most original idea, but I have to say it works. Death Howl is original, depressing and so difficult that in some parts of the game I really wanted to bang my head on the keyboard.
| Initial price | Reviewed version | Reviewer copy |
| 20€ | PC | Provided by publisher |
Although the themes of grief and regret have already been thoroughly explored in numerous games, Death Howl brings a dose of originality by placing the action in Scandinavia eight thousand years ago, where a mother Ro loses her son and decides to enter the soul world to try to save him.
The story isn’t overly complex, but it’s thematically very consistent and if you let the game guide you, it can be very emotional. The whole plot takes maybe fifteen minutes in a twenty hour game, depending on how fast you read, but I’d say that choice is very appropriate for a game like this. Gameplay is the main thing here, and the narrative serves to get you from point A to B. The overall story more or less blends into the background and doesn’t interrupt the action, allowing the gameplay to really shine. You won’t get stuck in long dialogues, or spend five minutes reading something that could be explained in ten seconds and that you wouldn’t be too interested in anyway.
The story isn’t overly complex, but it’s thematically very consistent and if you let the game guide you, it can be very emotional.
Sometimes less is more, and that’s exactly the case in Death Howl. The story does not draw attention to itself or insist on itself, but it combines all the elements into a coherent whole. The art design, sound and music serve the story to create a depressing, gloomy atmosphere, and the narrative itself targets one of the most primal human experiences, that of loss. Although the story lets the gameplay take center stage, it’s still brilliantly done, carefully integrated into every aspect of the game, and packs a powerful emotional punch.
If you’ve played any card game in the last dozen years, you probably know what awaits you here. The fight is done in turns, you have several cards at your disposal, but you are limited by your mana. There’s also an element of tactical positioning, much like the great Into the Breach, where you can use the environment as cover or turn it into a weapon. Different enemy configurations and battle arenas help keep the game fresh, but I still felt repetitive the longer I played. As well-done as the combat system is, there isn’t enough interesting side content to break up the monotony.
There’s an element of tactical positioning, much like the great Into the Breach, where you can use the environment as cover or turn it into a weapon.
The game flirts with a soulslike structure, but I’d say this is more of a marketing ploy than an accurate description of the game. You have shrines where you can regenerate health, and all enemies will respawn as soon as you do. Winning earns you death howls, a currency that you can use for passive bonuses or crafting cards. If you die, you have a chance to restart the fight, but you must collect your howls before they expire. But there is one problem here. If you want passive enhancements, you have to get to the shrine and respawn all the enemies, but you can craft cards anywhere, anytime. Meaning that before risky fights, I simply made cards that seemed useful to me and eliminated the risk of death.
Soren Johnson, one of the lead designers of Civilization III, put it eloquently: “Given the chance, players will optimize the game to the point of squeezing all the fun out of it.” Since dying in Death Howl results in a return to the beginning of the fight, and the game is so difficult that it requires near perfection in some parts, I often reset fights without risking it. If one thing were to go wrong for me, I’d hit that “abandon combat” button faster than memory prices have skyrocketed in the last month. A quick fix for this would be to limit card making to shrines, which in my opinion would eliminate this problem.
Although Souls games are mostly based on player skill, in a game like this, the randomness of the card draw can really screw you up. The enemy is finally open to attack? Oops, you only drew defensive cards! This kind of RNG integration often results in the fact that sometimes you don’t feel responsible for defeats, nor for victories. When I finally won the fight that I was stuck on for a couple of hours, I wasn’t so proud of my tactics and skills as I was grateful for the cards drawn. Of course, it’s up to the player to manage the risks and control the influence of the RNG, but sometimes you can really end up in a mess through no fault of your own. This kind of randomness is very often present in these kinds of games, and I’m already used to it, but not everyone will be so resistant.
Similar games are known for their difficulty, but I have to say that Death Howl sometimes really overdoes it. Most of the time I got through the fights without any problems, but then a room would appear that I would spend half an hour on. Boss battles are even worse. It took me a few hours to beat the first boss enemy and I prepared for the worst, but the rest of the battles are pretty well balanced. Of course, if you build your deck badly, you can only dream of winning.
Similar games are known for their difficulty, but I have to say that Death Howl sometimes really overdoes it.
What the game gets right about the soulslike style is exploration. The map consists of 13 smaller regions that you can explore in any order. Each hides a bunch of trivia, puzzles and battles that bring really useful rewards. There’s always a surprise around every corner, and the game doesn’t hold your hand, doesn’t give detailed instructions, and lets you figure out what’s required of you. This is exactly one of the main reasons why Souls games are so attractive.
Smart combination of cards is not a cunning tactic here, but mandatory to win. There are four main regions, each giving you different maps specialized for that region. So you’ll actually be building the deck from scratch a minimum of four times. Some people won’t like this, but this kind of system forces the player to experiment and use different cards.
Maybe after all this you think that Death Howl is a disaster of a game and that I couldn’t wait to put it down, but it’s the complete opposite. All these flaws, frustrations, and little things I’ve been complaining about haven’t really been nearly enough to detract from the core of the game, which is combat and deck building. I paid attention to the flaws precisely because the game is so close to being truly fantastic, so close that its every little mistake stings you a little, precisely because you see how much potential it has. Even with the aforementioned problems, Death Howl won me over.
The cards are imaginative, they combine interestingly with other cards, and the game forces you to experiment and get out of your comfort zone.
Once you get the rhythm and experience the moment when everything clicks, you will enter a kind of trance where you instinctively know what the enemy will do, what card to use and how to position yourself. The cards are imaginative, they combine interestingly with other cards, and the game forces you to experiment and get out of your comfort zone, which results in more interesting fights. It all adds up to an experience that, despite its flaws, remains incredibly addictive and hard to put down.
Death Howl uses fairly simple pixelated graphics, but they are really beautiful. Each region has its own unique color palette, and these are completely different, so you’ll fight your way through swamps, forests, deserts and glaciers, each visually unique. The user interface is also fantastic. Games like this suffer from too much text that doesn’t work on smaller screens or TVs, but in Death Howl everything is huge and very clear, with simple explanations. The sound effects may seem simple, but they do a fantastic job. Punches, blocks and special moves sound surprisingly punchy and very satisfying.
Games like this suffer from too much text, but in Death Howl everything is huge and very legible
The music fits perfectly into the atmosphere of the game, it is unobtrusive, gloomy and suitable for such a depressing and dark story. You won’t listen to it in your free time, but that’s not the point. Dark, angsty music like this works best right where it needs to be, which is within the game itself.
Normally, I rarely encounter technical problems in these kinds of games, but Death Howl broke that tradition. At one point in the game I experienced a bizarre fps drop, sometimes characters duplicated after battles, so I had several copies of myself just hanging around when this happened. enemies would just stop on their turn and do nothing, so I had to exit to the main menu to continue. Such technical problems are not so common that they spoil the whole game, but they still slightly spoil the overall impression.
Death Howl is right on the line between a very good game and a great game, but I lean more towards the former. The combat system and map creation are fantastic and are the main reason I enjoyed the game. If you like card games, you’ll love this one. However, if you are the type of player who comes home after work and wants to relax, Death Howl is probably not the best choice as it is very demanding even for experienced players. The RNG system and huge jumps in difficulty can be really frustrating at times, but the core of the combat itself is brilliantly done and extremely satisfying when everything falls into place.
The most interesting parts were actually the ones outside of combat, combining cards in interesting ways, exploring the world of the dead and encountering all sorts of strange creatures. The story is effective precisely because of its simplicity. Everyone has felt sadness, everyone has regretted some of their actions, and everyone understands the pain of a mother who has lost a child, and the game achieves that emotional impact without imposing itself and without constantly taking away control from the player.
Death Howl is one of the more original games this year, even though the premise might not sound like it. The game’s flaws don’t spoil the basic enjoyment, but they’re frustrating precisely because Death Howl is so close to being a great game. As things stand, I definitely recommend the game, but I will warn you: if you’re the type of player who gets angry easily, save your keyboard and blood pressure and wait for the weight to level off a bit.