Gods Will Fall Review: An Endless Boss Battle

Gods Will Fall, developed by Clever Beans and published by Koch Media, delivers a challenging addition to the hack-and-slash genre. Designed to offer difficult combat to players, this fighting game combines rogue-like dungeon crawling elements similar to Hades with a simple narrative: The gods of this realm need to be eliminated. Gods Will Fall for Xbox One will have players struggling to strategize as they work their way through the realms of the gods, guiding their party of bloodthirsty warriors.

Existence is bleak in the world of Gods Will Fall. Humankind has been under the rule of a pantheon of cruel gods that require the absolute devotion of every person, unless they want to suffer divine punishment. To free themselves from their overlords, the player’s team of fighting game warriors set out to find and destroy each god by entering their realm and engaging them in combat, even if it is at the cost of their own lives.

Gods Will Fall takes place on an island where the party has been shipwrecked. Using a map, the player can navigate to different gateway locations that allow them to enter the dungeon realm unique to each god. To enter the gateway, the player will select one character from their party. Each character has a different set of fighting skills and weapons, with a focus on heavy hitting, ranged, and rogue fighting styles. The characters all have different weights and speeds that affect dodging, jumping and walking. Once the player has selected their warrior, they enter the gateway and are transported to the realm of the god they are challenging.

Because Gods Will Fall is a difficult fighter-style game, players will be keeping a close eye on their health bar. However, there are a few tweaks that make health management different than Dead Cells: Fatal Falls or other similarly popular dungeon-crawling games. A warrior’s health is called their “Vigor,” and appears on the left side of the screen as red notches. The bar depletes when a players takes damage, eventually leading to them becoming incapacitated. However, players also have “Bloodlust,” which is a darker red that rises on the bar when the player lands attacks on the enemies. Using the left trigger, the player can use “Roar” to restore a portion of their Vigor, depending on how much Bloodlust they have accumulated. If players let their Bloodlust build to the “Roar Power Threshold,” they will receive a boost as well as restoring a large amount of Vigor.

While Gods Will Fall may appeal to fans who enjoy hack-and-slash style games, there are a few mechanics that could could pose problems. After playing through a few realms, players will find exploration is not something that is encouraged due to unclear terrain boundaries. While it may seem that the environments are meant for players to explore, they will instead find that falling off bridges and stepping off cliffs is a common issue. The more a player tries to stray from the obvious forward path, the more likely their character will meet an untimely demise. This can be frustrating for those trying to jump up on a ledge that looks like part of the path they must follow, only to find themselves plummeting off the side of the map.

The largest struggle for Gods Will Fall is the difficulty level. While the game explains that the gods and their realms vary in difficulty levels, there is no indicator on the map or when the players approach the gateways to help strategize about which realms they should enter first. This lack of information causes players to guess where they must go, and die if they guess badly. This can be discouraging and frustrating for those who want to enjoy Gods Will Fall but find that the lack of strategy impacts the gameplay. After entering each realm, it seems that the difficulty level is roughly the same, and the true difference is only distinguishable in how many enemies swarm the player during combat.

Gods Will Fall is a good challenge for fans of difficult games. Players will have their skills and patience tested as they chip away at each god’s realm, trying to reach the end. However, the game would benefit from difficulty level markers to guide players through the different realms so that strategizing for each godly battle isn’t based on random guesses. Barriers should also be added to help prevent accidental deaths when players are searching for items or enemies. Gods Will Fall delivers on its claim for difficult combat, but there are a few improvements that could make playability less frustrating for players, leaving room for quality-of-life changes in future patches.

Gods Will Fall is available now on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia and Microsoft Windows via Steam. An Xbox One code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.

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