Death Howl

Death Howl is cohesive and well-crafted. The game's dour tone complements its surreal art style and soundtrack. Its myriad genres coalesce into consistently engaging combat and tactics. But most of all, across story and gameplay, Ro's journey taught me to embrace obstacles to overcome them. Having reached its end, it's a journey I'm glad to have taken.

A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage.

Death Howl is a challenging game, both in terms of its theme and its mechanics. Combat, as the main feature, is exactly what you'd expect from this type of game...

Death Howl provides healing to one of life’s most challenging experiences: the death of a close loved one. As Ro physically fights through this world, defeating monsters to save her son, many of her most important battles are emotional, as she wrestles with grief. While Death Howl leans heavily into its Soulslike difficulty, its chess-like tactics allow for countless possibilities. I logged about 56 hours completing quests and exploring the world, and I’m just short of that platinum trophy. You better believe I’ll be back to finish it and revel in the spirited strangeness of another world.

Parsing through its varying harsh systems, Death Howl's difficulty becomes a true reward. Satisfying deck building is the player's primary weapon against evolving oppression in this haunting spirit world about death and living.

Death Howl is not holding your hand. It gives you a deck, drops you in a scary forest, and tells you to stay alive. And when you finally beat a tough fight by positioning yourself well and planning ahead, the feeling of joy is real.

Death Howl is an excellent and original soulslike deckbuilder, that's only mired by its pacing. Progression is sluggish, and the combat is so unforgiving that these challenges may dissuade some players. However, if players want that challenge and love turn-based card battlers, then it doesn't get better than this.

I respect Death Howl more than I enjoyed it. It has a clear creative identity, strong art direction, and a combat system that will click with players who enjoy hard, grind-forward strategy with heavy resource tension. For me, it was mostly frustration. I came in expecting a deckbuilder that would scratch a certain itch, and instead found a very demanding tactical game where RNG and attrition often drowned out the fun. I do not hate Death Howl, and I do not think it is a bad game. I think it is a very specific game that asks for a lot, very early, and gives back in ways that did not work for me.

An attractive and challenging deckbuilder featuring interesting strategic challenges, but that also feel very grindy and overly brutal

An outstanding Soulslike deckbuilder that is a must-play on Nintendo Switch