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[i]Barbearian[/i] is an indie hack-n-slash that's fast-paced and pretty to look at. The game features large-scale battles with plenty of enemies and so you will have to get used to pressing the same button repeatedly. The primary form of combat is using your melee weapon (the axe) against the hordes of enemies. There is a boss at the end of every section that's much more difficult, due to sheer number of enemies that spawn during the boss fights.
The game looks pretty polished and the gameplay is pretty fun. I would say that the game is more suitable for shorter gaming sessions instead of longer. Fortunately when you head into a quest, you will be faced with a few short-ish levels and they do not take too long. The levels do get longer later on with more and tougher enemies. The battles get repetitive after spending an hour or two, as the primary form of combat is just that melee axe slash and as far as I can tell, there's no way to upgrade that attack or alter it in any way. The game does have a few other features that alter the gameplay, but it's kind of disappointing when the melee game in a hack-n-slash has just this one dimension.
Aside from the regular attack, you have the dash attack, which sees the MC rampaging through the enemy army bashing away everything in his path. This is pretty cool but the cooldown is a bit too long. I found myself not using this attack very often just because I was saving it to essentially get myself out of a crowded situation instead of as a secondary attack. I had to conserve it for an escape a lot of times instead of being able to use it because there's hardly any other way to move fast or out of a crowd easily.
Then there's the ranged weapons, and so far I have unlocked a few of them. I do not know exactly how many there are, but they will spawn once you buy them from the shop that sells them. They have limited ammo and act differently. This does change up your gameplay strategy a bit, because they will give you an additional form of attack. You can only hold one gun at a time, but usually I find that I am out of ammo before I come across the next one. I wish there would be pick-ups that alter the primary attack also, like the variations in ranged weapons.
You will find various entrapped people within a fluid-filled tank that once you destroy it, you will gain those people as followers/minions. They can be upgraded to archers or knights they will follow you around everywhere. There is no way to adjust formations or target their attacks, they just go after the first enemy in sight and they have no good defensive AI. On top of low health overall, they will die, a lot. Fortunately you can collect energy to revive your followers, but every press of the button revives one follower, and it seems to be rather random in order. If you are planning to use this mechanic, be prepared to mash your revive button continually, as long as you have collected the energy to do so.
The game also features some random ephemeral buffs that include speed-up, damage-up, or to give you an orbiter that does massive damage. These are pretty cool but overall do not change the gameplay all that much. At the end of the day, I find myself trusting my axe and its simplest form of attack, while trying my best to move out of the way of powerful enemy attacks on repeat. And this is why I find that it's better to play in shorter sessions instead of longer.
The large scale battles lead to some cool things that happen, specifically, whenever an enemy dies, there's a chance that it will drop a piece of food, which serves as the currency in this game. With the large number of enemies, you get attacking combos that just build up and up at times, and when that combo counter goes over 500, massive pieces of food stuffs just fall out of the sky for you to collect. It was probably the most amusing thing to see this for the first time, and I found myself enticed by it every time after. I just had to go pick up the big pieces of food.
While this game may be difficult for some people at the base difficulty setting, there is accessbility to adjust the game speed from 70% to 130%, you can also turn the damage taken all of the way down to 10% if you want to practically brush up enemy attacks like nothing, and you can also adjust the amount of food drops by enemies. If you feel the default settings are too easy, you can make it more difficult as well.
[h1]Controls[/h1]
I know you can play with the keyboard, but I would heavily recommend a controller.
[h1]Graphics[/h1]
Hand-drawn graphics that is very colorful. I found that the game ran smoothly despite at times having what appears to be the whole screen filled with enemies all coming after you.
[h1]Music & Sounds[/h1]
Music is pretty good, very up-tempo and helps with the rhythm of the fast-paced game. The sound effects are reasonable.
[h1]Pricing[/h1]
At $11.99 US, this game has a pretty good price. I know I have only played a couple of hours so far, but I can tell that there's much of the game I haven't seen yet. I would say that it's worth the asking price.
[h1]What I Like[/h1]
+It's fun trampling through massive armies of enemies.
+The appearance of the game is very polished.
+There is no issues with frame drops even when a ton of enemies on screen and a lot of simultaneous activity.
+The amusing large pieces of food dropping from the sky once your combo reaches over 500.
+The ranged weapons are all rather unique.
+Unique boss fights. (Though I cannot seem to repeat the fight once I am through.)
[h1]Areas to Improve[/h1]
-The melee attack could use a bit of variation, upgrade options, etc. This is what you do for 90% of the game and it's absolutely one dimensional.
-Better AI for the followers/minions would be welcome, especially since how little health they have.
-When I am reviving minions, I usually want to revive as many as I can, I would appreciate a toggle to revive everyone that I can instead of pressing that button so many times. Just allow me to use all of the energy and revive that number every time I press the button.
-Dying and reviving requires you to interact with the NPC by slashing him a few times before the button appears. This just wastes time.
[h1]Gameplay Video[/h1]
This is me playing the game for the first time, no commentary:
https://youtu.be/P73hgHPqr9M
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
[i]Barbearian[/i] is fun. It's good for people looking for a casual experience or a difficult one, given the accessibility options. The primary melee attack could use an overhaul and some upgrade options, and that's my major complaint with the game. Aside from that, it's a fun experience as long as you keep the game sessions relatively short. The massive battles and the colorful and hand-drawn artwork are really appealing to me.
Score: 7.5/10
[quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]
