Step into the world of Death Howl. A soulslike deck-builder based on Scandinavian Folklore. This beautiful pixel art world will have you chasing ghosts in a mystical world full of dangerous spirits. Let’s jump in and see how well a soulslike and deck-builder play together.
Let’s start with the background story. You are the grieving mother. You recently lost your child and decided to enter the Spirit World to find him. The living are not often welcome in the land of spirits.
Do you have what it takes to find him and bring him back to the land of the living, or is it too late? Will he finish his journey to the land of the dead before you can reach him?
The core components of Death Howl are to journey through the four realms of the Spirit World, collecting components, crafting cards, and defeating anything that gets between you and your son.
First, we will talk a bit about the Spirit World. Then we will go into the pieces you need to be successful in combat: cards, totems, and teardrops. Lastly, we will talk about the combat system and my opinion of the game.
The Spirit World of Death Howl is broken up into four realms and thirteen regions. Each region has its own types of enemies to deal with. These enemies are all quite unique and provide some interesting challenges. Especially in certain combinations.
Every region has its own set of secrets for you to uncover. There are many hidden caves and even side quests for you to discover. These can unlock powerful cards or even totems for you to use during your journey. It will be beneficial to fully explore each region before moving onto the next. Groves
While you are exploring the Spirit World, you will come across sacred groves scattered throughout each region. These sacred groves serve a couple purposes.
The first is healing. Like in other soulslike games, resting at a sacred grove (aka campfire) will heal your character, but it will also respawn all enemies in the Spirit World. The sacred groves are also a great method of transportation.
Once you have visited a grove, you can now teleport to it from any realm or region. It not only speeds up travel but also helps minimize the combat you will have to fight when traveling long distances.
Death Howl has a very interesting card system. After every combat, you will collect the spirit (death howl) of the enemies you defeated. They will also each drop a material for you to collect. Additional materials can be found as you are exploring.
The more materials you collect, the more cards you will unlock. You will then use a combination of the death howls and the materials you have collected to craft cards. The type of material and how many death howls depend on the card.
There are over 160 cards in the game, with a limit of twenty cards per deck. Each card is restricted to one or two copie,s depending on how powerful the card is.
You are free to put any cards in any deck; however, there are specific cards for each region. Any cards in your deck from outside of that region will cost an extra action point to use. This means you can build your deck with any cards you want, but it is encouraged to build a specific deck per region.
Totems are rare items that you will collect during your journey through the Spirit World. You will start out with only being able to equip one, but will have the opportunity to equip additional ones later.
Each totem is a powerful item that gives you a boost in combat. One might give you an extra card, whereas another will give your cards additional damage at the cost of discarding a card each turn. You will want to pick the one that best fits your deck and your playstyle.
Teardrops are another important element in Death Howl. There are two ways to get teardrops. The first is by collecting nests throughout the Spirit World.
They are often protected by some pretty tough spirits. You can also convert death howls at a sacred grove if you don’t need them for any new cards. It’s not a one-to-one though. It will take many death howls to create a single teardrop.
Teardrops are used to unlock exclusive boons in each realm. These boons will provide your character with additional abilities, such as doing damage to all enemies around you. It can also unlock spirit cards in the realm.
These are cards manifested from an enemy that you defeated. They are temporary for the turn that you get them, but they can make a huge difference in combat if picked up at the right moment.
Lastly, let’s talk about combat. The combat in Death Howl is grid-based. You can either use your action points to move a space on the grid or play a card.
Cards have a wide range of action point costs. Many of them can be manipulated, though, such as the “Wounded Prey” card that costs less per wounded enemy unit. There are cards for ranged and melee attacks as well as for movement and defense.
Once you have used all your action points, you will end your turn and let the enemy go. The enemy can move and attack. If it has a movement of two spaces, it will move that full distance and then attack you.
That means you need actually to be four spaces away from it, not three. Most enemies also have a strong attack if you end your turn lined up with it, so watch out.
Just like other soulslike games, combat can be very tough and unforgiving, especially if you are entering a new realm and don’t have any cards for that realm yet.
This just makes the victories even more satisfying and strategic. Learning each enemy’s moves is the key to success. If you do die in combat, then you will respawn outside of the combat you were just in. You will also drop all of the death howls that you had on you. If you die again before you pick them up, then they are gone forever.
With all that being said, is Death Howl any good? I would say so. Not only is the game visually stunning, but it is also enjoyable to play. I’m not a big fan of real-time soulslike games.
The combination of turn-based deck-building and soulslike has definitely got a whole different style that I can get behind, though. It adds even more emphasis on being as tactical as possible in every combat encounter. You have to study how every enemy is going to move and attack, and be precise with your actions because losing a fight could be a really big setback.
Like I just said, the game is visually stunning. A lot of work went into the visuals for sure. All of the cards look great. Every region is a different color palette. I can’t imagine how long that took.
All of the enemies are unique and interesting as well. Ranging from a floating goat’s head that revives things to an infected molar that infects tiles around it. The card system is very interesting and something that I enjoyed quite a bit.
I know a lot of people might be sick of deckbuilders, but if you are looking for something unique and interesting, then definitely check this one out. I think this can also be an interesting entry into turn-based games if you are someone who doesn’t normally play them but likes soulslike games. If you do want to check this one out, here is the link to the Steam page.
A review copy of this game was provided by the developers at The Outer Zone.
