 A game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Our death must die. And it draws plenty of inspirations. I'll give you a quick rundown of them. Three immediately come to mind. One is Vampire Survivor, the second Diablo and the third Hades. From the moment you start your first run, you'll fire yourself on familiar ground if you've spent any amount of time with 2022's breakout in the game, Vampire Survivor. Waves of enemies release at set intervals, each wave more challenging than the one before. Survive long enough, and increasingly hectic encounters culminate in the final boss encounter at the 20 minute mark, here with Dracula, barren of the outer circle. While he isn't a count, I do not know. It would make more sense if he were a marquee, as those are the nobles who control the outer or border territories of a kingdom. But I'm nitpicky here. Still, weird choice. Another aspect familiar from Vampire Survivor is the procedurally generated levels. I say levels, because I assume there are several in the works. But he'll only find the one in the Early Access build at the time of writing the script, December 5th 2023. The levels work in nearly identical ways, with a certain amount of textured background elements and interactables popping up time, and again. Those interactables aren't the map items you'd find in Vampire Survivor, they're much more like the shrines you would pick up in Diablo, increasing your damage, movement, speed, luck, or any array of other stars. You can also tank Diablo for its clear influence on deadmasters, graphics and gothic atmosphere, but let's go back to the pickups for a moment and point out that some of them are downright bizarre events, which invite you to gain one of three or four options after you make a choice, but they really break the rhythm in strange flows. Something that the game is aware of and makes fun of, to be fair. Anyway, back to the graphics and gothic atmosphere and inventory and item management as well. Those also give more than just a cursory nod to Blizzard's hack and slash. Murdering lots of creepy undead with every left click is also pretty Diablo-ish of this game. One of the weaknesses of Deadmasters Die, however, is that the items, despite their breakdown into the usual category of rarities, aren't anything much to write home about. I received some legendary items after my first successful takedown of Dracula, a super rewarding fight by and by, but the legendary items I got were slight improvements rather than something game-changing. Minor percentiles tilt this way or that, but I don't think anyone will be talking about item builds anytime soon. Then there's the homage that Deadmasters Die gives to one of my all-time favorite games, Hades. This can be seen in your ability acquisitions through each run, connected to deities which grant you some aspect of their power. A lot of UI elements are budget versions of what you'll see in Hades, like looking at familiar sights through a blurry pair of glasses. Think Dead and title screens, but also the difficulty system, both in form and in function. But again, it's all budget versions. The space you access between runs goes for a similar vibe as the House of Hades, but is at present too empty to invite favorable comparison. The biggest Hades inspiration is the overarching narrative. You're trying to kill death with the help of various gods who empower you. So rather than playing a direct relative, you take control of one of an assortment of heroes unlocked over runs and more. Writing is the game's most serious issue. The gods and their interactions with the player work fine, though they are derivative and occasionally stilted. The developer's choice to use emojis in the speech bubbles of one playable character and completely dominate another with internet abbreviations ruins what would otherwise be a gothic atmosphere. This is one element that suggests a degree of self-consciousness to the game, a bashfulness that elbows you in the stomach, seemingly saying, hey, look at me, I'm not taking myself anywhere near as serious as those games I borrow from. The element is further reiterated in the occasional funny bark from elite mobs. A skeleton archer comes to mind, letting out ouches and owls once you hit them. While I can give the skeleton a pass, it's funny at least the first few times you see it. The character interactions take me out of the experience. That must die is fun enough for me to want it to take itself more serious. Another weakness of the game's writing is easy enough to address, with a few more layers of varnish. There are plenty of minor areas, typos, punctuation marks missing where they should be or present where they're not supposed to be. That must die opens up an interesting question. What's the line between inspiration and appropriation? Whatever your opinion, I find myself looking kindly upon this one. It's so sincere in the elements it adopts. Never does this game pretend it's various parts or anything, but whole cloth copies of vampire survivor Diablo and Hades. You'll even find some of the sound effects from Diablo in there. I swear it's uncanny. That marks it as more homage than appropriation, even a love letter. And because the gameplay loop is such great fun, that must die somehow wets these elements together in a way that makes me genuinely excited to see what this early access title grows to be once it reaches the end of its development cycle and that longed for 1.0 release. That this costs less than 6 euro also helps its case a whole lot. With seven unlockable characters, there's another idea here to ignore the fact that only a single biome is available. At least for a few good hours. I enjoyed it. I will probably go back and play it some more. If not right now, then certainly once the next iteration, the next patch, comes out. Whenever that happens, you might as well expect a video from me to tell you all about it. Whether I will have that video out or not, well, that's another question entirely, but you can expect it. Until then, I'm Philip Magnus. Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please smash this like button, subscribe, share this with your grandmother, and I will see you next time. Bye!