YMMV / Death's Gambit

• Funny Moments: Though much of the game's quite grim, there's a few moments of levity from time to time.
  • Death's quite a Deadpan Snarker, amusing himself with Sorun's naivete when they encounter each other. A good example is when they meet at Central Sanctuary, where he tells him his main objective.
    Death: Ugh... Finally, I thought it might take another sunrise for you to arrive.
    Sorun: Who said that?
    Death: Up here. In your world, the crows are my eyes. Past the city of Aldwynn lies Caer Siorai. Within its walls rests Siradon's source of immortality. You must toll the two Bells of Ascension... then, find the soul vessel that will let you commune with the dead.
    Sorun: Wait, really?
    Death: No-hoho. Just smash the Source with a rock. Or your head. Either will do.
  • The whole "fight" with Sir Thomas of Dark Hole, a Lumberkin. He even gets a boss title and all. Unfortunately for him, he's fighting Sorun and dies in one hit.
• That One Boss: While the Afterlife update amended many issues with the game and even overhauled several bosses, several Heroic Rematches stand out as incredibly challenging due to their respective mechanics.
  • The Forgotten Gaian is a Dual Boss fought alongside Ione. You can initially only attack the Gaian's foot, which has significant damage reduction, but hurting it enough will drop the Gaian to its knees and let you strike at its exposed innards for much more damage. Ione periodically will drop down to run interference, but gets scared off after enough damage. The Heroic Rematch though adds in periodic enemy reinforcements, forcing you to put yourself in striking distance of the Gaian's sword to deal with them and throwing off your rhythm of focusing down the Gaian. This all significantly complicates the rematch of one of the earliest fights in the game.
  • The Eldritch Council is an unabashed Time-Limit Boss and considered the hardest Heroic Rematch of the original game. Through the whole fight, blood pours into the arena and if it exceeds 100%, Sorun begins to take extreme damage very quickly. In the meantime, the Inquisitor herself stays far out of reach of melee weapons, and using ranged options to kill her would take too long. Thus the first phase of the fight is breaking four crystals that each will summon a Y'lnoth sorcerer, each with a unique gimmick. Each crystal broken resets the level of the blood, but killing each of the sorcerers convers its ability to the Inquisitor and dealing with more than one at a time is a recipe for disaster. Kill all four sorcerers and the Inquisitor comes down to fight you personally... while the arena is still filling up with blood and there is now no way to deplete it again. Sorun is thus left having to fight his way through a relentless Bullet Hell on a strict time limit. Oh, and poison and contagion are in play in this fight too. Worse yet, the fight was kept relatively the same in the Afterlife iteration.
• Win Back the Crowd: The original release was, to put bluntly, a diamond in the rough. Numerous glitches (especially at launch), a confusing narrative at the start that only started to make sense after flashbacking after a few deaths, the optimal earlygame route being non-intuitive, and many other disjointed game decisions lead to the whole experience getting only a mixed response. The Afterlife update though was met with significantly more acclaim even by those who had disliked the original version of the game, and numerous tweaks to the gameplay ultimately led to a much stronger and satisfying experience.