Deaths Gambit

Review
Death's Gambit: Afterlife is a very polished MetroidVania with punishing but solid combat, good exploration, a very nice RPG aspect, and a sense of uncovering that is quite rare to encounter. It has some minor snags, though.
The Highlights
You have lots of classes to choose from when you start. And after you level up, you can distribute points in your build, like in a classic RPG.
The RPG aspect is heavy; you have lots of equipment and items that you can use and get passive buffs. Also, there's a skill tree that you can branch into different skills and abilities.
The pixel art is not overly detailed and is somewhat rustic, but I like it. It's difficult for me not to like pixel art.
I didn't like the combat at first (as I don't like the "Souls combat" where stamina is needed to act), but after a while I adapted to it, and it became pretty fluid.
The dialogue has voice acting; it's nice; normally you don't find voice acting alongside dialogues (at least I don't), so it's cool when I come across it. But, weirdly enough, the protagonist has no voice lines. I got the true ending, but I still don't get this design choice.
You have a lot of freedom; the game allows you to engage in ways that feel like they're organic. For example, you can attack pretty much any NPC—kill Bast! Also, the exploration was very satisfying; I was always finding new things and items for wherever I was exploring.
The game is pretty challenging, the enemies are unforgiven, and the damage taken is substantial. And the bosses are equally hard. Although there are some difficulty spikes, they are quite preposterous.
The Drawbacks
One major negative point is that there is no fast travel until you reach the endgame. Like, c'mon, who thought this was a good idea?
There are several little minor nuisances in details that I noticed, like: some voice lines are missing from the dialogue. And other little technical things that I observed that were not polished.
But I gotta say... there are some design choices that are just perplexing. Like, I'm all on board for obscure secret puzzling stuff, but that invisible platforming puzzle to unlock the secret boss is abolutely atrocious. One thing is trying to make something difficult; the other is creating an obtuse, stupid section that sucks all the fun away from the game.
Conclusion:
Death's Gambit: Afterlife is a pretty big MetroidVania (40+ hours), with lots of content, challenging battles, prime exploration, huge RPG elements, and... it's FUN (for the most part); it's not perfect in totality, but it is a very solid game. The score can't be anything less than:
8/10

I finished Death Gambit Afterlife a few years ago, but after stumbling upon some videos, I thought writing a review would be a good way to show my appreciation for it.
When I started playing it before the Afterlife rework, I dropped it at the Bulwark (second boss of the game). I really didn't enjoy it and felt it was sluggish and way too hard for nothing. However, with the numerous changes of Afterlife, I had a much better time and went up until the end.
This game is my absolute favorite story wise, I keep getting teary-eyed when rewatching some scenes with Death, the way the story is written along with interactions is genuinely extremely good. Although I'd say it takes until at least the mid-point to third half of the game for the story to go from "decent" to "amazing". You can see the various inspirations the devs had from other famous indie games, which I obviously won't mention to avoid spoiling the "surprise".
The ending itself is among my most cherished experiences, I've recommended the game many times because of that last half that just blew me out the water the first time.
Gameplay wise, I think it's fine. However, making some choices (like choosing the Acolyte of Death class at the start) are really important, it makes the game less of a hassle as some bosses can be really unforgiving. I personally didn't try out the other weapons, the scythe is well-rounded so I always went with that one.
NG+ on heroic bosses is actually not fun because of how you don't really stand a chance, felt more like a slap in the face than a challenge, but the base game difficulty is well-thought-out.
As for the music, I've been so surprised of how good it is, the main leitmotif is something that stuck with me through the journey. Be it from bosses or just certain biomes, I'm always remembering them fondly, this is not your average OST that doesn't stand out.
An example :
I absolutely recommend this game if you enjoy challenging games and a story that has one of the most beautiful souls I've ever seen. Thank you for making this game
Death's Gambit 2 will probably never happen, but I'm happy even if it ends this way.

Don't let my low playtime fool you, i've beaten this game multiple times.
This is one of the best 2D Soulslike Metroidvanias of all time and it's not even debatable.
The Bad:
- It's a bit glitchy here and there, but i've never had something truly gamebreaking.
- Standard Keybinds are whack, but you can reassign them easily.
- Some Bosses have some weird hitzones & bs instant attack animations.
- Sometimes when you drop an Item, it just vanishes lol. Don't accidentally drop items.
The Mid:
- Bosses are pretty easy early on, but they eventually get a lot harder.
- Zone layouts can sometimes be a bit confusing even with the Minimap.
- Grinding is sometimes required.
The Good:
- Top 5 2D Metroidvania Gameplay ever honestly. It's super fun & addicting.
- Progression is super clean and imo. borderline perfect.
- Buildcrafting is really good. You have a LOT of options on how to play your char.
- I like the Story & Writing, but i know that's extremely subjective.
- Actually good Mouse Support for a 2D Metroidvania. Very rare in this Genre.
- The Metroidvania Aspect is REALLY FKN GOOD. A lot of Hidden Items, Backtracking, Interconnected Paths. IT'S SO GOOD.
I love this game. It's honestly a really good 8/10 to me.

When I started the game, I felt it was clunky, I didn't love the art style and in general I don't like Souls-likes.
Well, I did not only finish the game, I even started a New Game+. Something I literally never did for any other game before.
tl;dr: I can really recommend this game.

Tbh, there's better games out there. This doesn't even need to be something you buy, you don't miss out on much
But after playing through and beating it, I won't do NG+. Not because it's bad or anything, but because my character got their happy end
I won't make them relive the nightmare. I owe it to them as their Observer

1) go to an area with a robot dog believing its easy
2) accidentally go too close
3) boss hits you with massive explosion
4) wake up at the wierd statue with a guy roasting you for dying
9.5/10 would do it again

The TL;DR Positives:
Gorgeous visuals.
Classes/abilities are fun to experiment with and most of the collectibles are at least worth finding to try out.
Excellent dialogue and voice acting (for the most part.)
Great sound design.
Story is somewhat predictable, but is still thought provoking and a joy to experience, even for subsequent playthroughs.
Now for Criticism. But before going any further, here are My System Specs:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7800X CPU @ 3.50GHz 3.50 GHz
16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Not high end modern system to be sure, but decent enough that you would think that I shouldn't have any technical issues running this game.
Performance & Stuttering Issues:
You can do some online searches for how to address these issues, but the TL;DR is that Ti cards have been known to have particularly bad performance issues with Death's Gambit. But they can be addressed... to a degree.
Regardless here's what you should know going into this game.
FPS tracking will not help you because the performance issues typically don't directly affect the frame rate at all. During some of the worst instances of performance/stuttering that I experienced, my frame rate was consistently at a steady 55FPS at worst and capped out at 60FPS during most of my play time.
Death's Gambit Afterlife is a memory hog and you can expect it demand at least 50% of your system memory during combat especially boss fights, which are particularly poorly optimized.
Steam Link is likely to make these issues even worse, and if you haven't setup your steam link settings to maximize game performance already, you should, because this game deserves to be played on a big screen.
The temptation to button mash can be overwhelming, and even with button buffering it can be weirdly effective because input delay/failure bugs can occur during combat. However, button mashing can make performance and stuttering issues worse, especially with player or enemy abilities/attacks that generate VFX with more complex animations.
Input Delay/Failure Bugs and Button Buffering:
You are guaranteed to experience seemingly random button input failure and or delay at least once and it typically occurs during intense boss fights. I usually encountered the issue during the heroic forms of bosses. Possibly one of the best examples of this problem is the Tundra Lord Kaern boss (even during the 1st fight,) because the player needs to alternate between ground slams and air dashes. It's a boss design that would otherwise be interesting if it weren't so plagued by this issue. The Phoenix Rider boss is another great example of how performance issues combined with button input delay/failure can really burn the player experience.
Like many modern games after the early 2000s, Death's Gambit Afterlife has mandatory button buffering imposed on its controls. This is to discourage button mashing and to keep the player from bugging out the game with button mashing or sequence breaking button precision karate like they're playing in a GDQ. Button buffering, in my opinion, is dumb and a cheap cop-out from designing more stable gameplay. It is already bad enough that air-dash and ground-slam are locked to the same button press, but the button buffering combined with button input delay/failure bugs can cause massive frustration even when game performance is running perfectly.
Unfortunately, there is no fix that I know off to effectively address these button input delay/failure issues. You can try remapping your controls to see if that helps you. Best suggestions I can offer is do what you can to correct any performance issues first as these will only make your input delay/failure experiences even more soul-crushing, and then be prepared to die around 5 times at the minimum to any bosses where these issues manifest with the goal of getting a feel for the optimal button input strategy and timing rhythm for said fights.
Final Thoughts:
Death's Gambit After Life is absolutely worth playing for any souls-like fan and for any 2-D Action Platformer fan. If you like this game, try Salt & Sanctuary 1 too; you'll find similar appeal and issues with both.
Personally, I would not bother trying to "git gud" at this game, because so much of the late game content challenges are poorly optimized and some bosses are so cheesy they give some of the worst ATLUS games boss fights a run for their money. Instead, if you want to unlock different ending options that are challenging, such as the breaking the death contract and no-save-point-run, save yourself some time/energy and install a mod to make the game easier. I certainly won't judge you for it.