+
Beautiful animation
A pleasant combat system

-
Nothing new in the genre
Weak plot
Primitive level design
An unpleasant gray filter

8/10 Strong and good Roguelike

Unfortunately, the game doesn't bring anything new. And the levels are very primitive and without secrets. Anyway, the game is focused more on boss battles than on exploring levels. But if you like the genre and you don't expect anything new, then it's definitely worth buying!

Pros: The art design is stellar, and I loved the NPCs and office dialogue. I would love to see another game from this development team in the future.

Cons: "Progression" is frustrating. Other reviews warned me about this but I didn't understand that the it was more similar to Dead Cells that other games in the genre. Like Dead Cells, your character never really gets upgraded, just items, and while this worked for Dead Cells (mostly), it doesn't work well in Have a Nice Death. You just unlock new items - new ones, not necessarily better ones.

I quit before even making it to the real final boss because the the "secret" boss is locked behind a really bizarre mechanic where you have to sacrifice several important items during a run to collect medallions. One of the items is rare enough that, even after 5 runs where I made to to the default final boss, I didn't have the right materials to get all three medallions.

Very mixed feeling with this, game has a fantastic art style, the combat is clean, the progression however... you may make it far once, but you're likely to fail too often, it's not like you must reach the end every time in this genre, but come on...