I’ve Died A Thousand Deaths…: A Death or Treat Review

By JT

Players: 1
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBox, Nintendo Switch, PC

I have played some real treats before, including many games of rogue-lite design, but the best way to sum up Death or Treat is dying a thousand deaths. You grind for a fraction of a minute, you die, you grind for another few minutes, you die, and then the minutes repeat themselves. Each death is supposed to be a learning experience, as well as progression, but every bit of the grind keeps chipping away at your sanity rather than allowing you to achieve any tangible growth. There are some good elements to Death or Treat, but at its core it's a boring and grindy game. There are plenty of rogue-lite games that have depth and hold their own, but this isn’t one of those games. What do I dislike about Death or Treat? What did I wind up liking about it? Is it even worth the current purchase price? Let’s find out!

Death or Treat is a different game than what was envisioned during the prologue scene. At the start we are introduced to a beautiful cut-scene that looks as if it was ripped straight from a short animation film. A ghost figure by the name of Scary arrives at a town in the hopes of selling some merchandise, but once he shows up he finds that there is nobody around except for a special few. This is where we learn of Storyum, which is similar in scope to endorphins in the brain. With everyone constantly checking social media, and a slave to their phones, they’ve all but completely left the little town of HallowTown. If anyone can save the townspeople Scary can; using his powers to defeat the numerous enemies across the different platforms of social media. With names such as Darkchat, RipTok, and DevilTube, how could people not be invested?

As one could guess, the entire medium of Death or Treat is one big meta train, and it uses a lot of puns and jokes that grow old before they even come up. The one pun that comes to mind when you think FaceBook? That’s right, FaceBoo! Getting old already? Well, there are dozens of references like this across the entirety of Death or Treat. Fackerberg, Jobs, and Pumpkin Gates to name a few. A lot of the puns are in the background all throughout the game, from backgrounds to foregrounds of levels, but this game feels like one big cringe. The story is something that could have saved this game. Experiencing the well-animated first cut-scene and having everything you need to know about the premise being conveyed to you so beautifully was a nice touch. Sadly the game falls very flat thereafter. No semblance of good, solid writing can be found after this strong opening, even the ending was a giant wet fart in the wind. After each boss, with exception of the final boss, you’re given a choice between Death or Treat. (Oh look, it's the name!) Pick Death and you’ll be given some extra candies and be taken back to HallowTown to gather more upgrades, pick Treat and you’ll be able to continue your journey to fight other enemies and gain an extra inventory slot. From my own personal experience, it was just more fruitful to pick Treat. That way I always knew what I was going to be up against later.

With Death or Treat it’s very important to know how the game works fundamentally. It’s a hack and slash game with incremental upgrade elements. Every time you die you are resurrected and taken back to HallowTown. You’re only ever able to take a certain number of items collected during fights back with you; however, you’re also able to upgrade those slots to be able to take in more items. These items are then used to craft weapons or upgrades. With how the game functions you may be looking at maxing all possible upgrades before continuing onto the next boss in each level. Death is as much a part of this game as living in any other game, although the higher the skillset the better your chances. If you can anticipate dodging better than the next person, then you'll experience a much higher survival rating. This game attempts to be a Dark Souls-like game, but the most important element is supposed to be the fun factor. In all my time playing I only had about an hour or two of fun, while the rest was only the grind. Just pure grind from then on.

This isn’t to say that Death or Treat CAN'T be fun. If you’re able to push through the grind, and enjoy both the visuals and fluidity of combat aside from hugging death, then you will probably have the best time here. Enemies are on average fun to kill, and at worst they are uninspired and unoriginal; many are just different versions of ones found in previous levels. Boss levels are within the same scope, but they can be punishingly difficult to the point it isn’t even fair sometimes, and you'll always be guessing where they will attack next. All too often even the most skilled player may receive a bad hand and take lots of unlucky strikes, leading to grinding through the same levels once again. Everything feels responsive though, sometimes to the game’s detriment, from keyboard and controller controls, to the combat itself. The ranged weapons were a little glitchy and didn't feel 100% responsive, but they wound up also being the most powerful, so it was a small trade off. I played this game on Steam and the full controller support made this game much less of a slog to get through, seeing as there is no in-game button mapping. Without this controller support my current rating would be even further in the bucket.

The sound effects and music work just fine. Everything from the townspeople to the enemies, and the surrounding world itself, imbues an atmosphere feels like it came out of a Halloween storybook. That said, the music is all played very safe. Nothing ever feels very original and it's all purely instrumental. In the beginning there was a hint at possibly leaning into the whole Halloween premise and playing it up hardcore, but then you figure out there’s nothing beyond just simple notes. The artwork within the story scenes after the prologue are average and only give minor context as to what is happening. With everything being hand-drawn though, the animation looks very fluid, and is a treat to see. Death or Treat appears to take inspiration from games such as Hollow Knight, and that is a much better game worth checking out. Thinking about it more, Death or Treat feels extremely reminiscent of Hollow Knight, both in animation and character design.

Death or Treat has potential, but there is so little in the way of it being a game one could come back to after only a few runs, much less once one has finished the basic story elements. It could be a much better game given only slightly more effort on the development side of things. Months from now there will be other games I wouldn’t mind re-exploring, as there are so many other mediocre games out there to spend my money on that are surprisingly fun. Many other games lean much more into the Halloween theme, so it may be a good idea to check some out. As for Death or Treat, while it is initially fun, the momentum is slowed severely due to the lack of depth, the ever-present grind, and a general lack of originality. With its current price on Steam set at just under $15 at the time of writing this review, it’s still best to wait for a massive sale if you plan on picking this game up. Death or Treat? I’ve died a thousand deaths, but I’m not planning to die a thousand more for this game.

For More Information on Death or Treat:
https://perpgames.com/game/death-or-treat/

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Story: D-
Gameplay: C-
Graphics: C-
Music/Sound: D
Value: D-

Overall: D

Pros:
+ Great animation, especially in the opening.
+ Responsive and fluid controls for the most part.

Cons:
- While the animation is good, the first cut-scene had me thinking there would be much more.
- Music is safe and uninspired.
- Enemies and bosses left much to be desired.
- Too much grind made any progress feel extremely slow.
- Cringe all over the screen, in the base town, the background and foreground of every single level, and with the naming of everyone.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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