Developer: Paper Cult
Publisher: Paper Cult
Platform: PC, Switch, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Bloodroots – Review
In Bloodroots, the player goes on a bloody revenge quest along the Weird West. Use your surroundings to fight through groups of enemies. The world is your weapon. Improvise and adapt in an ever-changing ballet of ultra-violence.
Story
We immediately hit the ground running. When starting up Bloodroots, the player aka the protagonist aka Mr. Wolf discovers that there has been a bloodbath in a nearby town. After finding out who did it and why, he immediately gets sliced up with an ax. Betrayed and left for dead, the protagonist is hell-bent on finding the culprits and get his revenge. Even though he is alone and vastly outnumbered, Mr. Wolf is cunning enough to use the surrounding world to his advantage. There’s no army that can come between him and his goal: to take down his backstabbing, former gang members.
The story is told bit by bit through cutscenes, shown in-between each chapter. The chapters exist out of areas/levels that have to be beaten before you can continue on. To beat the level, you have to navigate through these areas, killing everyone in sight without getting yourself killed in the process.
Graphics
The visual art style, combined with soft colors and a grainy effect, is absolutely stunning. There’s also a strong sense of depth in every scenery you run through by the 3D surroundings, its accompanying shadows, color contrast and silhouettes in the foreground.
If seeing all this in bird’s-eye view wasn’t enough, the players get to enjoy the artwork up close in cutscenes in-between all the fighting. And wait there’s more – All sceneries and cutscenes are dynamic and animated. There will always be something moving or floating around you, even if this is very subtle. This livens up the game so much, keeping you pumped after all that slicing and dicing.
Sound
You might not notice it above your adrenaline grunts and heavy breathing, but it is rarely silent in the game. Every part of the game is accompanied by matching background music and sound effects. Not only does the music suit the scenes/levels very well, but the beats also gives you an adrenaline rush and help you push through, head-on. If that wasn’t enough, there are sound effects for just everything. From the campfire crackling to weapons swooshing to enemies crying in agony.
Gameplay
Bloodroots is a fast-paced, isometric beat-em-up. It’s similar to a lot of well-known platform games because of all the sprinting and jumping, except that there’s much more violence going on. The objective here is pretty simple. Get from start to finish by running, jumping, fighting, and killing.
As Mr. Wolf, you will need to fight through enemies-filled areas before you can get to the ones you are truly after. But how can just one person massacre, well, about just everything he sees? Easy. By using the surroundings. The levels are so thoroughly designed that it gives Mr. Wolf the ability to rush through the area while still being able to pick up all kinds of objects to use as a weapon. Think of it as a Sonic the Hedgehog game but with a lot of murder along the way.
The player starts every level from a safe zone, free from enemies. Along the way, you will find various objects you can pick up or interact with. For example, if you come across a plank, you can pick this up, take it with you and use it to fight off all the wrongdoers throughout the area. Or if you find a barrel, you can use this as a bowling ball to strike down a bigger group of bad guys with ease. Now, this sounds all fine and easy. But don’t be fooled. This game is supposed to be brutal and fast. The player needs to play swiftly, and flow through the levels. All this without thinking too hard. It’s all about reflexes and fast-thinking. So, with all of these killing methods the player can choose from, it could get a bit overwhelming. There’s a lot to see and choose from, but that’s hard to do when you practically have to fly through the areas.
After ending every level, the player will get to see a screen with a scoreboard and a leaderboard. This screen includes your total score, time, ranking, bonus points, favorite weapon, deaths and much more. So, the better the time and combo’s, the better your ranking will be.
Conclusion
Boom! Boff! Pow! You’ll rarely sit still when fighting as Mr. Wolf in Bloodroots. In this fast-paced, action-packed indie game, the player rushes through levels, picking up weapons along the way and using them to fight through groups of bad guys. This could be fun, but it could also be quite exhausting after a while. The game balances out the action gameplay and storytelling breaks very well by using cutscenes. Avoiding the repetitiveness of the gameplay. It seems like something small but it makes a big impact. Besides the gameplay, this game is visually grand. The illustrations and animations in-game are superb. The whole experience is finished off with awesome sound effects.
Bloodroots – Review,
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