Blightbound Review (PS4)

Devolver Digital has become the best friend of all gamers who are sick and tired of the AAA games that follow the same path and the very same ideas in the last few years. Instead of playing it safe, the indies from the portfolio of this publisher are innovative, courageous, and sometimes walk a thin line between creative and crazy. Is Blightbound another hidden gem or just a wannabe?  

If you managed to try the game during its Early Access phase you think you would have an easy answer. In reality, things are much more complicated and Blightbound is a mixed bag of assorted horrors. From the very first moments you will see how unfinished the game actually is and you cannot help but wonder if the usual quality of Devolver Digital games has been sacrificed on the altar of the release date.   

If you did not take part in the Early Access and you are just curious about the game, one if the most important things you should know about Blightbound is that it follows the original recipe of brawlers or beat’em ups, mixing in a handful of dark fantasy and a pinch of modern game mechanics like the loot or level-up systems. Focusing almost exclusively on the combat part, with three different playstyles the result is a multiplayer co-op game with potential. If you are an old school gamer, it will remind you a lot about Golden Axe.      

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But the developers of Blightbound managed to build an even darker and more desperate world, where almost all hope has been killed after a giant demon smashed the sun to pieces. When the heroes finally defeated the villain instead of peace and happiness, they released its final trick and engulfed the whole kingdom in blight. The handful of heroes that survived found shelter atop a mountain peak, from where they conduct raids in the world invaded by ferocious monsters and crazy cultists to look for other survivors.

Being a multiplayer game, it can be hard to find someone close to your level to adventure with. As a result, the developers added some bots, you can rely on if the player pool proves to be too thin. The AI is the best descriptor of the game, going from one extreme to another.

Most of the time the bots will be like a well-oiled machine, making you feel the extra cog that does not help at all. But, invariably towards the end of the level, at one crucial point or another the bots will make a mistake and leave you in deep trouble, that you can’t solve alone.

The worst part is that after the tutorial it is mandatory to finish a level with bots. When you finally pass this challenge, the training wheels come off and you can take care of your settlement, heroes and decide what missions to tackle. Although at the beginning you are bombarded with tool tips and the tutorial is annoyingly rigid, Blightbound does a poor job in explaining its advanced mechanics.

One of these obscure mechanics is the blight sickness, that is not explained at all in the game. I had to visit the forum dedicated to the game and find details in the community that does a much better job when it comes to support than the developers.

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The list of issues can go on and on. From crashes to bad design choices, very poor framerates and a balance that is all over the place, Blightbound is plagued by a lot of curses. One of the most fragrant remains the almost impossible selection of the Mage as my character due to the tip window on the screen. It was an acrobatic challenge to manage to select him and play with him. Despite disabling hints and tips, the annoying window kept appearing on the screen and the selection jumped miraculously to the Barbarian.

And even if you get past the technical difficulties and moronic design choices, the game feels blend and empty. After a few hours spent in-game and a handful of levels you start realizing different level elements and segments are repeating repeatedly. The enemies are almost the same in their visual design with very little variation.

Most of the time you will feel under geared and overpowered by your enemies, and not because they are so brilliant, but because the game design feels rigged against you. Either you get hit by a cheap shot, or there are so many things happening on the screen while it is awfully hard to keep track. With the bosses and mini bosses often, there is no safe place around to shelter from their dirty tricks.

From every aspect, the balance of the game is completely off. This can be said even about the story and the way it is presented. The developers tried to mix it in among the levels you are encouraged to revisit repeatedly. The short snippets cannot maintain your interest about the general story and the different characters’ personal arc. You will play Blightbound for the challenge and the multiplayer fun, because even the loot system is underwhelming.

Visually the game has a peculiar style with hand drawn characters, but sometimes the design crosses into kid’s doodle territory. The performance on the console is terrible, with extended periods of unexplainable framerate drops that are not justified by the number of things happening on the screen or the way the game looks. Since this is a multiplayer game, you’ll need online connection, but it is hilarious to see Blightbound refusing to start a level played only with bots due to the lack of online connection.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion