The more I played Gods Will Fall, the more I understand its intricate design. It’s a good game that at the very heart depends on dungeon design and bosses to make it fun. It exceeds in the latter and does a good job with the design. The story is meaningful, the gameplay design of the action is simplified, and while it does have its pain points here and there, it delivers a fun and purposeful experience.
Gods Will Fall is an interesting title. Stuck somewhere between a dungeon crawling experience with a lite amount of RPG elements and a heavy amount of action, it does its best to bring entertainment and challenge. And that last part is the main crux of the journey…challenge.
A demigod of a story
The Gods of the world have failed humankind. Humans have discovered that the Gods are just using them to keep their lives going and truly not interested in the feelings nor the longevity of humankind. Fed up with being used and abused, the humans decide it’s time to track down the Gods of the world and take them out. No easy task for sure, but one that men and women will attempt in hopes of being freed from the godly tyranny of the world. While on the way to tackle this tall task, the adventurers’ path becomes impeded and only a few humans survive and make it to the land of the Gods. To take the Gods down, the small band of warriors will have to traverse dungeons, defeat various manner of creatures, and destroy the monsters that control the world.
Sounds like a family fun night type of game, doesn’t it?
The story in Gods Will Fall is as simple as its title, yet much like the game itself packs a punch with its delivery. With the combination of story, music, and well-animated emotions when team members succeed or fail, the heart of the game gets amplified and its importance transcends upon the player over and over again. In less fancy words, the story is really darn good and entertaining, even if it is simple in its design. It makes you feel like you’re a part of a desperate adventure to save humanity and that failure means the destruction of your world from very angry and vengeful Gods. The good folks at Clever Beans somehow put together a narrative formula that connects you to the story and to the one-dimensional characters that you control. It’s impressive and you feel their successes as much as you feel their sorrows.
No more, no less gameplay
The gameplay within Gods Will Fall is a bit more shallow than the story. The game is divided into two simple components — hack/slash and strategy.
The hack/slash portion of this game is evident from the moment you walk into the first dungeon. You’re given instructions to run, attack, and use defensive moves to attack. You’re also given the opportunity to pick up items and throw them back at enemies (or carry them and eventually throw them at enemies). Beyond this, there isn’t a lot to say about the action other than its hack/slash material. Is that bad? No, it certainly keeps the game simplified. The added component of taking a spear from a fallen enemy and throwing it from a distance into another enemy, then retrieving the same spear and doing it again is a blast. I like this simple aspect of the game because it allows for strategy when you’re approaching a room full of enemies.
The strategic part of this adventure is more about adventuring through the dungeons and exploring an open land. You have to figure out how to get from dungeon to dungeon from a crayon drawn map. Once inside the dungeon, you will have to determine the best path through it to get the least amount of damage on your player with the most amount of offensive return. Some of the dungeons are huge with obvious paths, while others are more chaotic with hidden-in-plain-sight pathways. You may run into a dungeon and unnecessarily get into a fight with a band of enemies, lose energy, and realize that you didn’t have to go said way. It’s very Diablo III in that regard. The game gives you the choice to run through a dungeon quickly or simply take it slow and steady, the latter of which I highly recommend. Regardless, strategizing on the fly will be something you will have to get used to in the game and will also make the game a little bit more entertaining in the long run.
From that strategy is born the gameplay design for boss fights. How well you get through a dungeon will determine, at least a small piece, how well you handle the boss fights. You always want your character to be in tip-top shape before entertaining a final fight. The main reason is that you will have to figure out the boss during the fight. The secondary reason is that you have one shot with the boss. If you die in the fight, you’re going to have to play another character in your group. In a sense, you’re probably going to be sacrificing your first character to figure out how a boss works. That said, if you succeed the second time around, then you get that first lost character back. If you don’t, then you lose that first character and are down a character. No pressure, right?
Anyway, the boss fights are unique, to say the least. From a giant arachnid to a large horned-golem creature that uses a massive tongue to take you down (he literally holds and swings his tongue). The devs at Clever Beans really went to the trippy drawing table of terror to bring you some nightmares. They are well-designed enemies, unlike the smaller repetitive enemies, that show how much time, effort, and thought went into the payoff placements of the game. The difficulty between common enemies to bosses is an insane spike, and rightfully so if you’re going along with a story about Gods abusing humans and ruling over them. The Gods should be a considerable step up.
Getting back to actual fighting and gameplay, the controls in the game are simple. You have a light attack, a heavy attack, a jumping/slam attack, healing charge (L2 — as you defeat enemies you gather up more life that you might have lost), and the run/defensive attack button (O). This is the basic scheme of the game. The additional controls include hitting the R1 button to pick up an enemy weapon and holding R1 while pressing the square button to throw the enemy weapon. Anything more than that and you have an issue with a complication in the game, as its difficulty and enemy count can increase considerably at any given time. The controls aren’t terrible, just simple. The actual command and movement of the selected above can also be slow sometimes in execution. There were plenty of times where I wanted to instantly break an executed command to dodge an enemy attack that I didn’t calculate correctly. The game, much like NBA 2K, forces you to go through the motions before allowing the next button execution. Sometimes that means you’re wasting small amounts of time or sometimes that means you are going to get attacked even though you saw it coming. Breaking away from those movements when you want to, much like God of War 3 does (and it was lovely because of it) makes for better gameplay experience in my opinion. I get that in real life you can’t run while you’re in mid-air, but this is a game, so it’s not real life. The movement and control execution needs to be a bit more flexible and crisper. It needs to allow you to quickly move out of the way of an attack almost instantaneously, regardless of what you might be doing. That would make it a helluva lot more fun.
But this complaint is small potatoes in a bigger yummier roast of an experience. Players will find a way to work around this and might just consider this part of the strategic plan they have to account for as they go through the journey.
Pretty and well-designed
For a smaller game that didn’t cost AAA prices, the execution of the presentation and the girth of the adventure is mightily impressive. The presentation is a more playful version of Diablo III. You have an isometric viewpoint that has a locked camera that takes you through giant levels that are filled full of terror and style. Some levels are just tiered DnD design, something you would expect from a common dungeon-led game that features dozens of platforms that go up/down. Other levels, such as the tongue boss level, are of a spiral design, which emulates some clever and clear design inspired from Dante’s multi-ring level of hell. No matter the level, Clever Beans didn’t waste a creative thought in designing the structures. They are a treat to see in action and are grotesque (in a good way) at times. The animation that goes along with them and the life they contain are also quite nice.
On the exploration side of things, while the world of the Gods is empty for the most part, it is big and you can explore with your team. Deciding which dungeon to task yourself with and how far you want to go in the land of the Gods is up to you. You can explore a giant land and treat it like a buffet where you can see what it has to offer. While this might not contain Skyrim like girth, it is a big part of the game’s charm.
Before I wrap up, let me also add that the music in this game is amazing. It’s well-crafted and pointed for each dungeon, and it brings the emotion that you require to dig into the game and lose yourself a bit. It pushes up the presentation value of the gameplay exponentially.
Conclusion
The more I played Gods Will Fall, the more I understand its intricate design. It’s a good game that at the very heart depends on dungeon design and bosses to make it fun. It exceeds in the latter and does a good job with the design. The story is meaningful, the gameplay design of the action is simplified, and while it does have its pain points here and there, it delivers a fun and purposeful experience.
