Deathbound is the new and ambitious single-player party-based Souls-like from Trialforce Studios and Tate Multimedia. They were kind enough to send me a review copy to check out, and there is quite a bit to discuss so let’s get to it.
Deathbound starts off with you controlling just one character a sort of Paladin that worships the god of Death. He is your typical sword and board fighting style. You quickly learn the basics of combat from guarding and parrying to standard normal and power attacks. If you have okayed any Souls game in the past this will simply be a quick refresher.
You will quickly pick up your second character, a stealthy woman who can use a crossbow and eventually poison enemies. The game does a good job of introducing characters and how they work. Each essence feels like a completely new character and you can either use the Dpad to swap to a character you want or just tap the triangle button to pop over to the one with the highest stamina. This is great for combos, for example rushing in with for a couple quick strikes to poison someone then quickly swap to our swordsman for defense and stronger attacks.
The characters also don’t necessarily get along. Or death worshipper is hunting essencemencers and your third character is of course an essencemencer. This introduces you to the fact that your characters can get buffed by other characters they either like or dislike which is shown by a blue or red line connecting them.
While these are all great in concept, the practical aspect is a mixed bag of results. The combat sometimes feels clunky, mostly when trying to swap characters for combos. And the decision for characters’ max stamina to be connected to their current health was also odd to me. While each character in your party gets its own health and stamina someone taking a couple hits quickly makes that person pretty much useless since attempting to strike the enemy leaves them unable to do much of anything. Since swapping has some lag to it occasionally, resulting in a few deaths.
The news isn’t all bad, for example, the character designs are nice, and the first boss you run into is well done as a fight and also looks great, with each stage showing off how visually appealing the game can be.
The game has its issues, and there are better options out there. However you you need something to play because you played all the Dark Souls series games this will help you scratch that itch. The game is nice 7 out of 10. Outside of a few minor complaints and the characters being somewhat one-dimensional the game is still fun to sink your teeth into. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
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