Dead Cells Rip-Off Or Not?

I kinda hate the term “Metroidvania”. I know that it’s useful and many a gamer hear or read the name and know what to expect automatically, I just feel like that does a disservice to whatever game you’re talking about because some people may not look any further into the game.

Today’s review is of a “Metroidvania” and it’s called Foregone. I had been keeping an eye on this one for a little bit because it looked promising and the art style and animation looked good, so I downloaded it on the Xbox One. In hindsight I think Metroidvanias may be best played on the Switch, just because they do lend themselves well to handheld consoles. But that’s just me, and you might think I’m full of crap. And that’s okay – you’re in good company.

So unlike a lot of games I’ve played lately, Foregone’s actually got an interesting story. The game takes place some time after an apocalyptic war in a city called Calagan. You play as this super soldier who’s fighting through monsters and enemies created by something called The Harrow. You get sent back in time to before the Harrow pooped everybody’s party to find the cause and stop it. Along the way you’ll pick up logs that give you some insight into what the heck happened to everything and it’s pretty neat. I’m not someone who gets into the story that much – mainly because most of them are pretty crummy now – but I enjoyed learning more about this one as I went along this time.

As you can see the game has the pixel-art style that’s so popular now and it varies from just doing the job, to looking really pretty. You’ll notice this after you get beamed back in time at the end of the tutorial and go from everything being all red and looking like something out of the Skynet controlled future in Terminator to it all being peaceful and green, like a calm before a storm. The animation is fluid and looks good, and the music and sounds are great. The main character talks occasionally and while there’s not much, the voice acting is good. My only real complaints in this area are 1, that if you’re playing on a large tv, the characters and enemies are a little too pixelated to me. That goes back to my comment about wanting to play it on the Switch as they’d look better in Handheld mode. 2, is that at least on the Xbox version, the animation would get pretty choppy and the framerate would take a dive when you’d start playing after the game would finish loading.

Like most Metroidvanias you’ll have a map to help you navigate and you’ll pick up various abilities to help you get around. The levels themselves have some depth to them and different areas to explore, however you won’t be doing a lot of backtracking except to find some secrets you missed. So don’t expect to have to travel back to the first area with a new ability in order to unlock access to the next major section of the game, or anything like that. Most of your exploration will be looking for switches to unlock doors to make your way to the next waypoint or boss. Waypoints are your way to get around not only to the hub where you upgrade all your gear but also to get to each area you’ve previously been to. I liked that there’s a waypoint select screen with a map that shows how far you’ve come from the beginning. I have to say though that since all of these areas are separated like this, the world doesn’t feel that connected. Really the only thing that connects it is the hub, which they force you to go to every time you’ll want to visit another area. Adding that extra step felt clunky.

Also there’s a weapon called “gun-chucks”, which is just as awesome as it sounds.

A lot of people will end up comparing this to Dead Cells, and rightfully so because the gameplay feels very, very similar. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, and the game does some things differently so that it doesn’t feel like a total rip of Dead Cells. The combat is pretty fast-paced, with lots of dodging and switching off between using melee attacks and whatever your ranged weapon is. There’s a ton of variety in both types of weapons and they all play very differently, though since there’s no combo-based attacks in this, you’re going to be attacking the same way repeatedly. Also there’s a weapon called “gun-chucks”, which is just as awesome as it sounds. You can upgrade your weapons, armor, and accessories back at the hub with the gold you collect, and you can upgrade your skill trees and abilities with these blue orbs you collect as well. You’ll get these catalysts that further your skill trees, but you’ll only be able to choose one path per tree. You’re allowed to get your skill points and catalysts refunded though, so don’t feel like you can’t experiment.

One part of the combat that I thought was lame though, is that when you die, you lose all your orbs and gold and go back to the hub. Anybody who’s familiar with Dark Souls or all the games like it can take a wild guess what happens next. Yep – you have to go find your phat cash and if you get killed on the way, it’s gone. I’m honestly so sick of developers copying this mechanic, especially since if you stay in one place too long, you’ll get killed really quickly. Like DOOM Eternal quickly. You get health back either by putting points into a leech ability or by using a self-heal over time, but that’s basically it.

The enemies reminded me of a cross between Dead Cells and Metroid, with the bugs and bats and stuff blowing apart in big square chunks, reminding me of the latter. The humanoid enemies in this aren’t anything to write home about and usually only have one attack. The bosses are definitely more fun and you’ll fight some big ones. Fighting the first boss is a little jarring because the enemies up until then are borderline braindead and don’t do much, so you don’t expect to fight something that moves quite so fast and hits you as hard as it does, so this is more of a test of your skills. The biggest problem I think I had with the game is that while the environments change, the game does tend to feel like you’re doing the same thing repeatedly by about the halfway mark. Searching for switches, killing the same bad guys with only a few new additions that come with each new area, take out a boss, then go to the next one and do the same thing. Couple that with what I mentioned about the weapons all only having one attack, and it just got kinda boring after awhile.

So I don’t think Foregone is quite the rip-off of Dead Cells as some comments I’ve seen online, but it is pretty similar and doesn’t have as much content as that game. Does that make it bad? No, and despite it feeling same-y later on, I enjoyed playing through it. I did roll my eyes at the punishment for dying but then I can’t say I was surprised, either, since everybody does it now. So if the game sounds like fun and you like the look, then I say give it a shot you probably won’t be disappointed. Also any game with gun-chucks can’t be all bad, right? I mean they’re nunchucks that shoot.