In this review we will talk about Cult of the Lamb, the particular hybrid between management and action roguelike developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital
Cult of the Lamb is a game hybrid between management and action roguelike developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital. In this title you will play the role of a sacrificial lamb that after his death he will come back to life for found a pagan cult and defeat the enemies of his god. A premise of this type will certainly have managed to get you interested in Cult of the Lamb but, if you want to know more before playing it, in this review you will find an in-depth analysis of the game.
The birth of a sect
As we have already anticipated Cult of the Lamb was born from the union of two very different genres and first we will talk about the management component. At the start of your game you will be given the Sacred Ground, a small plot of uncultivated land on which you will have to raise your cult. In this place you will be able to use materials for build many structures fundamental to the growth of the sect, such as mines, temples and arable fields. However, creating all these things from scratch is not a job for one person and consequently you will have to rely on followers.
Followers represent the most important resource of all Cult of the Lamb and fortunately during your game you will have numerous opportunities to recruit new ones. These unsuspecting pawns are completely subject to your service and they will work for you ceaselessly every day. I follower they can do a lot of different jobs, such as gathering materials, building, cultivating, praying (more on that later), and so on. All you have to do to get your followers to work is to give them an order and, if necessary, have built the necessary structure to assign them that task.
Unfortunately, however, the followers they are not completely self-sufficient and each of them will have their own needs. Especially all your followers will need food and a place where sleep, and it will be up to you to provide them. Plus the cultists they will dirty very over the course of the day and if you do not clean the area thoroughly, there may be some epidemic. If you don't meet the needs of your flock, followers may end up with die, leave the cult or even damage your structures.
Breaking Down the Infidels - Cult of the Lamb Review
Now it's time to talk about the component roguelike. At any time of the day you will have the opportunity to leave the seat of your cult and head towards the lands of the Old Faith, that is, four areas governed by as many bishops hostile to your creed. To achieve your ultimate goal and free your god you will have to defeat all the bishops, and to do so you will be forced to venture several times into their domains until they decide to come out in the open. Also exploring these areas you can easily get hold of large amounts of resources like materials, food and even new followers. However, these places are teeming with dangerous ones hostile creatures and enemy cultists, then to explore them you will be forced to fight.
Il combat system of Cult of the Lamb is pretty basic. Basically your protagonist will always be equipped with a melee weapon with which you can perform a series of very simple attacks, with a spell which could have offensive or support effects, plus you can avoid enemy hits dodging at the right time. However, the dungeon crawling sections are made interesting thanks to the presence of many typical elements of roguelikes. For example the levels will always be randomly generated and exploring them you will come across treasures, equipment, enemies and ever-changing events. Weapons and spells are also random, so during a match you will have to adapt your style of play according to the equipment found. Also while exploring you will come across tarot cards, powerful magical items that will give you gods passive bonuses for the duration of the level.
Improving yourself with prayer - Cult of the Lamb Review
As with many roguelikes, Cult of the Lamb also has a progression system which allows you to unlock new objects, but in this case it is mainly related to the management side. In fact, over time your followers they will pray at the altar of the sacred ground to generate devotion. Once you get enough devotion you can unlock new structures or upgrade some of the ones you already have for better results.
But devotion is not the only thing that will allow you to enhance your cult. By exploring the dungeons and completing the requests of your followers you can in fact get hold of freminders of the tablets of the commandments. Once you have obtained three of these items you can issue a new one doctrine, namely a kind of law that your followers will have to follow. Some doctrines will allow you to earn money daily in the form of offers, others may make it easier to meet the needs of the cult, while still others may change the way followers react to particular events such as death. These commandments they will make the whole sect much more productive and at the same time they will contribute to make your game unique.
The improvements for the cult are the most numerous, but fortunately they are not the only ones. In fact, every day you can hold a in conversation within your temple to gain power of your followers, thus obtaining upgrades that will be useful to you inside the dungeons. For example you can unlock new weapon types, new spells, equipment improvements, and so on. In addition, you can also use hearts ripped from dead bishops to get powerful upgrades and you can also complete the NPC quests to obtain fragments of amulets which will allow you to unlock gods cloaks which offer both bonuses and penalties at the same time.
A Balancing Problem - Cult of the Lamb Review
From the very first minutes of the game Cult of the Lamb will be able to keep you glued to the screen for hours and hours. Initially the dungeons will be challenging and managing the cult will take time and dedication, but after several hours problems will start to arise. If you play Cult of the Lamb the way it's intended, that is, wisely alternating cult management with dungeon exploration, you will soon find yourself no longer having any need to commit.
Once the village is self-sufficient you can in fact begin to easily recruit more and more followers which will help speed up your PC's upgrade very much. Also in this situation the downsides of accumulating too many followers won't be as punitive as it might seem, for disease, death, and rebellious followers will never bring anything more than some nuisance. Because of all of this you will end up with a thriving cult which will only need minimal maintenance and with a extremely strong character who will have no problem completing even the most advanced dungeons, making the later stages of the game a bit boring.
A unique style - Cult of the Lamb review
It certainly doesn't need to be stressed how gorgeous the is artistic component by Cult of the Lamb. The game owns one extremely cute and colorful style which, in addition to being really nice to look at, manages to give further prominence to the title thanks to the net contrast which he creates with his much darker themes. Also Massive Monster did a great job with regards to the colonna sonora. In fact, by playing Cult of the Lamb you will have the opportunity to listen to many quality OSTs that will help immerse you in the particular game world.
As regards the technical sector instead there is not much to say. The game is quite light and therefore manages to keep some very good performance even on mid-range PCs. Unfortunately however at the moment Cult of the Lamb seems to suffer from a serious bug problem. In fact, during our test we really had so many problems that have damaged our experience overall. We ran into endless uploads, enemies ending up in unreachable places, impossible-to-remove constructions, and so on. Luckily we did not find any particularly serious bugs, but on the whole all these small problems have caused us quite a few annoyances.
Conclusion
Now the point of our review where we sum up Cult of the Lamb has finally arrived. Massive Monster has managed to create a hybrid game that manages to entertain both management and roguelike fans, without frightening those who do not appreciate both genres. In addition to being very satisfying, the management of the cult is also affordable for those who have never tried a management software in their life and the dungeon crawling sessions are as fun as they are immediate. The only problems with the title are one lack of balance and a great abundance of bugs, but overall these defects do not damage Cult of the Lamb too much, which remains a really good title and suitable for every type of player.
Cult of the Lamb è available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S.. If you are interested in staying up to date with all the news on the world of video games and much more, then continue to follow us here on {marca_origen}. Furthermore, in case you want to buy some games at an advantageous price, we suggest you take a look at the many offers on Instant Gaming.
8 A great hybridPoints in favor
- Rich and satisfying management component
- Roguelike components are instant fun
- Artistically splendid
Points against
- It has balancing problems
- It suffers due to numerous bugs
