Hellboy: Web of Wyrd

Missed opportunity haunts every inch of Hellboy: Web of Wyrd. It's simple to dive into and play but all too soon you reach the bottom of its shallow gameplay. Its roguelike runs are short and sweet, but its enemies aren't a challenge worthy of Hellboy.

Hellboy's Right Hand of Doom is the star of Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, but this melee-focused roguelite lacks substance outside of pummeling mythical creatures to dust.

"Web of Wyrd is a compelling concept in need of further iteration and continuing evolution"

Web of Wyrd is clearly created by people with a reverence for Mignola's work and impresses as an adaptation. However, as a roguelike and a brawler, it underwhelms.

When it comes to adaptations, Hellboy hasn't had a ton of luck lately. Hellboy Web of Wyrd certainly isn't on the same disastrous level, but it's underwhelming in its own respects. Hellboy and his world is a potential gold mine of fantastic adaptive potential, as Guillermo del Toro proved with his pair of films in the early 2000s. The character offers so much more, and though Web of Wyrd has some bright spots, it ultimately fails to realize the potential of its source material.

It’s a dull, plodding slog that does a grave disservice to its source material, and you’d be wise to search out that source material instead of wasting a dollar or a moment on this game.

Hellboy's game is being slapped around by mainstream comics games as badly as Hellboy slapping mainstream comics.

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is like when a dog and a cat tried to bake a cake. First, they start making the cake batter, into which they want to add flour, milk, an egg, and sugar, but then they decide to salt it and fry it in lard. In other words, they offer an original story and easy controls, but in the end, they decide it would be too good to be true, so they only do it halfway. It’s the same with the rest of the cake. They want to give you fresh fruit in the form of luxurious graphics that look like they came from Mignola’s pen, but in the end, they decide it’s better to give you four-year-old canned fruit in the form of the most boring battles you can imagine. So far, it’s the best Hellboy game, but being the best of the worst still isn’t worth mentioning.

Web of Wyrd is a fair roguelite that pampers Hellboy fans

In this case, playing Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is a sacrifice for the story, and a sacrifice so great that you wonder if it was worth it. It wasn't. The story is good, but even that only adds to the aftertaste of a game that seems to have everything but the pleasure of playing itself.