There’s nothing quite like an action rogue-lite to get the blood moving. Point and case, Hades was a masterpiece when it first hit, and it still is to this day. After playing it repeatedly, I understood the fascination with going through randomly generated worlds, building your character up, and doing your best to find the perfect combination of buffs and weaponry to make it through. It’s a simple gameplay formula that works quite well when done right. See Balatro and The Binding of Isaac for details.
Now, that intro aside, another good game has cropped up in this genre. Reignbreaker from developer Studio Fizbin brings the same simplicity that makes these types of games fun, which includes a bevy of buffs, good weapons, and fun enemies that gradually get more difficult. Is it as big as Hades? Not at all, but it is certainly just as entertaining.
Reignbreaker brings some solid story, good characters, great bosses, and motivating upgrades to keep your main character moving. What the game doesn’t bring you is a wide variety of common enemies and level design. The latter is okay and somewhat forgivable.
So, sit back, get your javelin ready with your favorite way of taking down enemies, and let’s get this rogue-lite review party started.
Story
The story begins as Clef, a former warrior of the evil Queen, who rules over the dystopian world Clef resides in, is on the hunt for revenge. Clef’s purpose is simple, take down the Queen’s army and make her way to the royal pain in hopes of taking her down. Not a bad motivator.
Reignbreaker’s narrative is as old as time, or at least as old as Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2. Clef has been all but thrown away from the Queen’s service, found out that all she did was probably bad, and is hellbent on righting her wrongs for those in need. It’s a worthy story that has been told repeatedly in movies and shows, and it works just as well for this rogue-lite.
The folks at Studio Fizbin probably looked for a great reason to get players on board with a character going in and taking out countless robots and baddies, and this story fits that bill. Hooking and engaging the player into thinking that this destructive quest is worthy of a deeper amount of attention helps to sell the gameplay easily.
When you make a good story, even if it’s a simple revenge story, then you’re immediately on the right track with a game. Stories will always separate the greats from the good. This is the case with Reignbreaker, which starts great because of the story. You will want to take on the role of Clef and make sure she gets to the Queen, even if that means dying repeatedly. Anyway, it’s a solid story and a good reason to keep playing Reignbreaker.
Gameplay
While the story is a nice layer of entertainment and most certainly a primer for the gameplay, the gameplay must compliment that story to get this entire package to work. And the gameplay does a solid job of pairing up with the narrative.
The gameplay has several elements that make it good. The first big one is how you bowl through enemies over and over again. You do this with a javelin and several other buffs to help make Clef’s offense interesting. The javelin is Clef’s main weapon that Clef has to stop, position, and unleash on enemies. The javelin is powerful, it’s adjustable with the right amount of progression and coin/keys, and it’s customizable.
The javelin customization is earned as you progress through the game. You get small add-ons that adjust how you can use the weapon. For example, you can pick up a javelin adjustment that traps enemies temporarily to the floor. Think of vines coming up and ensnaring enemies and you get the picture. You also can have a time bomb element added to the javelin, which is what you think it might be – powerful and potent. As you delve further and further into the game, you’ll find more uses for this main weapon and the game does its best to keep it interesting and engaging. Spoiler alert, it does a good job with this.
In addition to standing still and using it, you can also use it as a secondary weapon when Clef feels a bit punchy. This involves Clef jamming the javelin onto the floor and letting it fire bullets everywhere for a temporary amount of time. This allows Clef to rush and take down enemies with her melee, which is just good fun. It’s like having two weapons going off at the same time. Now, you can use this technique with the regular javelin point/shoot and then rush around and melee the hell out of everyone. The result is fast-paced, action-packed offensive gameplay that allows your brain the right amount of high-sensation value. It was a rush playing and firing off this much action at the same time. It helped me forget that the level and enemy variety were limited. And those two hiccups are noticeable.
Some limitations
When I speak of limited level and enemy variety, what I mean is that you’ll notice that they don’t change much. The levels will change on the surface with traps and where enemies land but won’t change their shape or design. This means you’ll play a session of Reignbreaker and have almost the same paths as you would from previous sessions but only see changes in floor trap placements and where enemies crop up when they are triggered. It does hinder the value of interest levels bring to the table, but you’ll be concentrating on the enemies so much that you won’t have much time to stop and grumble about it.
Now, as for enemy variety, it is less noticeable and more excusable. As you progress through the game and take down bosses, the enemies don’t change much until you hit higher levels. For example, the enemies get their first real change after the second boss in the game. That second boss, if you’re as slow as I am with these types of games, usually will be downed around the 3-hour mark of total gameplay time. Up to that point, the game offers you no confidence that it’s going to change enemies before that moment, which concerned me greatly when I was reviewing this. As soon as that second boss was taken down, the enemies changed shape, and color, and became a lot more difficult. It’s certainly a slow drip of enemies unless you’re just aces at this type of game. And maybe you will be, but I doubt that it happens much faster than my efforts. Anyway, the change does eventually happen which forgives a portion of that lack of enemy variety. Ultimately, that change should be much faster, especially after the first boss.
With all this said, the bosses do help to alleviate some of that repetition, as they are creative as hell and unique in their attacks. For example, the first boss is a round sword-swinging/launching robot that will activate your bullet-hell senses. It’s a tough first introduction to bosses but an entertaining one, nonetheless. The second boss is much different than the round spazz, as you get a weird monstrosity of a robot with a face that spits out round balls that are quick and deadly. The second boss took me about an hour to take down, which includes the time it took to replay levels to get to them. After the second boss, my big motivator, outside of the narrative, was to see what else the devs had in store with end-level baddies. I can’t remember the last time I was psyched for end-level bosses. Maybe Metal Gear 4? Probably an MGS title.
Anyway, so, how do you get through levels, and enemies, and take down baddies? Well, it starts with collecting coins/keys and crystals, acquiring/buying buffs, and making the right choice of combination with said buffs and javelin upgrades. It’s certainly an experiment of mix/match and seeing how everything ends up during battle. As simple as that last sentence sounded, it’s the big reason why you’ll be motivated to constantly repeat the game in hopes of doing better. It kept my head in the game the entire time.
Now, acquiring the buffs and such requires the collection of coins/keys and crystals. They can be found in various places on a level. The former can be found in chests lying around the sides of each level. They will be randomly placed with every restart and are easily acquired through a series of well-placed punches to said chests. You can acquire further coins/keys by unlocking pieces of each level, which are divided into locked sections. After you complete an unlock, the level will eject coins/keys in a certain part of the sector. The end-level ejections will also offer temporary buffs for the player, which can help with speed, power, healing, and other odds and ends. The buffs are interesting, and they’re well designed, as they just offer enough of a decision to make the game a bit more engaging.
The crystals can be obtained from statues around levels (and other places). The purple crystals allow players to purchase an upgrade in Clef’s skills tree, which includes speed, power, and the usual good stuff that keeps progression in the game interesting. These two monetary solutions to build up Clef and get her through levels will keep you hooked and motivated to keep improving. Outside of buffs, your level and weapon upgrades are maintained throughout the game until you start a new one. All this effort won’t seem to be for not, which means it is very invaluable to collect these items constantly. Again, it’s a great motivator to keep playing repeatedly, even after dying 20+ times. It also helps to tame the frustration of the game, as it can be a wee bit unfair at times, as you can see gradual progression with Clef, even in the face of failure.
Overall, the gameplay for Reignbreaker is quite good, if not great. While it does have some hindrance with level and common enemy variety, it does so well in regard to keeping the player motivated through buffs, upgrades, and gradual success. It’s well-balanced in the places it needs to be.
On that note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Reignbreaker from developer Studio Fizbin and publisher Thunderful Publishing is a solid rogue-lite experience that brings a good story, wonderful gameplay progression, and motivating rewards to the table. While it stumbles with common enemy and level design, it has far more positives than negatives with what it delivers in its gameplay.
