Deathspank is largely an excuse to explore this Beautifully Painted World. Oh, and sometimes it's funny.
After a long hankering to play Deathspank, I recently got my chance when it was half-off recently, and so took the dive. I knew it was supposed to be a humorous RPG parody, and given the generally strong reviews, had decent expectations for the gameplay.
It turns out that after all is said and done, Deathspank is mostly just a great excuse to explore the beautifully painted world and the myriad landscapes therein, and the rest was just filler. And there's quite a bit of filler here. Almost every quest was a simple fetch quest, fighting amounted to simple button mashing, and the humor wasn't half as funny as Breath of Death VII or Cthulhu Saves the World (both XBL Indie Games and RPG parodies). Sure, Deathspank was occasionally funny, but that wasn't enough to push me through.
What was enough turned out to be the wonderfully crafted world. I've rarely seen a game carried so heavily by the visual aesthetic. The world is, quite frankly, gorgeous. Each area is unique, colorful with lots of personality, and populated with humorous creatures. And it's the visual stimuli that really make Deathspank a game worth playing.
The rolling background, painted landscapes, all of it is a great visual feast. Without all of it, Deathspank wouldn't be worth much more than a dollar. The combat is repetitive (though well-scaled) and the missions get tired quickly, largely because they send you back to the same locations again and again, almost as if Deathspank were meant to be played in a world twice as large as the one here. All in all, though, if you don't mind a slog and enjoy well-crafted visuals, Deathspank's worth playing, especially if you find it half-off.