With the volume of deckbuilding games on the system, you’d think that it’s a subgenre that has been around forever when you glance at the eShop. I do appreciate that they’ve helped to continue to expand the scope of the strategy genre, but there are simply a ton of them out there. Normally at this point I’d say that with so many available, the challenge for newcomers becomes trying to differentiate themselves. The good news is that Death Howl absolutely does that, layering in an interesting visual style, lore, and some tactical strategy to boot. The bad is that it’s also then quite a challenge to get your arms around initially and find success with, so it may be better suited to people who don’t mind getting their asses kicked quite a lot early on.

In the game you’ll play the part of an aggrieved mother, Ro, who is on a journey through the Spirit World in the hopes that she can bring her son back from the dead. Visually, this can make the game’s more minimalist look work well, changing up the color palette and featuring quite a lot of detailed pixel art. Unlike most of the deckbuilders out there that have gone the roguelike route, with you going through more compact runs, typically losing, but then building up your deck to try again, this is built more as a campaign. Don’t worry, you’ll still do plenty of failing along the way, especially early on, but this is meant to be one long journey that your character will endure.

What absolutely helps the game stand out from the crowd may also be its downfall for some though, and that’s the fact that combat is played out on a grid tactically on top of you utilizing your curated deck of cards to attack, defend, and buff yourself in a variety of ways. Once you’ve managed to spend a bit of time grinding to get a few decent cards available, the tide does at least begin to turn a bit more in your favor, but starting out it’s absolutely a bit rough. In part, this is because your initial deck is pretty one-dimensional and weak, but also for all of the game’s general complexity I’m not sure it does such a great job of getting you properly up to speed. If you’re able to be patient, setting aside some frustrations and burning time to start to gain momentum and dig deeper into Ro’s quest, there is at least a pretty unique journey and challenge that awaits.