If you were to use the Eye of Agamotto to see deep throughout all the various realities in the multiverse, I am sure there is one where one of the best roguelites ever made, Dead Cells, never existed. I would like to say I don’t keep this game on a pedestal, but that would be a lie – Dead Cells is damn near perfect; something I can step away from for months and pick up again down the road without my feelings wavering slightly. It’s easily one of the most addictive, fluid games ever made, and sadly, has turned me into a bit of a snob when it comes to roguelites, and I doubt anything short of a sequel could top it. Had I never played it, Source of Madness would probably feel a lot more innovative and enjoyable. Sadly, it’s kind of like going from driving a Corvette to a used Geo Metro that is on its last leg and held together with scotch tape and a thick coat of dirt.

Both releases are similar in the fact that you take on the role of a mostly anonymous being, die, spend your currency, and then start all over as you explore the H.P. Lovecraft-based Loam Lands and Tower of Madness. Initially, you’ll also begin with few options in terms of weaponry, with a few upgrades being required. Even when you can select from three different builds at the beginning of each run, your tools of death are extremely same-y for quite a while. It’s a system where I would be presented with three different builds to choose from, each with some minor stat differences, and then they would mostly have the exact same items attached. Instead of swords, hammers, knives, and the like, you’ll use rings on each hand that can be used in any combination simultaneously. These all boil down to being magic based in various forms, some more exciting (like summoning a giant boulder) than others, with the least effective being a melee attack of sorts that has all the range of a broken butter knife. This was the biggest factor in how I felt about this game, which teetered back and forth between slight enjoyment and complete disdain as different selections are few and far between, and opening up more rings via the skill tree is one of the biggest grind fests I have ever participated in since the original Destiny. 

As you can expect from the trailer and screenshots, this is an experience where you will find yourself moving left to right while mutilating horrific creatures that are thrown at you in a regular stream with little to no concern for their own safety. They are essentially running headfirst into your attacks only to keel over and often, trap you under their corpse where you just must spam jump to bunny hop your way through the pile of body parts. It reminds me of the suiciders and awkward-looking aliens that sprint at Sam in the Serious Sam series, but a hell of a lot less entertaining to rip apart. If you have the right rings equipped, it is entirely too easy to just hold down both triggers, run straight into danger, come out mostly unscathed, and only fail once your life bar is chipped away. A long journey from the fast and fluid combat I was expecting that was downright hilarious how overpowered I felt, but quickly became stale. On the flip side, some of the rolls I received were so terrible that I simply died from inaction just to start fresh and hope for some better gear on my next run.

The enemies are a standout part of the experience, at least at first, due to the way that the randomized elements impact not only the levels you explore and the weaponry available to you, but the enemies themselves. They are a mishmash of teeth, tentacles, and mostly insectoid bits and bobs that had they slowed down just a bit, would be a terrifying sight to behold, which is a common theme among the Lovecraftian lore, in which the sight of the creatures is supposedly enough to drive you into the mouth of madness. However, that jumble of parts reminded me more of a Cronenberg-style offering and eventually becomes less impactful as at the end of the day, they just kind of look like they were slapped together by cutting out bits from a nature magazine and never really evolve in any meaningful way.

The backdrops are by far the greatest strength the game has to offer – literally, every location I visited was creepy yet beautiful in its own way with astounding levels of detail. The paper cutout method used for the rest of the game was definitely hit or miss for me and seems thematically to tie into the movement, which feels sluggish and overly floaty. Some folks may enjoy that, but for me, I always felt like I was playing with some wet cardboard pieces that would crumble at the slightest weight. I was also never quite sold on the design of our hero, which looks kind of like a stick figure who’s somehow managed to knock Spawn straight out of his demonic cape and then didn’t know exactly what to do with it, and even when a new helm is equipped, never changes design whatsoever.

I am above complaining about missing certain features that have become kind of standard but being that the highlight of the PlayStation 5 for me has been the haptic feedback, when it’s missing, it kind of feels off. There is literally no vibration whatsoever, which didn’t impact me much outside of making me question whether my controller was experiencing issues or not but could turn others off from fully immersing themselves in the title.

Source of Madness is a roguelike that has some interesting ideas and a design that mostly works but is bogged down by uninspired combat that isn’t consistent enough to make it stand out among the mountain of options available in this genre. If you’ve mastered the rest and are willing to make some minor concessions, I would still recommend it, but would probably wait for the inevitable sale.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Downright Beautiful Backdrops
• Delightfully Creepy Enemy Design That Resembles the Body Horror of Cronenberg
• With the Right Rolls, Combat Can be Enjoyable…

Cons

• …Until the Repetition Sets In
• Lack of Vibration
• Floaty Movement
• Overly Grindy Skill Tree

Source of Madness was developed by Carry Castle and published by Thunderful Publishing. The game is available for NS, PC, PS4, PS5, X1, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on Xbox and played on Series X. If you’d like to see more of Source of Madness, check out the official site.

 

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