Have A Nice Death Review – Making a Killing

Pump Quinn is the best character and I love her.

Roguelike games have become, without a doubt in my mind, one of my favorite genres ever to be made. The infinite replayability and mystery of what lies ahead in each procedurally generated level. along with the promise of a highly customized build made around chance keeps my ADD brain so easily engaged.

Not only are these games fun and engaging, but something about the genre seems to draw out the most creative of game developers, especially when it comes to building the worlds around these Roguelikes.

HADES. Dead Cells. NOITA. These games have unique settings you just don’t see anywhere else, fantastic worlds and marvelous art teams that lure you in so the gameplay can hook you. I almost feel victimized with how easily screenshots and trailers of these games can convince me to buy them.

The latest roguelike I’ve gotten my hands on, Have a Nice Death, embodies and exemplifies all of the things I love about roguelikes.

Shorted to HaND, Have a Nice Death is an action Roguelike (duh) made by Magic Design Studios and published by Gearbox. The second game by Magic Design, HaND features hand-drawn levels and characters with a few light touches of 3D here and there (I think?) and a massive cast of characters, enemies, and worlds to visit.

Before I go further into Have a Nice Death, I have to talk about the art and design of the game. HaND is perhaps one of the best-looking games I’ve seen in a long time, with an absolutely killer art style that compliments the incredibly unique world built for the game by the Magic Design team.

The world of HaND is comparable to a mix between Sanrio and Tim Burton, which is something I didn’t know I needed until today. I am absolutely obsessed with the world, art, and characters of Have a Nice Death and I’ve been bothering all my friends with screenshots since I started playing.

In Have a Nice Death, you play as Death, founder and CEO of Death Incorporated — a sprawling corporate empire that processes souls for the afterlife. After feeling a bit lazy collecting souls on hi own, Death assigns the work to several “Sorrows” who go around collecting the dead for him.

As the Sorrows wreak havoc on the mortal world, Death finds himself drowning in paperwork as more and more souls are sent to be processed. Literally shrinking under the pressure of his work, Death decides it’s time for a vacation, but first the Sorrows have to be dealt with.

HaND sends you out to put these troublesome spirits to rest with a few basic moves and an arsenal of magic to aid you. Jumping and dashing help you to clear obstacles and enemy attacks and a basic attack is paired with two secondary cloak abilities. All three of these attacks are based on the weapons and spells you equip at the start of the game.

Your scythe, which is your main tool for reapin’ it real, has four forms (that I know of, there may be more.) These include the base form, which balances speed and power, two forms that focus on speed and power respectively, and a ranged attack with the ability to pull enemies in or keep them away as you see fit.

Cloak weapons are secondary weapons, like spears, shuriken, and a greatsword, that offer quick and power attacks for the cost of mana. Spells are powerful abilities that trade mana for various effects, my current favorite allows you to trade max health for a big burst of healing.

Your HR manager will offer you a chance to collect curses as you battle your Sorrows. Like Boons in HADES, these curses offer you little bonuses or powerups, such as poison attacks or mana regen, and are separated into three categories that reflect their focus on buffing your damage, spells, or utility and defense. Some curses are incredibly powerful but come at a harrowing trade-off that will make your run harder.

The gameplay loop of HaND is simple — You leave your office, climb multiple randomly generated floors of corporate slaughter, and take on the Sorrow at the end of each level. There are eight levels total, split into “departments,” and each features its own enemies, design, soundtrack and final boss.

Have a Nice Death’s cast of characters is one of the best parts of the game, which is saying a lot because I love basically everything about it. The cast of corporate characters working for or against our CEO includes a loveable but airheaded pumpkin intern (who clearly has the hots for our boss,) an HR manager who never smiles, a giant sentient witch’s cauldron, and a hype fitness instructor missing his skin, just to name a few.

Interacting with the characters in HaND was such a bonus on each new run, with each having something new to say each time. I always stop to interact with them, which is something I can’t say for many games, as my previously mentioned ADD can make it hard to slow down at times.

If you love the characters of Have a Nice Death like I do, but struggle with the game’s difficulty, you can always turn it down. The game features a whopping 17 difficulty options, allowing players to customize their experience as they see fit. I’m at the starting difficulty, which I believe I’m just at the difficulty above the easiest, and it’s already presenting a challenge — I can only imagine what the hardest is like.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Have a Nice Death is available on Steam and Nintendo Switch.