Deathbound

the game looks cool plays great but there is 2 things that break it for me -no mouse in menu -save points are garbage and there are not enough save points so when you die at a boss fight it puts you way back and to get essence back you have to kill all enemies again to get back to the location where you died in boss area

Clunky combat. Enemies' animations are a bit hard to read. Game crashes sometimes. Annoying missables. Story and characters are fine, but some parts dragged on for too long - can't skip those. Some sections are quite short, so playtime is filled by stretching out the map and increasing the number of groups of enemies. The game has some interesting premises with the character-switching mechanic (and some maps have good souls-like design), but poorly telegraphed enemies make the core combat quite unrewarding. This, together with many other inconveniences, made playing the game really annoying at times, which dampened overall experience.

The conclusion was somewhat ambiguous, and the combat system lacked depth

Die Grundlagen sind durchaus interessant, man merkt aber das die Entwickler kein Geld hatten um ihre Vision adäquat umzusetzen. Das beginnt bei den Charaktermodeln die wirklich gar keine Mimik haben und zieht sich leider bis zum Bossrecyling hin. Die Morphmechanik, bei der man durch den Charakterwechsel den Hauptschaden verursacht, ist aber definitiv etwas neues. Ich habe das Spiel in den 11 Stunden durchgespielt, es ist also eher eine kurze Soulserfahrung und auch nicht sonderlich schwer wenn man die Mechaniken erst einmal verstanden hat. Aktuell kann ich es leider nicht empfehlen, würde den Entwicklern aber das Potenzial einräumen, über die Zeit ein wirklich gutes und frisches Soulslike auf die Beine zu stellen.

Dica para futuros projetos : Não comece o seu jogo com uma fase no esgoto, é sem graça, sem conteudo, esconde todo o universo que você criou do player e nós so temos 2h pra decidir se gostamos do produto. Fora isso eu pedi reembolso pois descobri que o jogo não terá um arsenal de armas e eu gosto de variar de armas, armaduras pra não deixar tudo repetido. E é isso, o jogo não é ruim, só não foi feito pra mim mesmo.

O jogo estava sensacional até a metade em diante, gameplay com varias novidades e ideias que nunca tinha visto ou pensado sobre, criatividade lá em cima, gameplay fluida e as várias essências pra escolher e montar o grupo até mesmo trazendo as sinergias e combos, fora as movimentações dos golpes, o capoeirista e a lanceira top de linha. agora entra o problema, já me acostumei com boss e inimigos repetidos e até mesmo a reciclagem deles, 0 novidades apesar de ter se repetido meio demais, o fato do jogo te forçar a acompanhar a história também achei bem estranha, senti que de cinematics e de flashbacks das essências eu passei mais tempo neles do que jogando em si, e para um fator souls like onde você acompanha a história pelos itens e não com tanto conteudo forçado na tela é minimamente esquisito. a história é bem criativa e bem feita mas pelo tanto que tava sendo exposto eu comecei a ignorar e tentar só jogar (nem sempre dava pra pular inclusive) os parrys só funcionar em tamanho humano e os inimigos mais complicados e boss nunca são de tamanho humano também é meio paia, e agora PRINCIPALMNETE O QUE MAIS ME ESTRESSOU, toda a fase do eitharos, tentaram meter uma perseguição de RE do nêmesis, mas esqueceram que é outro tipo de jogo, como que se adiciona uma perseguição de um inimigo imortal num souls like? e numa fase cheia de inimigos? diversas vezes no meio da perseguição eu entrava em salas bem fechadas, cheia de inimigos só pra pegar um item chave e voltar tudo, cara... completamente sem sentido, e o próprio eitharos não faz sentido nenhum também ele basicamente jogou todos os inimigos que já enfrentou até agora de uma vez, em 3 waves basicamente, i na quarta, nem pra você enfrentar só ele depois de todo o sufoco, o kr tem uma vida bem elevada, relâmpagos que ficam por todo o cenário (bem pequeno invlusive e ainda com um buraco que você é facilmente empurrado para ali) caindo na tua cabeça (e não atinge os inimigos), enquanto revive mais inimigos e tem uma vida bem alta... bizarro o que fizeram nessa fase...

*This review was machine translated from Korean to English. Deathbound Great Idea. Shame They Turned It into a Game. 🔄 Pyrite: Fool's Gold The only good thing about this game is the Essence-swapping system. Your roster consists of ranged, hybrid, and melee classes, Each Essence brings a distinct weapon, damage, and synergy, making it fun to experiment with party compositions. A well-timed swap mid-attack cancels the recovery animation, triggering a transition into an automatic strike. Because characters have separate health bars, individual Essences feel too weak alone compared to typical Soulslike heroes, forcing you to rely on Morphstrikes. Beyond utility, the slow-mo during the swap looks sleek. Swapping between Essences is intuitive and responsive. Each character maps to a direction on the D-pad, requiring no complex inputs. It is baffling how this mechanic feels crisp and responsive while the rest of the controls are a dumpster fire. However, even this single advantage isn't without its caveats. Combined with other half-baked mechanics, it undermines the system's brilliance. Because you manage separate health bars, each character's base performance feels stripped down. This collides with atrocious level design, making characters feel fragile. While developers intended to force frequent swapping, players must survive the encounter first to switch. One more flaw: the game lacks a proper healing item. There is no standard "Estus Flask" equivalent here. Instead, a bizarre mechanic fills that slot. This "healing potion" siphons HP from benched Essences into the active character. If your immediate reaction to this is, "How the hell is that a heal?", congratulations—you are a gamer with basic common sense. While attacking grants lifesteal to standby Essences, but the amount is tiny. When you actually need to use a healing item, it’s because you are on the verge of death and desperately need immediate combat sustain. What is the point of cannibalizing your own party's health in a pinch? Despite this massive disconnect between the mechanics and the actual reality of combat, the developers stubbornly refused to implement a proper healing option. It’s a blatant disregard for the player’s actual experience. And here is the kicker: if a single character dies, it is a Game Over—even if others have full health. I have no idea what the developers were thinking. What kind of "party system" is this? There is no "normal" gaming experience where the surviving members carry the torch and limp to the next checkpoint. One casualty, and your entire run is dead. It's just artificial difficulty at its finest. Remember, one individual Essence in this game doesn't even come close to a standard Soulslike protagonist. 🏹 Too Many Projectiles, Too Few Dev Brain Cells The trailers are deception. They shamelessly showed clips of player pulling off cinematic morphstrikes left and right. But in reality, you don't have time for that. You either spam dodge to survive ranged spam, or cheese enemies from a distance with your own ranged build. Enemy variety is abysmal; you constantly fight recycled assets. Yet, somehow, the developers managed to cram in four distinct types of ranged garbage: standard javelin throwers, crossbowmen, grenadiers, and monster variants. Oh, just in case anyone forgot—this is supposed to be a Soulslike. The melee enemies, which should provide the satisfying hand-to-hand combat players actually want, all feel identical. Meanwhile, the ranged enemies get all the variety and are shamelessly spammed throughout the maps. Basic javelin and crossbow snipers hit like a truck, but grenadiers and monsters make the game a farce. Grenadiers toss elemental flasks; a split-second exposure triggers a status effect that dissolves your HP. The punchline is the frost grenade: if a pixel touches you, you are freeze-locked for 10 seconds. In a Soulslike, that means death—you can just let go of the controller. Monsters shoot spikes on a long cooldown, blasting you backward into a hard knockdown if they clip you. With two monsters guarding a lane, forget about moving forward. And obviously, the genius devs put them in pairs, backed up by melee bodyguards. Because of course they did. Figures. 🤪 A Level Beyond Nonsense. Pure Insanity. I usually review games right after the credits roll, striving for a balanced perspective focused heavily on combat. But this specific map is so mind-numbingly bad that I physically cannot let it slide without dedicating a whole section. Feel free to skip ahead. It is a hospital-themed map. Brace for impact: in this level, an unkillable, elite-tier monster stalks you from one checkpoint to the next. Think of a pursuit sequence from a survival horror game—that's exactly what it is. The problem? This is a Soulslike, period. Remember the ranged spam and the atrocious controls I mentioned earlier, and keep in mind that each Essence is underpowered on its own. Now, picture an elite monster relentlessly chasing you from behind in that exact scenario. Honestly, it renders this level completely unplayable. If you stop to clear out the regular mobs, the unkillable elite blindsides you and sends you straight back to the checkpoint. What if you try to neutralize the elite first? It’s incredibly difficult to take down, inevitably draining your Essences' precious HP, and even if you manage to stagger it, it’s only temporary. It gets right back up and resumes the hunt instantly. Remember, this game lacks proper healing. It is truly astonishing. How did the developers manage to make every single flaw join forces so perfectly to create such a toxic synergy? Oh, but the nightmare isn't over. We need to talk about the boss of this godforsaken level. The peak of any Soulslike is a pure 1v1 duel where victory comes from skill and progression. This is why I despise boss summons gank squads or 1 vs 2 fights. This boss throws six waves of enemies, four mobs per wave. That's 24 extra enemies you have to clean up. And while you're trying to clear this garbage, the boss is just chillin' in the background, spamming map-wide AOE lightning attacks over the whole arena. You can't even touch the boss because the terrain cuts you off until you kill every single add. I seriously want to know what the devs were smoking when they designed this. Did they start making a horde shooter and pivot to a Soulslike? But wait, here's the real horror story. I only say six waves because I cleared the sixth and burst the boss down. What if you are underleveled because you ran past that garbage level? Is six truly the end? ⚖️ The Verdict Many reviews criticize the game by claiming it had "great ideas but terrible execution." To some extent, I will concede that the core concept had merit. In fact, my proposal is simple: let’s just pretend this game doesn't exist. The core idea is brilliant, but everything else around it is an absolute trainwreck. We should strike this title from memory and hope a more competent developer takes the concept of a real-time hero-swapping Soulslike and actually does it justice—the mechanic is far too good to go to waste. It wouldn't even take a miracle to make it decent; just playable level design, functioning controls, cutting the ranged mobs by half, and a healing potion that actually restores health. At this point, one must wonder why it even bears the "Soulslike" tag and advertises itself as such. I am not making this up. Look at the Steam store page; the very first sentence reads, "Deathbound is a unique Soulslike." But one thing is absolutely certain: the developers have no fundamental understanding of what actually constitutes a Soulslike. So, as players, there is no reason for us to waste our money on a product like this. How simple is that. "FromSoftware: Doesn't even use the term 'Soulslike'. Creates genre-defining masterpieces" "Deathbound: Screams that it is a 'Soulslike'. Ends up being the least Soulslike game imaginable."

Deathbound é um soulslike Brasileiro com mecânicas próprias, onde você controla até 4 personagens em um só, alternando entre eles durante o combate. A história não é o ponto forte, ficando ali por volta de um 6/10, mas a gameplay compensa: o sistema de combate baseado em sinergia entre personagens é bem criativo e traz uma dinâmica diferente do padrão do gênero. No geral, é um jogo que brilha mais pela jogabilidade e pela proposta única do que pela narrativa recomendo que joguem.

烂，就是为了折磨人而设计，不喜欢，通关，应该不会再重玩

Points positifs : ✅ Univers atypique science / foi, rare dans le genre ✅ Lore intéressant basé sur les péchés, la culpabilité et l’immortalité ✅ Système de combat novateur avec le switch entre plusieurs personnages durant les fights Points négatifs : ❌ Beaucoup de bugs (caméra, IA, collisions, ennemis WTF) ❌ Pas d'émotion dans chez les personnages ce qui crée des scènes un peu drôle =') ❌ Traduction parfois maladroite ❌ Décors corrects mais peu variés ❌ Peu de difficulté une fois le système maîtrisé ❌ Quelques ralentissement lors des sauvegardes automatiques Autre : ➡️ Gameplay accessible, peu punitif pour un soulslike ➡️ Prix un peu élevé pour la durée de vie du jeu (10h environ pour le finir la première fois) mais le jeu souvent en promo à 12-15€ donc correct à ce tarif. Ma review sur le jeu <3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIX_AyGOiWo