Colourful environments and tons of cool weapons and loot.
There’s no question that the quests can get repetitive, especially if you start to delve into the many side objectives, but DeathSpank still manages to keep things entertaining. It does this by offering a wide range of surreal scenarios and nonsensical, yet humorous objectives, for example, having to collect demon dung for a farmer by wacking fiends with the aptly named “Demon Poop Hammer.”Along the way, you’ll level up (capped at Lvl 20) and pick up no end of loot, ranging from “a bag of orphans” to a “bad-ass crossbow.” The inventory system is clearly laid out and easy to navigate and it’s good that you can grind unwanted items up for gold, but it can get quite cramped in there as you pick up every item that you come across; and there’s a lot of things that are totally useless. We spent more time than we would have liked cleaning out our inventory system. Still, the developer had the vision to implement an auto-equip features which when activated fits you out with the best gear without you having to worry about it.
Despite the repetitive quests and the casual hack ‘n slash gameplay, DeathSpank is a joy to play. The gameplay flows nicely, never interrupted by loading times as you move from one area to the next, while the colourful world is a delight to explore. The top-down perspective and contrast of the 2D backdrops and 3D animations gives it a retro feel and an appealing art-style that feels like you’re wandering through the pages of a fairy-tale book with delightful places such as Bobble Wood and the Town of Pluckmuckle to explore.
Judging DeathSpank purely as a RPG we'd rate it 7/10. Judging it as a hack 'n slash game we'd also give it a solid 7/10. Taking into account the beautiful game world, the humour, the characters and the dozens of crazy things that you'll see and do, it offers a very attractive overall package and is deserved of a higher score. So, a very well deserved 8/10 for DeathSpank, a game that oozes character and charm. We do hope this isn't the last we've seen of the mighty "Dispenser of Justice."
Note: DeathSpank also has a local co-op mode for two players. We didn't comment on it because we didn't play it.
