The game cops the style, flow, and mechanics of Hades, but does it with fewer resources. So if you’ve played Hades and need something to scratch that itch for a little, well, unfortunately this game had the distinct displeasure of releasing the same year as Hades 2. Whoopsie. But, if you’ve played Hades and Hades 2 to death and still need something to scratch that itch, this game might still not be it for you.
There’s a real schrodinger’s cat situation going on here, as the game needs you to have played Hades to understand what it’s aping off of, but also needs you to have not played Hades as it’s undeniably a lesser product so you may be harsher to it than it actually deserves.
Reignbreaker is a completely decent attempt at a roguelike. All of the puzzle pieces of the genre are there, and they fit together well, I think the game mostly suffers from blandness. The aesthetics carry the game more than anything, neon pink, bright yellow, deep black, and stark white paint your screen as you tear your way through the ranks of the Queen’s army. Medievalpunk is a cool and underused subgenre and I would honestly point to this game as a reference to what the canon of the subgenre may be, if we were to form a canon.
The characters are brought to life through their portraits and voicing, and the music completes the full circle of aesthetics. If I’m adding your tracks to a mood playlist or taking a quick look to see if there’s a cd or vinyl of the soundtrack, then you’ve done something right.
Also, a minor point, but I am dutybound to make it regardless. I love hunting for achievements, I have accepted that about myself, I’ve toned down on it a little, it’s no longer an obsessive compulsion but a secondary goal and enjoyment. All this to say, a dev can do two things right:
1. Make achievements fun to get, or at least maximize dopamine when getting them. (Vampire Survivors does an insanely good job at this)
2. Make them purty. I love when devs make the artwork of the achievements and/or the title fun and pleasing to look at.
This dev manages to do all of those things with their achievements. I enjoy displaying them on my profile.
Now the game begins to falter. The loop is somewhat meager. You enter the Bastion and begin your run. You must complete the requisite amount of mandatory fights before you can move to the next room. The fights will give you buffs or new methods to up your build, and you move to the next room where you do the same. After the second room, you’ll arrive at a break room where you can buy expendable buffs, heal, talk with a supportive girl, and earn yourself a new javelin if you’re quick enough. After the break room, you’ll do the route again until you hit another breakroom, and from there on, you’ll fight the boos of the run. Winning will net you a new javelin and push forward the progress you need to beat the game, which is “Complete 6 raids on the Bastion”. Winning and losing will send you back to the start, rather than having you continue forward if you win.
The rebel camp, where you spend time before you start a run, is miserable. You can:
- Pet a small version of one of the enemies, for fun, and *only* for fun as it doesn’t provide you with anything.
- You can talk with the only other character in the camp, Evangeline, who is supportive of Clef’s goal to take down the queen and that’s it really. Talking with her nets nothing other than minor flavour text.
- You can upgrade Clefanya, some upgrades are meaningful, many are not.
- You can test out the new javelins you earn on training dummies. Javelins do not have distinct looks, but they do have categories which I will get into in the combat section.
- There’s a wall with the spraypaintings of the factions that support the queen and it offers a little flavor text on them.
- You can start your next run.
The rebel camp sucks, there’s no reason to be excited to come back to it, Javelins aren’t so fun that you’re excited to come back and see what you’ve unlocked, same with upgrades. The only other character and the pet could be taken out and you wouldn’t even miss their presence because they provide so little to the ambiance of it. You can’t alter the look, bring in new NPC’s, or even change the background music. It’s nothing, I almost would’ve preferred you just give me a list of options to pick so I can choose them and start my runs immediately rather than running around a lifeless camp.
Lastly, and most importantly, combat. Combat is fine, which is not what you’re looking for in this kind of game. You want combat to be *THE* highlight! You want to feel like you’re slowly mastering it but that’s not possible here. Clef has the standard moveset. She can dash, she can melee, she can block, and she has two javelin moves, three if you get an early upgrade.
She can throw the javelin, or she can plant it down as an area of effect. Javelins have a few varieties.
When planted, a gatling javelin will fire a consistent stream of bullets for minimal damage, a shotgun javelin will do the same in close damaging bursts, a mine javelin will explode when an enemy enters the area of effect, a tornado will push them away, a railgun will drop down a barrage of rays.
When thrown, it’s the same thing, except it will be tracked on to the enemy, and the railgun will fire another shot in a different direction rather than the barrage.
The javelins will often come with bonuses, such as the javelin I abused throughout the game, which was a mine javelin that caused a secondary smaller explosion anytime anyone was hit by the first. Some javelins will heal you as enemies take damage, some will slow them down or weaken them, etc. etc.
Javelin's accrue “heat” anytime they’re used, maxing out your heat will negate the effects of the javelin and will give you some minor damage until the heat goes back down. This is mildly annoying at first and then becomes negligible as you upgrade Clef and find boons that negate it.
You will never feel like you have mastery over the javelins, you will only ever feel like you’re *exploiting* them. Your moveset is limited, enemies will punish you for taking damage, there’s really not that much space to operate in combat, so you will find a javelin that fits your playstyle, and you will try and build your character off the exploit that javelin provides as melee is next to useless.
Clef doesn’t handle too well, she's clunky, and this is the type of game that needs her to be *fluid*. Enemies though? They’re on something. The bosses in this game are tough because they’re damage sponges, but also they attack with overwhelming force. The game doesn’t market itself as a bullet hell, but bosses will resort to that style of combat often, and you don’t really have the proper toolset to embrace it. That’s the thing about this game, you’re constantly feeling like you have to “make do”, you’re never truly on top, even when you win.
Oh, the final boss. Yea man, whatever. It’s such an unenjoyable slog of a fight. She’s got an enviable amount of moves, moves that will push you to try and use all of your skills, except melee because it’s useless, she would absolutely be a proper final boss fight, except for one thing. She takes very little damage. So you’re getting battered for five to ten minutes while whittling down her health, and that's on top of already having to fight two other bosses and slog through enemy saturated rooms just to get to her. It’s just not fun.
I ended up turning on the invincibility mode in the option menu to beat her because I just wasn’t enjoying my time with the game anymore, which is often the death knell for these sorts of things. The ending, in my humble opinion, is abysmal.
This is the great thing about reviews, I was going into writing this as a 4 star positive recommendation and then as I wrote out my thoughts, I felt less and less strongly about it. Whoops.
2.5. The main character is a Muscle Mommy though, so it all balances out.
