DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue

I'm not sure if it's a corrupted save or a glitch in the game itself but after 6 hours of the game working just fine it will crash after trying to load my save. Many many other people have noted this in the forums and still they continue to sell this game that is buggy as all hell. Apparently there are possible solutions, but the moment I have to waste my time spending an hour trying to mod your glitchy game to be playable you already got a negative review from me, should have included any necessary patches in the download before putting it up on the store. Now I need to hunt down links on sketchy 3rd party sites and hope they have a patch that works just to finish my game. The game itself feels unoriginal and more like a mishmash of mixed quality DLC packs shoved into a blender and the map flow is just terrible and confusing. I'd recommend skipping this one especially because of the chance of a glitch happening outside of the refund window like me.

7.5/10 [h3] “Goodbye, DeathSpank.” [/h3] Let’s get straight to it: this isn’t a bad game. Back in its day, it even felt pretty distinctive. But as a sequel to [i] DeathSpank [/i], it falls short. My “Not Recommended” isn’t coming from spite—it’s coming from a very real sense of regret. [i] This could have been so much better [/i]. I genuinely liked the original [i] DeathSpank [/i]. It was a remarkably [i] pure [/i] experience: low-budget ARPG mechanics paired with dense, deconstructive humor. It didn’t try to tell some grand story or build an elaborate world. Instead, it leaned into a straight-faced knightly tone while constantly delivering mundane nonsense and absurd logic, creating a sharp and deliberate contrast. The humor wasn’t forced—it grew organically from the structure itself, even carrying a faint touch of gentle existentialism. And importantly, it knew when to stop. At around 10 hours, it wrapped up [i] right before [/i] the gameplay wore thin—which made all the difference. With [i] Thongs of Virtue [/i], that balance starts to unravel. The most obvious issue is a mismatch between [b] scope, gameplay, and content [/b]. The mechanics barely evolve—it’s still a very shallow ARPG system—but the game’s length is artificially stretched, padded with a large number of repetitive side quests. Fetch quests, grinding, backtracking—you name it. These make up a huge portion of the experience, and they lack both variety and thoughtful design. The result? You’re forced to spend far too long in a system that was only ever suited for short bursts. The first game ended [i] before [/i] it got boring. This one keeps going [i] long after [/i] it already has. The mid-to-late game experience can be summed up in one word: a slog. Worse still is the shift in narrative direction. The original was light on story, prioritizing deconstruction—often, things were funnier [i] because [/i] they weren’t explained. The sequel, however, suddenly pushes a heavier focus on plot, worldbuilding, and lore (the whole “Thongs” concept, for instance). That’s not inherently a bad move—but the game simply doesn’t have the narrative chops to support it. There’s more information, but not more clarity. Instead, it feels like you’re being dragged along: the story speeds up, while your understanding lags behind. This kind of [b] overloaded density [/b] actively undermines the breezy, freeform feel that made the original work. The humor also takes a noticeable hit. In the first game, the jokes came from contextual dissonance—they felt natural. Here, it often feels like the game is [i] trying [/i] to be funny. There’s more randomness, but worse timing. Many jokes don’t land as clever—they come off as forced, or just plain confusing. It shifts from “I can’t believe I’m laughing at this” to “Are you trying to make me laugh right now?” Side quests are another major weak point. Most of them lack any standalone narrative value, mechanical variation, or emotional payoff. They feel blatantly [b] canned [/b]—content not designed to enrich the experience, but simply to pad out playtime. And once you realize that, the game’s entire sense of momentum collapses. What’s left is just the urge to [i] finish it and uninstall [/i]. To sum it up: the problem with [i] Thongs of Virtue [/i] isn’t that it got worse—it’s that it got [b] heavier without getting stronger [/b]. It tries to expand a light, sharp deconstructive comedy into a longer, more complex RPG, but its gameplay depth, narrative ability, and content design simply aren’t equipped to support that ambition. As a result, flaws that were once easy to overlook become impossible to ignore over the extended runtime. So, would I recommend it? I’d recommend playing the original [i] DeathSpank [/i]—it’s tight, stylish, and knows exactly what it is. But [i] Thongs of Virtue [/i]? [i] Unfortunately, I can’t recommend it [/i]. Sometimes, stopping at “just right” is a kind of discipline that’s far rarer than it should be.