Bleak Sword DX is a hack and slack style roguelike, by developer more8bit and publisher Devolver Digital, that challenges you to fight through waves of increasingly horrifying enemies. You play as a young warrior tasked with breaking the curse of the Bleak Sword, a curse that has been plaguing the lands with terrifying monsters and magic. Across twelve intense chapters you must strike down all manner of monsters using both fierce weaponry and powerful magic. Will you be able to overcome your foes or will you simply be overpowered and perish along with the rest of the world?
When you start off the game you get a brief tutorial on how the combat works, pressing X does a basic attack and holding X does a charged attack. Pressing Z blocks an incoming attack for a short time, and doing an attack after successfully blocking an enemy attack will do more damage. You use C to dodge by rolling away and the arrow keys are used for movement. After that tutorial you are given a cutscene explaining the curse of the Bleak Sword and how it has plunged the world into The Red Age, an age of dark magic, dreadful abominations, and suffering. Over the years however veiled rumors have spread about three magic stones that hold the power to destroy the Bleak Sword and end the curse. A young warrior was given a prophecy in a dream revealing the locations of the stones, now you must find them and end the curse once and for all. The game itself is a hack and slash style and is mostly centered around its combat. When you die in a level you lose your experience and items, and the only way you can retrieve them is by immediately beating the level where you were killed. If you fail to complete the level immediately after dying you will lose your items permanently, so you have to be very careful during combat. The style and aesthetic of the game is like a lofi pocket-sized world, with the amazing soundtrack and the small zoomed out platform you play on. Overall the combat and style of the game is simplistic but masterfully executed for a great action adventure experience.
The game is very well designed but there are a few issues I have with it so far. The aesthetic of a pocket sized world is overall interesting but it makes the actual combat a little more complicated because of the small area. That and when you press Z to block and attack it lasts for such a short period of time so it’s hard to time the blocking, this is also hard because of the overall small area you have to work with. The last thing that kind of annoyed me is that you lose your items and exp when you die and that becomes annoying especially later on in the game. While the blocking mechanic and the losing your items when you die are things that annoy me they seem on par for this genre of game which I do not play very often. On the other hand the small pocket dimension world on the center of your screen feels more like a design feature that while it is interesting can also be annoying. Overall these are annoyances that I would probably get used to if I played the game more.
Bleak Sword DX is an action adventure roguelike that features interesting and horrifying creatures that get more complex throughout the twelve chapters. You are a warrior tasked with breaking a curse that has taken hold of the land for many years. The aesthetic of the game is very interesting with the soundtrack and small pocket-sized world you play in but the small area adds an extra layer of difficulty when in combat. The story of the game is a way to gain interest early on but the main focus of the game is the hack and slash style combat. I am giving this game an 8 out of 10 because it’s an overall minimalistic and well made action combat game but is not really my kind of experience.
You can wishlist Bleak Sword DX via Steam. The game releases tomorrow, June 8th.
For more information, visit: bleaksword.com
Related: Reviews by Brianna Keller
I enjoy a wide variety of games from intricate survival/adventure games to simple platformers. I am also a sucker for a good story game.
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