Death of the Reprobate Review – A Renaissance farce you won’t want to miss

Death of the Reprobate is a point & click adventure game whose demo I had already sampled during one of Steam’s many Next Fest events, so I more or less knew what I was getting myself into: a Monty Python-esque atmosphere, shockingly absurd humor reminiscent of beloved genre classics, and a touch of healthy vulgarity. Which is also why I was so excited to sink my teeth into the full game, eager to discover what other atrocities I’ll be committing as the storyline’s comical anti-hero, and how many fictional lives I’ll be ruining while adventuring across a world made up of gorgeous paintings. Well, I’m happy to report that Death of the Reprobate more than lived up to my expectations, and ended up being both deliciously outrageous and refreshingly hilarious.

A world of reprobates

Developer Joe Richardson’s latest project begins with a paradoxically – and ironically – dying Immortal John, who tasks his would-be successor Malcolm with performing seven good deeds before he can be handed his inheritance. What comes next is fairly evident: you, in the role of Malcolm, must explore the realm, meet its many inhabitants and solve their problems in your own, bizarre ways. Now, you might be thinking that this setup will lend itself to all kinds of absurd, impossible-to-crack puzzle segments that require you to seriously think outside the box, but actually, that’s not quite the case. Granted, there are a few things that will probably make you go “really?”, but on the whole, Death of the Reprobate’s brain teasers are surprisingly manageable, and the game does a pretty good job of always nudging you in the right direction. In fact, there’s even a specific NPC in-game who will straight up tell you what you need to do when asked, as well as another “background helper” who literally points a very visible arrow at important characters, so getting stuck is virtually impossible.

The game’s locations are also relatively limited in number, with a few of the later ones initially locked off until you meet certain requirements; as you might expect, having a smaller number of areas also means it’s easier to orient yourself and figure out what needs to be done and where, which keeps the game’s pacing tight without overwhelming the player with dozens of items to pick up or too many characters to talk to. The journey itself isn’t particularly long, either: it took me a little less than four hours to complete the game, and I was taking my sweet time with it, too, making sure to always inspect everything and exhaust every possible dialogue option.

Strawberry milkshakes and goat kings

So, while the game probably won’t offer a significant amount of challenge to veteran adventure gamers and point & click fans, it makes up for this in spades with its imaginative presentation, witty – and often intentionally zany – dialogue scenes, and its complete and utter refusal to tone itself down. If there’s a silly, “oh god I can’t believe that just happened” type of joke to be made, Death of the Reprobate happily and unapologetically goes for it, and I very much loved it for that. Making a young boy drink mushy cow poop, turning an annoying villager’s head into a cabbage, and threatening a fruit and/or veg seller with indiscriminate violence were just some of the so-called “good deeds” I performed in the role of Malcolm, and honestly, I couldn’t get enough of the sheer insanity of it all. If anything, Death of the Reprobate’s modern, sometimes completely vulgar gags become increasingly more absurd due to the game’s uniquely striking art style, all brought to life with classic Renaissance (and Rococo and Romantic) paintings that give the adventure an amusingly anachronistic flavor. The finale, in particular, was also the cherry on top of the bizarro cake, bringing this wholly farcical adventure to an immensely satisfying (and thoroughly fitting) conclusion.

The Lord will guide you

Death of the Reprobate delivered exactly what I expected from it – nothing more and nothing less. If you’ve played the demo and found yourself craving more, then do absolutely check out the full version as well, because that’s precisely what you’ll get: oodles of outrageously zany and occasionally vulgar dialogues, bizarre characters that never fail to shock and surprise, and a hilarious anachronistic presentation that combines classical art with modern, absurdist comedy. This is a farce through and through, and I enjoyed every second of it.

Death of the Reprobate will be available via Steam on November 7.