Let It Die

Normally I wait till after I finish a game to write a review but in this case, I’ve already seen what the main hook that could drive a player to climb the Tower Of Barbs. Upfront Let It Die lets you know this is going to be a crazy ride by introducing Uncle Death who is one rad skeleton. He acts as your tutorial guide and makes sure you know that death can happen very quickly if you miss time an attack. The morbid yet still very humorous vibe this game has is its strongest point. Without the stylized cutscenes and the back story comics about all the bosses, I doubt I would have made it to the 22nd floor already.

Seeing the next weird cutscene is a nice incentive to keep going but the combat has its own charm too. It feels like the developers wanted to keep it simple but punishing. Almost every weapon has a 3 hit combo along with an alternate attack/defense move that could help you deal with all the enemies that line the halls. Deciding to use an attack will force you into letting the animation play out. Thus making a mistimed attack potentially fatal. Without taking some time to look around each room will lead to an early grave. Early on losing a character isn’t a big issue but after a while, the free to play nature of this game appears. Losing a character on a floor above 20 costs an obscene amount of money to retrieve. Which basically throws away a lot of your time and any money spent on stamps. Sure you can retrieve them by going to the floor they died on and then defeating your former ally but that also erases everything they had beforehand. Then you're just stuck grinding a bunch to reobtain the gear you need to continue.

Going up the tower constantly is important to upgrade the player character. Along with gathering crafting items to upgrade weapons and equipment to make it slightly easier to survive. The loop of skewering the tower to craft better stuff is quite compelling but it mainly took a backseat to actually trying to make it up to the next elevator. Since every 10 levels unlocks a brand new area of the tower that has new weapons to try out. Some like the machete can be quite overpowered. Which also leads into another issue you’ll have to deal with which is the Haters.

Before they were turned into an enemy a fellow player was controlling them to climb the tower. They are now in a constant frenzy and will attack all who come near. Especially now that everyone has leveled no section of the tower is safe. Running into a level 50 hater as a level 1 player seems really dumb and it has happened a lot while I’ve been scouring the first 10 floors. Sure it wasn’t a big issue to retrieve them but it just seems so unfair.The other asynchronous multiplayer mode is called Tokyo Death Metro has a similar issue. Most players just don’t have much of a defense leading me to easily steal some money without really trying. Sure I’ve seen tough metros before but it seems like it mostly just hurts players with a ton of money. Without spending hours collecting some tough gear to outfit a 5 man squad to defend your metro if you have a crazy amount of money it isn’t going to last long. Which is a bummer if you need it to reclaim a lost character that had some good loot on one of the higher floors.

Putting all those things together to make some weird yet strangely addictive gameplay loop is one surprising conclusion. Yet the other is the fact this seems like a bad FTP game. At least if they want me to pay them money. Currently, all you can buy is Death Metals that will most likely be used to instantly revive after an annoying death. A few other things can be bought but they are mostly pointless other than extra storage space and an elevator that’ll take you to any floor for free. Other than extra storage everything else is temporary making it real hard for me to actually spend any money on anything. Really I think this mirrors playing in an arcade literary and narratively. It worked then but I don’t know if that still applies today. Only time will tell.

Overall I think I like Let It Die. Sadly it just has some balance issues that make it more frustrating than fun. Too many factors lead to unfair deaths. I’m fine with a real tough game but parts of this one just seem unbalanced. So far that hasn’t kept me from doing one run in the tower each day. I may be saying a lot of negative things here but I really do love Grasshopper Manufacturer's brand of crazy. Which includes Suda51 who I assume had some input on the whacked out story this game has. In the end, the main reason I suggest you check out this game is to see the strange world that they have crafted.