Cult of the Lamb Review - A Cult Classic

Cult of the Lamb begins at our poor, titular lamb's end. After walking down a narrow stone corridor, you are greeted by robed cultists and The Old Gods: four monstrous beings to whom the inhabitants of this strange land are (mostly) loyal. As it turns out, this little lamb is the last of its kind, having managed to evade death while the rest of its fluffy friends were culled. The Old Gods reveal this was due to a prophecy that a lamb would be the one who would lead to their undoing, destroying the Old Faith and unleashing the one thing they fear most: The One Who Waits. The Gods instruct their followers to dispatch you quickly, but little do they know this is precisely what the prophecy demands. Upon being killed, you meet with The One Who Waits, an all-powerful god who we learn was betrayed and imprisoned by the other four. After your meeting, he makes you an offer: start a cult in his name, and he will both bring you back to life and gift unto you his former powers via the Red Crown. After you accept, you are sent back to the world of the living, where you meet with The One Who Waits' former cult leader, Ratau, who leads you to the site of your up-and-coming commune. From this point, the game divides into two main sections: exploring dungeons and managing your cult, both of which are closely tied to one another. There are four main dungeons in Cult of the Lamb, and each of these domains is led by one of the Old Gods. Each also contains features, resources, blueprints, follower forms, and enemies unique to that area. The dungeons are composed of a series of randomly-generated location types arranged on a webbed map, allowing you to evaluate their icons and choose the path you wish to follow. The most common types are combat areas, which are denoted on your map by a sword icon. Each of these areas is made up of a handful of randomly-generated rooms, occupied by monsters or, if you're lucky, a mysterious figure weidling tarot cards that grant you various boons. Other types of areas include ones filled with resources for your commune, shops, a character issuing you special challenges--such as "don't take damage in the next three rooms"--story beats, malevolent pentagram chambers, and new followers. Your main objective while exploring these dungeons is to reach the end four times--slaying a different mini-boss each time you accomplish the feat--and then ultimately facing off against one of the four Old Gods. Upon finishing them off, all enemy units grow stronger, a new boss enters the final area, and you gain the ability to venture out repeatedly instead of having to return to your cult after each expedition--adding some major replayability and giving you the chance to grind a bit when later areas prove challenging. While Cult of the Lamb has a fair amount of options that make it more approachable, it is inherently a fast-paced and challenging game. Though enemies tend to have predictable move sets you can pick up on fairly quickly, rooms can quickly become over-crowded thanks to additional monsters spawning and all the various long-range attacks more elite units will throw your way. Dodging is vital to staying alive, and if you're playing on PC, I highly recommend assigning it to a button on your mouse--unless you want your space bar to also be a sacrificial lamb as well. Not only that, but like most roguelikes, a great deal of the game is dictated by chance. You have no choice in what weapon and curse--a special attack fueled by fervor you collect from killing enemies--you begin each expedition with. While swords and axes might offer pretty standard speeds and attack rates, daggers are considerably weaker but attacks are quicker and battle-hammers are so slow you have to click twice to use them--though they do pack a big punch. This randomization is a big factor in what can be some broad difficulty swings, but it also creates a lot of rewarding moments when you overcome the drawbacks you can face. I finished my first playthrough of Cult of the Lamb on normal and was faced with a bit of resistance toward the end of the second area, which ultimately pushed me to be more thoughtful and patient going forward. However, there are a few instances where you might bump into difficulty spikes and have a hard time accumulating resources, leading to skill stagnation and, as a result, difficulties on expeditions. Course-correcting isn't too painful--I began to revisit dungeons and go to resource-filled rooms rather than ones filled with enemies or followers--but these moments can be frustrating. In addition to normal mode, I tried the game on both easy and hard modes to get a feel for what the differences were. I was happy to find that, mechanically, everything stays essentially the same regardless of what difficulty you are at (though admittedly I didn't test out the fourth and most challenging difficulty). What is impacted by difficulty is the size of enemy health bars and the resources you are given, which makes it rewarding to play on a lower difficulty in order to learn the ropes and improve before ramping it up. If you do find the game getting easier for you--or are feeling overly challenged and need a breather--you can change the difficulty back and forth at will.