Beast Breaker

The core concept of this game is immediately interesting and fun to play with. It's great on that merit alone. The devs could have just put this out there as a cute casual game where you pinball-fight your way through these different monsters, and called it a day. Instead, they added an absurd number of weapon combos, item options, strategy choices, and underneath it all, a story absolutely bursting with heart and character. I loved this game and it needs people to see it and play it.

The game has a lot of heart, and the base gameplay is a good and engaging. It's a brick breaker where you take time, think things through, and then hope for the best. The characters are pretty loveable, and the plot is ok. Each weapon feels different, and affects gameplay in unique ways. It's a relatively unique game, and worth playing, though maybe not to the finish. The game definitely suffered from lack of resources though, and a few poor decisions that led to some grind. Itemization starts good, but gets grindy. When you kill beasts, you get essence, and you use that to build or upgrade weapons or weapon components. However, you don't know what weapon you'll get. That's fine for the complete weapon, but by the time you're unlocking single components there's a massive sheet full of material needs, and you can't even tell which of the powers you've already unlocked that you're going to get. Spending more materials for no power boost and a bit of customizeability that frequently turns into something you don't want to use kinda sucks. It's like you get a power downgrade mid game. Then they build in grinding. You have to grind fame to unlock the next level, which is just killing beasts. You have to explore for various world items, but you can lose the stage if you don't find the item and fight the beast. There are lots of fairly predictable sidequests, which are mostly the same as the base game. This could still be enjoyable if there were more beasts. And the lack of variety is the biggest problem (other than the last boss which is three levels you have to start all the way over if you lose). Grind is fun when the gameplay is fun, but you're fighting harder and harder beasts with weapons that are mostly are mostly sidegrades, and there are only six or so beasts. There's the starter beast, a boar, a cat, a shark, and maybe two or three more. You'll fight the same fight over, and over and over again. I liked the fights, but it desperately needed double or triple the number of beasts. I'm not upset I played it, and I picked it up after the demo (which does not share save files with the game) because the base gameplay is good, but I'm annoyed it lasted so long and the boss was so frustrating. So this is a thumbs up with reservations.

Amazing work. I wish the studio was still around to rebalance it. The gameplay is an absolute blast. This is the most fast paced, action packed fun I've ever had in a turn based game. Top notch game design. They offer you dozens and dozens of different builds, all of which have pros and cons. And they offer you increased customizability as the game goes on, which is a brilliant choice, and makes grinding an effort in tailoring instead of power creep. However, about a quarter of the way into the game, the difficulty really starts ramping up, and instead of feeling like a cool challenge, the ramp is so steep that it flat-out disqualifies the majority of builds, no matter how clever or well played. Most weapons and strategies simply *cannot* do enough damage per turn to be viable by the mid-game, and by the final boss (which I did reach), there's literally 2 viable builds remaining. Now, those two builds are hella fun and feel very clever and powerful... but I would love an "easy mode" in this game where you can simply turn down the health of enemy vital cores by, like, 50%. Sadly, the studio that made this went under a while ago, despite its recent release date, so I'm not expecting any updates on that front.

This game is like the result of a fusion between Monster Hunter, Peggle, and an idea for a Cartoon Network series all in one game. It is definitely a concept that makes it so unique, and that same distinction is what gives this game its beauty—that, and the care its former and, unfortunately, now-defunct studio put into it. Originally released for the Switch and the Epic Games Store in 2021, this game tells us the small (literally) story of Skipper, a little mouse who must face different beasts that are four times his size, in order to free villages from the clutches of these very creatures. Along our way, we will encounter different companions who will be of great help, contributing their qualities, characteristics, and specialties in battle. At the same time, they bring with them their own narrative and personal stories, which makes every interaction—whether with Skipper or another companion—unique and personal. The attention to detail in every piece of dialogue makes me believe the developers loved working on this small but beautiful game! Not only that, but the gameplay is its strongest aspect; the key here is that with every bounce, we will deal damage. We must launch Skipper in a certain direction or at a specific angle; depending on how effective the launch is, we will deal damage to the beast with every bounce he makes. But that depends on the weapon, since here we have 5 different types of weapons to use, each one working better against a specific type of beast. That is without mentioning that we can upgrade, customize, and equip different weapons and armor that we can have forged or improved. Also, before even facing the beast, we can gather resources on a sort of mini-map to be prepared for the attack; this brings with it unique items and unique beasts for each biome. This, believe me, gives the game enormous variety, and since it grants the freedom to play using your own logic, it gains even more points for versatility! What also stands out is its music, composed mainly by composer Big Giant Circles, alias Jimmy Hinson, who might sound familiar to you thanks to the fact that he composed the OST for COD Black Ops 7 and II. The composer's experience is what allowed the music throughout the game to sound so good, making the experience more pleasant. Curiously, even though the game might not be as well-known as other indies, this game—and above all, its studio, the former employees of Vodeo Games—made history in the video game industry after becoming the first North American studio to form a union, supporting the enormous cause of prioritizing workers' rights over massive productions. Despite this achievement, the studio would later vanish due to the low budget they had to develop video games... But even so, if you end up buying this game, you would be supporting the devs who originally worked on it; you get simple, yet entertaining gameplay, there is a ton of lore to go through, and the soundtrack adapts perfectly to the moment! This game is the definition of a hidden gem, and if you have come across this game, it is because you really appreciate indies that propose new things, like this one. And if you have the opportunity to buy it and play it, do it—it will be worth your time!

Clever, cute, and addictive.

An under-appreciated gem! Do you like Peggle, pinball, and a bit of strategy? This is an absolutely charming game that's extremely easy to control and play but conceals a lot of depth and fun to actually master. Bounce around, bonk monsters, and experiment with different equipment for wildly different strategies. Stellar character designs (including [spoiler]a cockatiel!![/spoiler]) and writing only make it better and do a lot to build the world without feeling heavy-handed. My only real complaint is that I wish the game had some more helpful information during the beast tracking sequences to help me understand what tools I should be building and that I could swap my loadout before the fight. Just learning about the creature doesn't tell me exactly what the right tool for the job is, and going into a battle with the wrong tools can make fights feel protracted when I wish I had a chance to go back and just re-adjust. Especially rough when I just have the _wrong_ weapon for the particular beast! I played this on Switch and have far more hours there than on Steam. So nice to finally have it here too and replay it.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING about this game is absolutely FANTASTIC. The story, the characters, the enemy design, the combat, the music, the replayability, EVERYTHING about Beast Breakers was fantastic in my 21-hour playthrough. And I haven't even 100%ed it! I wish I had bought this full price, because DAMN this game was beyond fantastic. Kudos to everyone on the dev team for the wonderful experience!

When I got this game, I bought it because I thought some of the character portraits are cute. My initial impressions were pretty harsh- I don't like pinball games, I find them too simple while also too chaotic. I found the in-battle aesthetic a bit gaudy, I did not expect to find such a vast array of characters and every single one of them to be so endearing. For the gameplay to have such creative variety around its core system of "bouncing around." For the story to gouge into my heart and leave me emotional and pensive for hours on end. And yet, here I am. This is a game that defies expectations. I'm left baffled, wondering "How is this game so good??" and yet, here it is, a beautiful, heartfelt game.

I bought this game when it first came out on Epic, beat it, loved it. Bought it again here because it's worth it. The art, writing and music are all excellent, and the gameplay is utterly unique. There's no other game like it and I'm enjoying it just as much the second time around. Highly recommended!