Cult of the Lamb

[h1] "No longer a servant, No less than a god." [/h1] Cult of the Lamb is an action roguelite developed by Massive Monster, an Australia-based developer. You play as a lamb, and you run a cult... something like a cult of the lamb. You run around a deceptively cute game doing things such as being hunted by False Gods, destroying the non-believers, and indoctrinating not-so-innocent animals to your cult and enacting not-so-innocent, sinister sacrifices to grow your own power for holy crusades. You can also fish and farm. Pretty cute. COTL has been a really fun time so far, and a lot of that enjoyment comes from its base-management and action-roguelite genre splice. It's a pretty linear structure, and the roguelite aspect falls short in several areas, especially in replayability; the adorable art style, amazing soundtrack, disturbing themes, and base management, however, have me pretty addicted. You can tell Massive Monster has pulled from a lot of different games, such as Binding of Isaac, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and just a pinch of Darkest Dungeon. Gameplay will be split into two here. One side is a base manager, where you gather resources, train cult members, care for them, assign them to different jobs, have them worship at shrines to boost your power, develop farms to feed your cult, build various buildings with their own benefits, and even decorate if desired. There is a lot of fantasy and customization, too. You can easily move the layout of your base and even choose the looks and names of your cult members to build your own very unique cult. You will do a lot yourself when starting out, but it becomes increasingly satisfying as you reach a point where your cult becomes self-sustaining and lively as you build your flock. The other side of this game is an action roguelite dungeon crawler. This side of the game hasn't really resonated with me and is only serviceable enough, so I'm not entirely bored during these holy crusades. It's a very casual experience, which is definitely not the absolute worst. If, however, you play this game solely for its roguelite aspect and have experience in the genre, you'll definitely be left confused and scratching your head at some of the aspects here. I recently had to turn the difficulty to the hardest, and I've had more fun with the change. Both of these genre splices are pretty shallow compared to their contemporaries, but when combined, they are so very, very fun alongside COTL's goofy setting. Though I might be pretty meh on some of the game's execution and lack of Quality of Life, there is a magic to the game that keeps dragging me back and even got me to buy the Woolhaven expansion, which apparently is as large as the base game! If you're looking for a casual, fun time in a wacky world, I can assure you this game will definitely deliver. Overall Rating: 7.5 / 10 (Good) Playing w/ PS5 Dualsense Playing on Extra Hard

I'm extremely sad to see this game end, it took me 60h to 100%, forgot how much for base game and Woolhaven DLC, I think around 45h and 15h. It's easy to 100% which is great, not grindy at all. There are 2 missable achievements in the base game and you might get softlocked for 1 achievement in the Woolhaven DLC. If you don't enjoy spoilers then only search 100% guides when you're almost at the end of the main story. As for Woolhaven, make sure to prioritize building [spoiler]Rami's shop[/spoiler] rather fast so you don't have issues there. The only things I'm missing seem to be 7 follower forms (4 from newest Twitch drops, but they will become available later on in game as well + 3 from Halloween event) and some decorations from the Halloween event. And, of course, missing the few coop Relics, but that's alright. Other than that, I discovered everything, even if not related to any achievements and I had a ton of fun doing so! This game has slowly, but surely became my comfort game and I've enjoyed it so much, definitely one of my ABSOLUTE favorites ever. I have to admit I'm not a fan of roguelikes, they just get too repetitive for me to keep on going, but this one blends the genre very well with managing your cult. Honestly, the management part is VERY addictive, it's just so nice taking care of all your followers and their needs. There are a TON of things you can do, but I really don't want to spoil things, it really surprised me though. Everyone should play this game because it's extremely unique, you won't ever find anything like it. The cutesy, but dark atmosphere, the story, combat, amount of awesome things you can do, the amazing artstyle, everything is just PURE perfection!! As for the DLCs, only Pilgrim and Woolhaven add new things to do, others only add cosmetics. I got them all though and love every little addition. However, the must have is the Woolhaven DLC, you can skip the rest. There are a bunch of secrets to be found in the Woolhaven DLC which I might not even have found had I not looked things up online. The base game doesn't hold such missable secrets though. Very cool little details, to be honest, you can see a lot of love went into making this! I've had a few minor bugs, some repeated like my followers not using the toilet to poop. It all goes back to normal if you leave the game and come back though. I had a bit of lag too sometimes when there was too much on screen during combat, even though my PC can handle more intensive games so there's that as well. Do yourself a favour and start Woolhaven after the end game in the base game (yes, there is even and end game which adds a lot to the story and it's great, even though it's kind of replaying everything you already did). Overall, absolute 10/10 for me and I truly hope we get a second game or something like that because I'm completely IN LOVE with this masterpiece! Huge thanks to the devs for creating this and also to the person who allowed me to experience it! :)

This game is an absolute must play if you like the idea of a roguelite mixed with an extremely cozy cult builder. Even if you've never played a roguelite before and think you might not be very good, you can adjust the difficulty thusly or work on "upgrading" yourself and your cult to make runs easier. The graphics are cozy and wonderful, taking a page right out of "Don't Starve Together" playbook. The soundtrack is fantastic. The gameplay is fantastic. They even made multiplayer so if you have a friend to play with, it's super cozy to play with them. This game definitely went down as one of my favorites of all time and I doubt I'll play anything even as remotely unique as this for ages. This is a game where you can buy it full price, and it will be well worth it. The DLC is fabulous as well, offering almost an entirely new game with the same mechanics on top of it!