Peace, Death! Complete Edition

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

.

Review:

Peace, Death! is an Arcade-style game released on PC in 2017 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2018 in a Complete Edition that includes the Hand of F expansion content as well as some other additional graphical and gameplay alterations. This game puts players in the role of a grim reaper who has apparently taken a job in judging whether people will go to heaven or hell, and based on the criteria they have been given, they must decide where to send these people.

The presentation here is simple, but it works well enough, using 2D pixel art visuals to depict the various characters and the game’s hellish backdrop, with decent character designs and minor animations but nothing truly noteworthy. These are backed by a subdued soundtrack and nonsense noises as the characters speak. It’s nothing especially memorable, but it gets the job done, I suppose. The humans all have slightly amusing things to say, but you likely won’t be able to sit around reading all of it since you’re on the clock.

The gameplay here is very simple – look at the person in question and tap a button to decide where to send them. You’ll be given simple instructions at first – demons go to hell, humans to heaven. However, with each new level the rules become more elaborate – you’ll have to search the person for horns, then weapons, then blood stains. Then you’ll have to remove hats that may cover horns, and soon enough you’ll have to sort some of them into purgatory… this game thankfully doesn’t rest on its laurels and keeps adding more steps to the sorting process to keep you on your toes.

However, in the end, this is still just a matter of sorting, and adding steps makes things more interesting and complex, but also more tedious, and it never feels like you’re solving puzzles or doing anything especially challenging, you’re just… sorting with more steps. It’s just not especially compelling.

Of course, it’s hard not to think about the similarities to the game Papers, Please, which took the mundane task of sorting people into categories and made it into a compelling story and an ethical dilemma. Peace, Death! Has no interest in such things, it’s just here to give players a mundane task and perhaps a few chuckles while they’re at it.

If Peace, Death!’s theme and art style amuses you, it may still be worth it to give it a try, but for most I’d say that this is probably too bland and simple an experience to hold your interest for very long, even with all the complications this game throws into things. Ultimately, it feels more like working a job than a game.

tl;dr – Peace, Death! Is an Arcade-style game where players must decide whether the people they’re sorting are headed for heaven or hell. The gameplay here is simple, but becomes more complex over time as you get a growing list of criteria. However, despite these complications, this still all just feels like tedious busywork, and isn’t especially fun or compelling.

Grade: C

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}