Death of a Wish is a stylish top-down action RPG with an impressively unique art style. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn’t do well, and if it’s worth getting.
Death of a Wish Review Overview
What is Death of a Wish?
Christian has gone against the corrupted cult that has raised him since he was a child, and he will stop at nothing to uproot their influence upon Neo-Sanctum. Together with other victims of the cult, they will unite and destroy the four Sanctum Faiths: Father, Sister, Cardinal, and Priest.
Death of a Wish features:
⚫︎ Action-packed combat with a style meter
⚫︎ Wide arsenal of different playstyles and equipment
⚫︎ Quick switching equipped ‘playstyles’ in the middle of battle
⚫︎ Unique art style
⚫︎ Energy soundtrack
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Death of a Wish's gameplay and story.
 Steam |
$19.99 |
 Switch |
Death of a Wish Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Exhilarating and In-Depth Combat Wonderfully Distinct Art Style
|
Readability and Accessibility Issues Stemming From the Art Style Some Confusing Bugs
|
Death of a Wish Overall - 76/100
Death of a Wish is a wonderfully flashy game with frenetic combat that is tremendously addicting and satisfying. Powered up by its strikingly unique visuals and energetic background tracks, it lends itself to a dark, surreal, and otherworldly atmosphere of a hurt young boy seeking revenge on those who wronged him.
Death of a Wish Story - 7/10
Death of a Wish wishes to tell a dark and thought-provoking narrative and somewhat succeeds with all of its imagery and world-building. However, its execution is a hit or miss with its edgy dialogue and narration. Although it can be reasoned that it's this way due to the game occurring from the immature protagonist’s point of view, it succeeds at certain points, while it insists upon itself too much at other times.
Death of a Wish Gameplay - 9/10
The gameplay is no doubt Death of a Wish’s biggest strength, with very satisfying intense and frenetic combat that requires you to think on your toes and be graceful in the heat of battle. With companions, and bonuses (or Virtues) you can equip to mix-and-match various builds, to the several skill sets(or Arias) you can freely and quickly switch while in combat, the gameplay lends itself to a lot of depth and style.
Death of a Wish Visuals - 7/10
Death of a Wish utilizes melessthanthree’s signature unique art style of scratchy and messy linework with quick and bright contrasting colors. It is wonderfully distinct from most art directions one can see in most media today– however, with its unorthodox style comes the problem of readability and accessibility. In the middle of combat, it’s very easy to lose sight of your character and get lost in all the flashy visual effects(VFX). On the plus side, the art direction shines the most during the animated cutscenes and exploration of the environment’s uncanny ‘messy’ scratches.
Death of a Wish Audio - 7/10
The auditory department of Death of a Wish isn’t by any means extraordinary, but it completely fulfills its purpose by having satisfying sound effects(SFX) during battle, creating a great sense of feedback from your powerful attacks and combos. The techno music is highly energetic (when it’s present, which isn’t as frequent as I would’ve liked it to be) and perfectly apt for the frantic fighting encounters present in the game.
Death of a Wish Value for Money - 8/10
Death of a Wish feels exactly like a $19.99 game, which isn’t to be said in a bad way but rather encompasses the positives of unique passion projects and ideas from indie creators. With engrossing combat, surreal visuals, and a good soundtrack, this game is worth the full price. The only downsides are due to the story and general writing feeling forced at certain times, with the subject matter and the overall execution potentially not being everyone’s cup of tea. Another would be how its previously mentioned distinct art direction actually impacts screen readability, and how the game lacks many more accessibility options to alleviate some of its resulting problems.
Death of a Wish Review: An Imperfect Wish
It’s rather hard to get a proper whole grasp of Death of a Wish, because on one hand the visuals are stunningly different from your average art style, and I can’t help but be wowed by it. The tangled linework, though messy, still defines the overall shapes it wants to convey and succeeds in convincing our brains to interpret them accordingly. It’s a great feat in terms of visuals and I commend melessthanthree for that.
But the instant I caught a glimpse of the combat gameplay, I was instantly worried about how it would fare when it undoubtedly gets harder with more enemies, more abilities, and more special effects. I eventually got used to it and I tried my hardest to always have a clear vision of what was happening during battles, but as the game went on, it was clear that nothing was going to change.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore the game’s combat mechanics, being a Devil May Cry fan myself. The seamless switching between Arias and the style meter encouraging different combos made me feel right at home, but half the time I can’t even get my proper bearings as to the sick combos I’m doing when half the screen is being filled with large special effects and the camera keeps jolting and zooming around and in.
Death of a Wish is polarizing with its most striking features, where all of the good outweighs some of its bad.
Pros of Death of a Wish
| Things Death of a Wish Got Right |
|---|
|
Exhilarating and In-Depth Combat Wonderfully Distinct Art Style |
Exhilarating and In-Depth Combat
Death of a Wish right out of the gate introduces its chaotic combat at the start of the game and it’s instantly gripping and attention-grabbing. Like a toddler seeing bright and shining lights for the first time, the various VFX and combat mechanics slowly being unfurled lead themselves to enthrall players who love a good in-depth combat system.
With the various available playstyles in the Arias, the amount of Familiars (companions), Virtues(passive bonuses), the ability to quickswitch between equipped Arias, and the built-in style system, there’s an immense amount of possible combinations of builds to mix-and-match.
A very neat feature Death of a Wish implements is its Rewind feature, which allows players to restart combat encounters to the start, effectively restoring their HP. However, as it’s a complete battle reset, the enemies regain their HPs as well. You are given a limited amount of 5 Rewind,, and they can be replenished at each save point.
Outside of the special abilities, the basic core mechanics of attacking, dodging and weaving, and parrying are also well implemented. Gracefully combine all the core and special mechanics, and you’ll find yourself raising a style meter at the top-right of the screen that reduces the ‘Corruption Meter.’ The Corruption meter raises significantly every time the player suffers death or does poorly in battle. The only way to decrease it is to be stylish and utilize all skills at your disposal to dispatch enemies quickly.
Wonderfully Distinct Art Style
Other than its combat, Death of a Wish’s most striking feature is most definitely its art style and art direction. Just one glance turns heads from seeing the messy and rudimentary linework found everywhere throughout the game, yet these ‘chicken scratches’ all form a wonderfully unique aesthetic that is perfect for the atmosphere the game wishes to instill with its story and gameplay. From the environment art, the character sprites, all the VFX, and even the menu and UI, all perfectly take the approach of vastly-imperfect art, and it shines.
The dark, brooding, edgy, and immature point-of-view of our protagonist Christian melds into the visuals we see as we accompany him in his journey of revenge. Therefore, most of what is presented are harsh, horrifying, and disfigured outlines of the world and its inhabitants.
There is, however, one downside to the game’s art direction of which I will talk about in the next section.
There is, however, one downside to the game’s art direction of which I will talk about in the next section.
Cons of Death of a Wish
| Things Death of a Wish Can Improve |
|---|
|
Readability and Accessibility Issues Stemming From the Art Style Some Confusing Bugs |
Readability and Accessibility Issues Stemming From the Art Style
Unfortunately, as great and unique the art style is, it’s immediately very evident from anyone who’s previously played any game with tons of chaotic effects and particles filling up the screen that visibility might become an issue. It’s very much so in Death of a Wish due to the art direction purely utilizing line art with not much solid color. Though some lines are differently colored to ensure some bit of contrast and differentiation among those drawn onscreen such as the character and enemy sprites and the combat VFX, in battles with multiple enemies or special battles with bosses that have unique abilities, everything becomes very hard to distinguish.
What’s more is, the default camera screenshake and zoom intensities are atrociously high, and that the game’s opening sequence, though hooking me with the combat, immediately worried me about the amount of janky jolting around.
With these problems, the game severely lacks options to improve readability through different options, as well as other accessibility options other than just turning off the screenshake. I understand trying to adhere to the game’s art direction to the core and not compromising one’s artistic vision, but it doesn’t help if certain percentages of your audience can’t even see your vision clearly.
Some Confusing Bugs
The following is an explanation of all that happens in the video above.
While trying to sort through my equipment like my Arias, Familiars, Virtues, etc. I kept encountering this weird bug where it wouldn’t go to the first Arias’ second slot. I could access the second Arias’ second slot, but it wouldn’t actually let me equip or unequip.
The menu navigation itself is also confusing as the directional keys I was pressing didn’t seem to accurately go where I wanted them to go, and would just suddenly go to a random screen regardless of my inputs. I was worried that it softlocked my equipped Arias to be the same one, so I closed the menu to continue the game.
Directly afterwards, I found myself unable to perform any attacks of dodge, which I thought was weird because I had thought that they were allowed even outside of combat. I try to move onto a new zone, and the game takes control of my character to where I assume I’ll be transported to the next zone… but it never happens, and I just walk continuously straight off-screen into a void of nothing. This forced me to force quit the game and restart from my last save point.
After booting the game up again, I was finally able to properly switch out my equipment, being able to access the first Arias’ second slot and finally change it accordingly. However, as I moved on over to the second Arias’ second slot… it encountered the same problem. I thought "Oh, I’d rather not touch this again and just move on," and so I did.
Is Death of a Wish Worth It?
Yes, So Go Ahead and Make a Wish
Death of a Wish wows players with its intensive combat system and very against-the-grain visual that the creator fully commits to. One’s enjoyment of the story would wholly depend on the person, but overall its presentation and worldbuilding are great. The well-developed frenetic battles do nothing but surge adrenaline and grace with each and every fight, commanding you to be elegant in battle whilst dealing deadly damage to your does. The beating soundtrack instills such energy and "Oh it’s going down!" sense of urgency that leaves players to give their all.
However, as much praise as I can give it, there are downsides to every story. A little detail I personally don’t like would be how the movement feels rather too slippery, and it has led to some bad positioning. Another would be the glaring issue of readability of the game’s art, being just literal lines for the most part. At certain points, all lines start being overlaid on top of each other to become a giant scribbled mess on the screen. Not to mention the camera has way too much default shake and zooming in, possibly a nauseating point for a lot of people.
For 19.99, Death of a Wish does a lot of things right, but could also get better if it brushes up some features, irons out some bugs, and implements a few more options for a better experience.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
Switch |
||||
| Price | $19.99 | ||||
Death of a Wish FAQ
How Do You Use Rewind in Death of a Wish?
Rewinds are used to restart combat scenarios in-game, where you can instantly go back to the start of a battle with the press of a button. It will restore your HP along with all of the enemies. You have a limited 5 uses, and they can be restored after resting at save points.
How To Restore HP in Death of a Wish?
The easiest way to recover HP would be to interact with rest/save points. You can also use the previously mentioned Rewinds to recover HP, but only during battles where you lost the HP itself. You can also collect health consumables located throughout the map; though they’re limited, they replenish after a certain amount of time.
What Happens if You Reach 100% Corruption in Death of a Wish?
It’s an integral plot point that you must naturally stumble upon with careless accumulation of Corruption, where we encourage you to find out and explore for yourself.
What are Death of a Wish‘s System Requirements
| System Specs | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 7 | Windows 7, 8, 10 |
| Processor | 1.8GHz or faster | 2.5GHz or faster |
| Memory | 2GB RAM | 4GB RAM |
| Graphics | Nvidia 460 | Nvidia 1070 |
| Storage | 1GB | 1GB |
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Death of a Wish Product Information
 | |
| Title | DEATH OF A WISH |
|---|---|
| Release Date | March 11, 2024 |
| Developer | melessthanthree |
| Publisher | Syndicate Atomic |
| Supported Platforms | PC(Steam, Itch.io), |
| Genre | Hack N’ Slash, Action, RPG |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| Rating | ESRB M 17+ |
| Official Website | Death of a Wish Official Linktree |
