Have a Nice Death

 PC
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 26
  3. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. Edge Magazine
    Apr 20, 2023
    70
    Death himself is an amusingly grumpy fellow, in constant need of a cup of coffee to stay motivated. [Issue#384, p.112]
    All this publication's reviews
  2. GameOver.gr
    Apr 8, 2023
    70
    Have a Nice Death is a roguelike that fans of the genre should definitely check, thanks to its nice, cartoon-like, visuals, fast gameplay and good variety of enemies. The only real drawback is the lack of imagination in its level design, which can’t help but create a sense of repetition after a while.
  3. Tech-Gaming
    Mar 31, 2023
    70
    Crafted by a team of ex-Ubisofters, Have a Nice Death offers sinuously animated visuals that recall Rayman Legends, while your moveset channels the dynamism of Devil May Cry. But despite a year in Early Access, the roguelike is tainted by some odd balancing issues that will eventually wear down your incentive or another run. Fear the reaper’s resistance toward growing stronger.
  5. Gamer Escape
    Mar 16, 2023
    70
    Have A Nice Death is sure to please roguelite fans for its playability, but it’s a tad too easy to want a bit more from it.
  6. Slant Magazine
    Mar 16, 2023
    60
    In the end, Have a Nice Death can’t escape its own premise.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

?
  1. Polygon
    Mar 16, 2023
    The game itself is beautiful and the battle mechanics feel great, but the deeper I dig into Have a Nice Death, the less value I find.

Awards & Rankings

89
#89 Best PC Game of 2023
88
#88 Most Discussed PC Game of 2023

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 37 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 37
  3. Negative: 3 out of 37
  1. aradezzi
    Apr 21, 2022
    10
    Love this game YAY
  2. furyohfury
    Mar 25, 2023
    4
    Okay let's talk about this game, why 4/10, right?
    Good sides:
    1. Visuals are cute. 2. Ideas of different horrors of life such as diseases,    Okay let's talk about this game, why 4/10, right?
    Good sides:
    1. Visuals are cute.
    2. Ideas of different horrors of life such as diseases, war etc as a departments in some organisation of Death is pretty cool.
    Welp, that's it.
    Bad sides:
    1. Plot wise, they tried to make it somewhat like Hades, but in Hades we had different famous greek gods and good voice acting. Here we have mumbling instead of voice acting (budget issue, whatever) and absolutely boring dialogs with pathetic attempts of humor with some meta-jokes. I tried to read it, but it's just not interesting, but plot isn't what we come for in this games, right?
    2. Gameplay wise this game is just a complete rip off of Dead Cells but ... worse. And ok, devs copied 3 colour progression, unlocking weapons in a shop and many many more things. But they completely messed up healing system. Remember rally effect in dead cells (healing if you attack after getting hit). Here they made some INnOVaTiOnS. Rally effect is no more, but if you keep getting hit, there's a grey zone on your healthbar, which gets smaller after receiving more damage and allows you to heal only that grey zone. Meaning your maximum health isn't really your max health, but a useless thing, because only grey zone matters. And there's SO FEW healing in this game. You can sometimes abuse it (with certain skills giving hp spheres over time and with other few things), but blue healing spheres are really rare to find. But don't worry, devs have thought about how to fix their new stupid system! You can get your ACTUAL max hp back using yellow hp spheres. Buuuut, it can be found once in millenia, or be combined from a 3+ blue spheres (which you must keep not using and collect enough), so don't really get your hopes up.
    Also, remember Dead Cells gave you ability to fully heal your hp and estus flask between levels on first difficulty, so you could learn the game and enemy movelist? Forget about it, as i understood we have 11 boss stem cell difficulties (complete rip off but whatever, good mechanic) and even on the first difficulty YOU CANNOT HEAL BETWEEN LEVELS WOW. So you can survive boss on 1 hp and get to next level totally with 0 resources (on a level you visit for the first time). Great idea.

    In short, idea of combining Dead Cells gameplay and Hades approach for a plot in an interesting setting of Death is cool, but what came out in the end is just really bad. Don't buy this, it's better if you play these 2 games instead of Have a Nice Death. Seems like developers just didn't have enough experience to make this game work properly.    … Full Review »
  3. verdammte
    Jul 27, 2022
    10
    Excellent game, but very hard. I have yet to beat it, but that's not stopping me. I love rougelikes. My one complaint is that I wish it were aExcellent game, but very hard. I have yet to beat it, but that's not stopping me. I love rougelikes. My one complaint is that I wish it were a rougelite and had some form of progression, like Children of Morta. I feel like the Grim Reaper should be stronger than this. Regardless, I really enjoy the game. It has nice dialogue, it's funny, it's endlessly fun, and the graphics are well tuned for the atmosphere.

    It is steamdeck compatible with everything maxed.    … Full Review »
See all user reviews »