Scourgebringer Review

Well aren’t we all just the luckiest bunch of ducks. Very not long after I finish the fabulous Astro Aqua Kitty but we are then blessed with the release of Scourgebringer a 2D roguelite platformer from the same people who brought us the critically acclaimed roguelite twin-stick shooter Neurovoider. With good pedigree behind it, and a genre which I love I had high hopes for Scourgebringer and I was not disappointed.

I’ll start out with a confession. I haven’t yet finished Scourgebringer but as roguelites tend to be I thought I would make this review timely without ploughing all the way through. From what I can tell there are 7 levels and the four I have seen so far are amazing. What’s even better is the adjustable difficulty. I tried Neurovoider but being decidedly terrible at twin sticks I never got very far. Scourgebringer lets you adjust tiny things, speed of the game, speed of bullets, health drops.

This is big. The level of adjustability means that you can make it so that the game is challenging without defeating you. Of course the aim is to always keep it on the original settings, and of course some people will whack on the invincibility and blast through, but so what? Games are here to be enjoyed by the player. Something which is forgotten all too often.

Enemies and levels are varied enough that it takes time to learn their behaviour and patterns and get good at the game. The skill tree introduces new mechanics and techniques slowly s you are not overwhelmed by everything you need to know straight away. And boy oh boy dat movement.

Maybe I’m just one of very few people who gets sexually aroused by buttery smooth gameplay, but the fluidity of the movement, the way all the moves flow seemlessly together, from attack, to jump, to wall grab, to dash, they all work together in harmony and mastering all these methods is the only path to success.

The truth is there is nothing to be critical about when it comes to Scourgebringer. Music? Slaps. Art? Slaps. Gameplay? Slaps. Difficulty? Slaps. Level Design? Slaps. Enemy Design … well you get the picture. You see normally I write something like “buy this if you are a fan of balls-hard platformers” but I don’t even have to here, because you can make it so the game isn’t balls-hard. It’s that fabulous.

Code provided as courtesy.