How fun it is to play evil.

That is, as long as you don't take it too seriously what you're really doing, be it sacrificing your most loyal followers in tremendous torment to horrendous creatures from the deep, or naming your newest cultist “sunflower beauty” and forcing them to marry you, or just making your cultists eat pies made out of their own faeces. It's all in good fun, right?

And I did manage to approach it as such, seeing the cute dark nature of its cult management as hilarious in how horrendous it really is, taking the real life atrocities and lies of cults and adding to them actual supernatural realities. It doesn't really make it any nicer when you strangle your follower in bed for a quest or force your oldest member eat a potentially deadly dish in the hopes of a rare drop, useless as they are for anything else (my god how much ageism this game engenders), but it's far enough removed from reality to amuse instead of horrify. Content warning is still needed though, especially if you do have PTSD from similar experiences.

The combat part of the game is more hit and miss, managing to occasionally be fun but also somewhat chaotic, especially with its weapon selection. But in each and every aspect of its action, it pales when compared to something like Hades, and the crusades quickly come to be in danger of being something you do in order to unlock more things in your camp or to advance the story, instead of something you yearn to participate in.

Speaking of its writing, it isn't deep or particularly involving, but it is delicious in how darkly and forebodingly written it is, the beautiful and moody artistry allowing for more immersion within the Lamb’s eldritch world. I can't say I felt anything emotional at any of the story beats, but I did enjoy the writing for what it was, and I wanted to find out what exactly does happen when I kill the last false God.

The way to that point can be a struggle, and you'll probably fully upgraded all your combat and follower skills long before you arrive there (I hadn't even killed the third boss when I had already maxed them myself). The endgame base management can be a bit lacking then, relying on setting personal goals (e.g. get as many followers you can - quite difficult with the speed the fuckers keep dying) and a late-game free DLC addition (which, granted, is pretty fun, and adds more horrible and amusing options to the game).

But for a few weeks this game was what my partner and I kept returning to whenever we could, developing our cults and swapping tales of new discoveries and our horrific misdeeds. Whatever its faults, its pros are also many, first and foremost how well it suited us gaming together solo, bringing us together in how horrible we were to our poor cultists. For that alone it's one of my favourite experiences of the year.

Sights & Sounds
- Cutesy, cartoonish world with a whole bunch of evil imagery
- The character designs are adorable. The hippo follower is my son
- The music is top notch
- The rest of the sound design is pretty great as well

Story & Vibes
- There's not too much of a story. You're a sacrificial lamb (literally) who gets resurrected by an evil god. You get to claim revenge on your killers, but you must cultivate and guide a cult to serve the god who brought you back to life
- Given the juxtaposition of the cutesy visuals with the evil cult activities you'll be performing throughout the game, the overall tone is fairly silly and just a little dark

Playability & Replayability
- The majority of the gameplay is split between two major genres: city bulder and action roguelike
- The city builder parts feature you building structures, generating resources, caring for your cultists, and managing your cult. A happier cult = faster leveling and therefore better passives while you're out adventuring
- The action roguelike part of the game contains your typical top-down, randomly generated floors separated by branching paths. You're given one of five melee weapon types and a random spell at the beginning of each run. As you make your way through each run (ending in a miniboss or boss), you'll also have the opportunity to gather resources and gain followers
- All the weapons feel good except for the dagger. That one makes you feel like you're tickling enemies to death. Spells felt completely superfluous but were occasionally helpful for doing damage to bosses from a distance. Otherwise, you could beat the entire game without ever casting one
- Honestly, the game isn't all that hard. Higher difficulties reduce your health, but the dodge is robust enough that avoiding damage is a breeze if you're good with your spacing and timing. Some bosses present a nice challenge (Kallamar was an interesting mid-game skill check), but most won't take you more than a single attempt
- In addition to the two predominant gameplay archetypes, there's a few minigames like fishing and dice

Overall Impressions & Performance
- There was some (rarely encountered) slight stuttering despite my hardware being well above the specs
- I encountered a few weird soft locks when in the church. It does typically take a few seconds for your followers to filter in, but the game got stuck there for multiple minutes and required a restart more than once
- On two different occasions, I got stuck in rooms where I had killed all the enemies. In both cases, I killed an enemy (causing its hitbox and model to disappear), but it was still able to damage me. Neither instance allowed me to hit the enemy back, which I attempted to do by swinging/chucking spells at the dust cloud that was still moving around where its feet would be

Final Verdict
- 8/10. Despite the minor bugs, I had a pretty great time with the game. The gameplay loop is satisfying. The combat, while kinda easy, felt good. Making your colony and filling it with cute little cultists was fun, even if you have to sacrifice them sometimes. Overall, it's an easy recommend