Review: Death Howl Can Test Your Resolve

Games like Slay the Spire and Into the Breach involve careful plotting, deck-building, tactical awareness, and patience to succeed, and Death Howl is the latest new title to follow in their footsteps. The Outer Zone often references both types of genres, as well as soulslikes, when discussing its strategic affair. It’s an absolutely gorgeous game with some situations that can prove truly taxing. It can be a challenge! But some of the situations can prove quite daunting. I’d say in a good way, as it makes you think while surrounding you with an appropriate atmosphere. 

Ro’s son is dead. However, the warrior won’t accept that. She is determined to do whatever it takes to retrieve Olvi, even if that means braving the dangers of the Spirit World. So she undertakes a ritual to traverse unknown areas and face opponents in the hopes of reuniting with him. It’s a dangerous path, one that involves fighting and taking Death Howls from fallen foes into Ro’s self. By wandering through realms, facing spirits, opening up nodes on skill trees to get Spirit Cards and abilities, grinding past spirit fights to get Death Howls and crafting materials, getting totems for boosts, and unlocking fast-travel via Sacred Groves, you can build better decks of cards with actions and attacks and come closer to Ro’s goals.

While some roguelike games and strategy titles like this feature picking nodes on a map, Ro actually wanders through various realms in the Spirit World. Once you happen upon a Spirit, you choose the starting position on the grid from the initial row. You then get five cards from your deck dealt to you, with each one featuring a certain energy cost to them. Ro herself also has 20 health. Your goal will be to defeat the spirit you face, using different attacks and abilities to retaliate. Attacks may also have effects like poison or push, and actions might involve sprinting a certain distance to go further than usual or adding armor. You can have 20 cards in a deck, 

I will warn you that Death Howl isn’t for everyone for a number of reasons, even though it is excellent example of things happening in the deckbuilding and tactical genres. The references to soulslike refer to the ambiance and difficulty. Even some standard enemies are really challenging, until you’ve faced them a few times and realized what their gimmick and range is. Speaking of which, RNG itself can be brutal and result in moments when you won’t have much of a chance. Which is a whole thing in standard roguelikes, but becomes extra punishing here. This means there’s a lot of grinding necessary to become strong enough to actually survive. At times, it might even feel a bit unbalanced. 

Especially since Death Howl falls into the soulslike trap of often not explaining things to the degree necessary. This is very much a game where I felt like I learned by doing. If you aren’t familiar with titles like Into the Breach, Lost in Fantaland, and Slay the Spire, then Death Howl will confound you. It fill feature icons like skulls, drops of blood, shields, spirals, and plus signs next to cards and assume you know what that means. Enemy stats aren’t well explained. There’s nothing wrong with having a game where you need to work things out on your own, but it’s another thing to be aware of when it’s already quite challenging.

However, because there is grinding in Death Howl and quite a few side quests, it doesn’t feel truly impossible. If you keep pushing forward and experimenting with which path you take through a realm, things might go better. I found sometimes I’d find a solution to get past an encounter that was troubling me or get the crafting materials I needed. 

I also feel like, considering how fantastic the story is, it is worth weathering the storms you’ll face when aiding Ro on her journey. It’s a dark, sad tale that also incorporates lore as she encounters different individuals. It’s a haunting tale about grief, beautifully executed with its spritework and punctuated with battles that feel like they test your limits. It all comes together so well.

The struggle in Death Howl is real, both in terms of its story and challenge. It’s meaningful and haunting. While it can mean going through quite a bit of grinding and dealing with major foes and a bit of unfair RNG, it is a battle worth fighting.

Death Howl is available for PCs.