Let It Die

by Sean Martin
reviewed on PC
LET IT DIE
When Grasshopper Manufacture released Let it Die on PS4 back in 2016, I immediately became attached to it. Firstly because it was made by the same developers who brought us the likes of Killer7 and No More Heroes and it carries with it that same strange/wacky yet ultra-violent tone. But the game is also super stylized in a lot of ways; as with the previous games, the violence feels more artistic than it does visceral, expressing itself purely in huge jets and explosions of blood. But I also was drawn to Let it Die as being a really great free-to-play game, with plenty of content and re-playability, yet no required price tag.
In the year 2026, a huge tectonic disturbance has caused wise-spread destruction around the globe. On the south-western island of Tokyo, the tower of barbs has appeared. It is a huge structure, cobbled together from a variety of buildings and districts, all collated into one, but it’s also rumoured that at the top of the tower lies a great treasure, waiting for a fighter brave and foolish enough to climb the tower and take it.
THE TOWER OF BARBS
The tower exists as a strange organic structure and as you fight your way upwards between districts, you’ll realize that the layout of the tower shifts based on time. To brave the various enemies and bosses that lurk within the tower, you’ll have to kit out your fighter. As you climb you’ll discover a variety of weapons, blueprints and scrap, with which you can fashion new and better condition weapons, likely to last a little longer in the fight. You can also equip and upgrade armour as well as purchasing decals; a bit like tattoos but they grant you a bonus.
But should you die in the tower, you’ll lose all of this and will have to use another fighter to climb the tower and put down your corpse, returning the fighter to your care. In Let it Die you can have a number of fighters, which you can send out on expeditions, play with, or use to defend your waiting room in Tokyo Death Metro attacks. If you die however, there is another option, use one Death Metal to return to life, Let it Die’s in-game currency.
DEATH METAL
In free-to-play games in-game currency makes absolute sense, but when you play a free-to-play that doesn’t necessarily require the currency, I consider that pretty gracious on the developer’s part. For the first ten floors or so, you can get through without many death metal provided you are cautious and not too gung-ho, but if you want to make it all the way to the very top floor, you’re going to need them. You can buy Death Metal, but you can also earn them by completing quests. If you choose to become a premium member of the game you also get access to the free elevator, which allows you to travel freely between elevators you’ve unlocked, whereas usually you’d have to pay in-game coins to travel. Let it Die is a hard game after all, and you will die, but the amount you die is largely dependent on you, so provided you avoid unnecessary deaths, you could probably make it to the top for free.
GORETASTIC
As time goes on, we are given more and more choice as players in terms of the free-to-plays available to us, but Let it Die is still one of the best/most interesting I’ve played. It’s a successful game in its own right, super fun with a large variety of weapons, bosses, enemies and areas to experience/explore. The similar layouts and shifting structure of the tower do make it a challenge to navigate, but there is a great sense of accomplishment in the game. It may try to be a little too ‘edgy’ at times, illustrated by Death on a skateboard and 90% of the stuff that comes out of his mouth and the PvP of Tokyo Death Metro feels a poor excuse for Souls-like invasion sometimes, but it does allow you to grind coins if you need them.
7.6
fun score
Pros
Free-to-play, goretastic, good combat and exploration.
Cons
Tokyo Death Metro is a poor substitute for invasion, a little too 'edgy'.