GAME REVIEW: Cult of the Lamb (2022)
Flawed but really fun
If you read my game reviews, you’ll note that I’m constantly on the prowl for couch co-op games that I can play with my partner, who is also a big ol’ gamer geek. Our most recent find was a game called Cult of the Lamb, released in 2022 by Massive Monster and distributed by Devolver Digital, the latter of whom have released a few other games that I’ve enjoyed in recent years (like Enter the Gungeon). The cute artwork was reminiscent of that done by the guys who made The Binding of Isaac, so that encouraged us to give it a look, and the full trailer convinced us to try it. The general verdict was that Cult of the Lamb is a good game, but was plagued by a multitude of minor gameplay issues that are annoying but not deal-breaking.
Premise
So, the game starts with a lamb going to the slaughter in the name of the Bishops of the Old Faith, who are trying to make it so The One Who Waits may never be resurrected. They aim to do this by eliminating all lambs from existence, of which the PC is the last. However, in their effort to oppress this other old god, they instead send him exactly what he needs: a vessel for his power. The lamb is tasked with starting a cult and bringing the stolen power back to the red crown by killing the Bishops and freeing The One Who Waits. The character is guided through the beginning of the game by his predecessor, a one-eyed rat-man named Ratau, who acts as the game’s tutorial.
Gameplay
Cult of the Lamb is a combination rogue-lite resource management game, one that’s pleasantly easy to casually pick up and put down. You must tend to your flock (hehe… nice), as well as explore the land of false prophets where the Bishops rule, defeating bosses, gathering resources, and liberating potential cult members in order to gain devotion and power. It’s all very fun and whimsical, and the juxtaposition of the cute artwork on the Lovecraftian cult tropes is absolutely delightful.
Lag
Now, do keep in mind that we played this game on the Nintendo Switch, which isn’t nearly as powerful as Playstation or Xbox, so this might not be a problem if you play on a different console, but we had some big issues with lag at times when playing on the TV, which was at its worst during drum circles, change of day/night, and combat. Okay, the drum circle and day/night switch are so low-consequence that it doesn’t matter, but it was really frustrating in battles at times, especially on harder difficulties. During combat, for example, a lot of our button inputs didn’t go through, and I don’t mean to say that we missed an attack here or there. I had instances where I pressed the dodge button four or more times and my character didn’t dodge so I gave up. So the controls on the Switch are fairly problematic at times. However, I will note that if you’re just looking to play solo, this was not an issue when playing in handheld mode (as is often the case with Switch gaming).
Weapon Mechanics
The overall hack ‘n’ slash mechanics were pretty decent on the whole. Nothing innovative, but something that’s perfectly common and very functional, so on the whole, I didn’t have any major issues with the battle system. The design, however, could have been fine-tuned still.
For example, some of the mechanics were not thought through quite well enough to offer a balanced experience. The weapon options were: sword, axe, dagger, claws, hammer, and blunderbuss. The first three of those are great: a standard attack that balances speed and damage, a heavy but slow attack, and a fast but weak attack respectively. Those are all fine and they were the best weapons in the game.
But the other three? They didn’t seem quite so intuitive, nor did they add much extra of interest. For example, claws or gloves are most often associated with monks in gameplay, which means, following standard gameplay mechanics, they would have a long combo of very fast moves, like the dagger but sped up and needing more moves before the finisher. Instead, these claws had a reasonably big arc but a rather slow speed, and did perhaps as much damage as the sword on regular attacks—too slow and too weak to be a choice weapon. The hammer was more or less fine, but it was just a slower and slightly stronger version of the axe, which gave you a moment to aim, so it wasn’t really offering anything interesting or different. And the blunderbuss was fun at first, but in the end, it’s not a ranged weapon—it does next to no damage from a distance and the need for the bullets to regenerate meant that it was only fast for a moment before you need to bail. Ultimately, it was not as good as the sword. It was also weird that the enemies got to have ranged attacks but the player didn’t (though the curses (magic spells) were often ranged, which made up for it).
Now, it’s okay to have different weapons to use and surely some people may have liked the claws and blunderbuss more than I did, but not getting to choose your weapon before a run (the weapons were always randomly generated, as opposed to chosen, like in games like Hades) made it really tedious after a while, especially when I felt like I was never getting the weapons I actually liked to use (and if you bail on a run, unless your cult have recently taken mushrooms, they’ll lose faith in you; you’ll also lose resources). I would have been happier if the game had let the player choose, or at very least kept the same options open as during co-op play, which rolled two random weapons and let the players pick. Another option would be to allow the player to customize which weapons they want in the pool (it’s worth mentioning that each weapon also has different unlockable buffs too: poison, necromancy, healing, that sort of thing).
Curses & Relics
As mentioned briefly, the PCs can also get curses and relics, which add to their assault arsenal. No issues there—I really enjoyed a lot of the curses, with very few exceptions. Some of the relics’ explanatory text didn’t explain enough, but on the whole, they were simple and easy enough to use and added some extra flavor to combat. My main problem was forgetting about them, but that’s a me-issue.
Resource Gathering & Management
Regarding the resource management aspect of the game, I found this really fun on the whole; I didn’t have any of the issues some people complained about regarding there being too many things to do. You can spend a few days in town tending to things like growing and making food, cleaning up poop and vomit, healing the ill, taking confessions, gathering devotion, harvesting resources, sending cultists on missions, and so on. It starts out simply enough and adds layers, until you have around 15-20 cultists running your nice customized village. Later in the game, they add the concept of Sin, which opens up a few more options of things to putter around with. It was well balanced and the gameplay difficulty nicely adjusts how much trouble you’ll get into when you neglect your people. For example, it’s necessary to go into the levels for certain resources (at least for a while), but going into a level will leave the cult untended until your return. They’ll be annoyed if you die during outside adventures too, losing faith in you, and possibly eventually leaving the cult altogether.
Final Boss Bullshit
The game also offers buffs within the levels, but one of my biggest gripes about the game was that—at least on the Hard(+) difficulty—none of them came through in the final boss fight. This meant that you have to go into the final fight with about 3 hearts (6 health), and the final boss involves three separate battles and opportunities to heal are extremely rare. This, honestly, felt like a load of crap.
I have a further complaint about the final boss too, which was that he shoots projectiles that move faster than the characters can run or dodge, and the edges of the (surprisingly small) arena were extremely hard to see, which meant that I constantly found myself fleeing projectiles, only to get pinned down because I didn’t realize I had run into a wall. Pair that with lag when dodging. And again, when you don’t have much health… the whole encounter was very, very, very irritating and sort of soured the end of the game. Fortunately, you can play indefinitely before or after fighting the last boss, so you’re only missing a bit of conclusion to the lore if you outright skip the final boss. You can also drop the difficulty, if you don’t have any pride towards your gaming prowess that you need to upkeep.
Art & Music
I have no complaints on this front. The artwork was so cute and anytime the cuteness was paired with a ton of blood and gore or death or eldritch horror, it was pure eye candy for me. I was often giggling out loud like an idiot. My personal favorite was the feast ritual, because the happy munching faces combined with the “hom-nom-nom” sound effect was just too cute.
The music, made by River Boy, was also great. Okay, the soundtrack isn’t so good that I need to listen to the OST all the time when I’m not playing the game, like with games like Hollow Knight, but it was a unique soundtrack that really suited the game. Some of my favorite tunes did also make their way onto my favorite video game music playlist (included below) though, because they were catchy or clever-sounding, or because I just enjoyed their ambiance.
Story (spoiler warning)
There’s not a huge or deep story to this game, but the story does exactly what it needs to for a game like this. The PC lamb is sacrificed in order to prevent the rise of The One Who Waits, who you eventually learn is the fifth sibling of the other Bishops (Leshy, Heket, Kallamar, and Shamura), named Narinder. Every time the lamb defeats a Bishop, one of the chains that binds Narinder is broken. Some lore is revealed as the lamb goes through the levels, while the Bishops invoke their influence over their own cultists to interfere, or use their magic to mess up things in the cult (they may cause plagues, hunger, or may simply turn your own cultists against you by force).
At the end of the game, you have the option to return the crown to Narinder and allow him to rise (the easy ending with no final battle), which results in the lamb’s brutal and torturous sacrifice, or you can reject him too and keep the power for yourself. If you choose this route, you will be forced to battle the two beings that have always been with Narinder in his prison: Baal and Aym. Then there is a fight against the mortal form, as well as the mutated form, reflecting the boss battles in the different lands. Ultimately, you are left with the choice to kill Narinder (he will accuse you of being no better than him) or letting him live in town as a mortal. However, look elsewhere if you’re hoping for the villain to have a redemption arc—Narinder remains a complete jerk until the end (and, as I understand it, he also does not age or die).
Conclusion
On the whole, while this game is full of small annoyances, on the whole, I felt like it was more fun than it was frustrating and I ended up playing it quite a bit, both with and without my partner. It was a great game for us as well, because he likes playing levels and is glad to leave the town tinkering to me, which I very much enjoy. Plus, we have to shout-out the artistic aspects of the game though, because the sound effects, voice acting, music, and art were all so so good and we really enjoyed it. Definitely recommended for couch co-op and solo play, so long as you don’t mind a few grievances here and there.
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