by Cult of the Lamb is a game that I had my eye on since long before its release because, frankly, its concept of Roguelite + Cult Management and its setting caught my attention and after having finished it I decided to create an analysis + review of the game in which I will give you my final impressions. Has it met my expectations? What lows were not exactly.
Well, in general terms I would say yes, but it is true that there are certain aspects that I would have liked more otherwise; things that of course I will mention in this post. I don’t want my words to be misunderstood, I thought it was an incredible title and I highly recommend it , but some things have rubbed me the wrong way.
WHAT IS CULT OF THE LAMB ABOUT?
Well, it is a Roguelite (with some slight changes to what is usual) in which we will have to manage a Sect . We could say that it is Roguelite that has a bit of a Stardew Valley part , which is something that seems brutal to me.
Sect management is very cool.
We are a goat that was going to be sacrificed that ends up revealing itself and being under the yoke of a very powerful being that we must save by creating a sect to restore power. I don’t want to tell much more because it would already be revealing important things about the plot.
And as a Roguelite that it is, well, we will have to face powerful enemies, bosses while we find things that improve our character and well, what a Roguelite is, you know.
CULT OF THE LAMB’S ROGUELITE FORMULA DOESN’T FINISH ME
This is a topic that I wanted to address because the Roguelite formula of Cult of the Lamb is quite peculiar and a bit different from the usual in some aspects; I understand that to have an innovative touch, but that innovation is precisely part of what I did not like.
I’ll explain, as you probably know in the Roguelite we usually start in the same area and we have to progress; but when you die the progress is lost (except x improvements and others). In Cult of the Lamb it’s not quite like that; each zone is instantiated separately and each route to a new boss saves our game so to speak.
Very handsome bosses.
Each area has 5 bosses. You go to the first zone, you defeat the first boss, your progress is saved; you return to the first area, defeat the second boss, your progress is saved; and so on in a loop in each zone. This makes it not feel so Roguelite in my opinion and takes some of the charm out of the genre because it no longer feels like you have to complete the entire game in one go; in fact it is not so.
It could be said that we have gone from having to complete the game in one go thanks to our skills as a player, together with the progress of improvements that we are achieving and also adding the factor of luck to having to go through several rooms separately and not in a single one. run. The result hasn’t really convinced me, really, because I think that in the process it loses what makes a Roguelite so interesting, in my opinion of course.
I also think that as a result of this they have had to develop the game so that our goat cannot become very broken; you can get very good things and have a very powerful character if luck is in your hand… but you don’t reach such beastly break levels as in other games (The Binding of Isaac or Hadesfor instance). From what I’ve played this genre (which is not a small thing), part of the grace is that, luckily, sometimes you skip a game in which you are literally an indestructible god; something that is appreciated precisely because these types of games are normally designed to be absurdly complicated if you don’t have a little luck because the difficulty is usually very high; This one is more accessible and the fact of giving it different difficulties does not seem to me to solve it…
Sometimes we will have to do things a little… immoral.
In any case, I don’t really want to get into the issue of difficulty in games and so on because that’s a separate topic, but yes, in my opinion if a Roguelite isn’t devilishly difficult it loses its essence a bit and the difficulty should be set by the developers to achieve the experience they want to convey instead of creating a simple experience in normal mode and just adding forced difficulty on higher difficulties. Yes, the accessibility and all that, I know… that each one plays as he wants; but let’s see, if I’m facing a god I want to feel like it’s like that, not like a generic combat and the fact of increasing the health of the creature on duty or making it do more damage is not going to change things.
Details such as having the final boss kill an Adept if you failed in battle would have been very cool (it would go very well with the game) and would have given the battle a much more epic atmosphere. This is very Darkest Dungeon , but that game is so cool hahaha.
But hey, enough of putting tares in it, I just wanted to investigate what bothered me about the title; let’s go now with the good, which is not little.
IT’S A GREAT GAME: THE GOOD
For the rest, everything is just fine in this game ; In fact, the part that I have already mentioned as a negative, in my opinion at the end, is something quite subjective and what for me is a negative point, I know that it will be a positive one for many… but I am from the Powa Difficulty team (as long as it is well designed) in games, it is what it is, let me be the “masoca” that I want.
Let’s go with the good:
- The artistic section is excellent. The game looks great and I personally love the style that they have decided to add. It’s kind of a mix of cute and disturbing and it looks great. It has that dark setting in contrast to finishes like more cartoon. 10/10.
- The subject of the management of the sect and all its possibilities has enchanted me; the Deserting Adepts , being able to kill them , punish them, send them to work, manage the orchard , make sure their loyalty and faith are at a good level, give them the sermon, the doctrines, the rites… 10/10 as well.
- That we also have a map to explore (there are several separate phases, that nobody thinks it’s Open World eh) where we can complete certain missions, buy things, find different NPCs, fish , play cards… It is an addition that I also loved.
- Sound and music is also excellent. The fact that we are accompanied by music sung by our Adepts is quite cool and makes more of a contrast to that “cute + gloomy” vibe that I liked so much.
- Regarding permanent and temporary character improvements, it is not bad at all, although I would have liked to have more variety of everything. More weapons, more Curses, more passive improvements… more of everything is missing at the end, but I think we will see those things through DLCs and frankly I really want to see what else they surprise us with.
This is one of the Rituals.
In the end, that’s what I’m telling you, everything is fine in this game except in my opinion the issue that we don’t have to complete a run in one go, the difficulty and everything that this has entailed. It seems to me that if it had been raised in another way (more like Hades, in that aspect) it would have been a game of 10 or close, but for what has already been mentioned, at least for me, it stays at an 8 (I don’t like to put notes, but it is to make the point better understood). I would have loved to see what this game would have been like if that aspect had been polished, and it bothers me a bit, for me it would have been a cult game, but anyway, I guess to taste the colors. Surely that part that squeaks me, as I have already said, many people will like.
