Product Info

Platform

Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, iOS, Android

Publisher

Ukiyo Publishing

Developer

Rocketcat Games / Madgarden

Genre

Action, Adventure

Players

1-2

File Size (Minimum)

206.44 MB

Release Date (NA)

May 8, 2018

Purchase From

eShop

PSN Store

Microsoft Store

Steam

Android

iOS

Though to some it may be seen as just another roguelike game, Death Road to Canada uses witty character design with addicting — yet frantic — survival-exploration as a means to bring you back on the road again and again.

Not Another Zombie Tale

Death Road to Canada feels rather familiar at first, as its story pits you against hordes of zombies in a post-apocalyptic journey where you have to use your wits and combat skills to scour the country for supplies in order to survive a 14 day trek to Canada where a safe-haven is waiting you (or so you have heard). Where this typical zombie story trails off into its own shoes, however, is in the game’s overall dependency on randomness. Every trip you embark on will be different from the last, and boy, you had better be ready for a lot of unsuccessful trips.

On the Death Road Again

At Death Road’s opening menu, you are bombarded with a catchy rock ‘n’ roll tune that sets the mood for the entire game. Its high energy tells you this will not be a laid-back experience, but the riffs and traveling piano give you your first glimpse at the game’s silly attitude.

The light-heartedness is slightly diminished as you begin your first game, where the music dulls down and becomes more dainty, and you discover the game is a cycle of on-screen prompts and 2D exploration. Your first prompt supplies you with three locations and leaves you to decide which you would like to loot and explore the most.

Once you have chosen your location, the game switches to a randomly generated map where your characters pull up in your car and are able to get out, walk around, and explore. From here, you must navigate the top-down world as your character, looting nearby buildings and killing any zombies in your way without overexerting yourself. Once you feel you’ve searched all you can, you can approach your car and zip off back onto the road.

After you are on your way again, you receive another series of prompts, all of which are events that take place on your journey. (You may even be lucky and get some goofy dialogue from your fellow travelers.) How you make your decisions based on the scenarios you are confronted with determines the longevity of your experience. Choose to track a radio frequency and you might score some good supplies, but choose to befriend the wrong traveler and you may just walk away empty-handed.

The real trouble, however, arises when you realize that even though these scenarios are designed with the idea that critical thinking gains you the best outcome, it may more often simply rely on luck. Or, even worse, you’re provided with only two solutions to a prompt, yet both would have a seemingly negative effect on you.

For example, one prompt introduces you to a character who verbally attacks your troupe. Then you are given two choices: attempt to rally and recruit them, or tell them they are wrong and being rude. Of course, the latter seems like a poor decision with a negative outcome; but asking a sketchy character to join your team is not only dangerous, it also requires more resources, making the entire scenario feel like one long string of bad luck.

A Long, Hard Trip

Being that the game is randomly generated, it is no surprise that by your third destination, you can feel the zombies becoming more difficult to suppress as you explore. As you progress even further into the game, it definitely challenges your wits and ability to maneuver through the maps, and it can be frustrating at times.

Overall, most maps are open and easy to navigate when you first drive up. This all changes, though, once you are inside of most buildings since their corners and hallways are very cramped, especially later in the game. Normally, this adds to the thrill of the genre, but it gets worse when you realize you can’t quite touch some corners and walls, as if a barrier prevents you from getting as close as you would like to.

So while you are frantically dodging zombies through a house and trying to plan accordingly, you may overestimate the amount of space you have between the zombies and the wall. Whether this is a design flaw or just the art style, it certainly adds to the difficulty. Thankfully, through these challenges in the later portions of the game, you will also find yourself more likely to come upon better weapons and larger amounts of supplies.

Finding more weapons is an uplifting feeling because chances are, almost all of your deaths will happen during the exploration sequences, so having a good arsenal makes the biggest difference in gameplay through this long trip. In fact, “long” might be a massive understatement when it comes to the length of this endeavor. Depending on how quickly you explore locations, four days in the game can take anywhere from a 30 minutes to a full hour.

Creating the Perfect Zombie-Killing Team

One of the best aspects of the game is its character creator where a plethora of physical attributes and personality traits await your delegation. You can make your character sinister looking or even get silly with it and create Shaggy or Velma from Scooby-Doo, but it all comes down to the skills given to each character since these will give you both boosts and deterrents that affect your trip.

Every character gets a Perk and a Trait that will define who they are and what they will bring to the table on your journey. Perks will always have a positive effect on the characters, whereas Traits have positive as well as negative effects, making you take time to choose wisely before saving your character for good. One example is the trait Oblivious that helps you ignore despair, thus maintaining good morale, but also gives you bad rolls when making decisions based on perception and wits, such as deciding if a person is friendly enough to join your troupe or not.

Off the Beaten Path

When the normal mode on Death Road to Canada gets too trite for the more serious player, there are other modes which can add to the experience. When choosing a new game, selecting Familiar Characters Mode will fill all your travelers along the way with characters you have created. Or you can take a riskier path and choose Rare Characters Mode, which gives you special characters with unique traits to find, though not all will be useful.

Many other modes are included, but they are also unlockables that you must acquire by finding and obtaining Zombo Points. These special points can be found in some maps during your gameplay, or from certain accomplishments during your travels. Zombo Points are spent in the unlockables section of the main menu and can also be used to unlock Perks and Traits.

A Heavy Tale with a Light Heart

Death Road to Canada offers a dark premise with clever dialogue and an attitude that never takes itself too seriously. You will have hours of entertainment hacking and slashing the undead and making decisions that haven’t given you this much anxiety since Oregon Trail. However, even with randomized journeys, it may not be enough to bring you back in the long term, especially considering how hard it is to succeed, gain Zombo points, and unlock better character traits. It needs more braiiiins for that.

Disclaimer: A digital review copy was provided by Plan of Attack.