SONGBRINGER
I am a sucker for zelda-like games and double that if it has a spiffy pixel art style. Songbringer looked like it was going to hit both of those hard so I picked it up at launch last fall. Unfortunately it has some control issues at launch so it quickly fell by the wayside. Six months and a couple of significant updates later I went back to see if it had. It did. Super did.
Songbringer offers lots to those who are looking for a zelda-like and tops it with some of its own special spices. You play as Roq in a 2.5D pixel styled game it is reminiscent of Hyper-Light Drifter and Sword & Sworcery in visuals. Each time you play it begins with you choosing a world seed which means your particular map layout will be unique to you. It has the iconic trappings of Zelda games such as item requirements, progressive dungeons, clever boss fights, secrets a-plenty and more. You earn more health and more abilities as the game progresses towards the final dungeon and victory.
As I mentioned before, Songbringer set itself up to be liked by me from the get go and once I got back to playing it did not disappoint. Apart from really enjoying the art style and music the rest of it really shines. The mix of sword and special abilities in fights feels good, with the difficulty rising slowly enough that even I (with my aging game skills) did not feel overwhelmed. Exploring for secrets and revisiting areas again once I had obtained abilities that allowed further exploration was great. Figuring out even simple connections between your newly given skills and environmental clues in order to unveil a hidden room or new passage felt good. The random dungeons were just elaborate enough that navigation felt satisfying but not frustrating. Even the boss fights were in my wheelhouse and not the grind that they can be in game similar to these.
Going to take a quick aside to give a warning to anyone playing Songbringer. It has a very forgiving reset and save system IF you remember to use it. Never ever quit the game from the death screen, you will loose everything you have done since the last manual save. If you continue it will reset you to a auto-save just before the last big game event. Like a boss fight where you use up all your cool items and then die but forget to continue and then when next time you play you have nothing and then have to spend a ton of time to reacquire all the consumables you need for that boss fight. But I digress.
There is not a lot in Songbringer that I didn't like. Some of the dialogue wasn't always great, seeming to shoot for some type of humor that I wasn't getting, but conversations are few so not a huge knock against it. I feel the random world building, while a cool idea, is hard to capitalize on as a run through takes around 12 hours (give or take) and I am not sure I would jump in and spend that time on another go. If Songbringer was maybe half that length there wouldn't have been any hesitation to do another run. But then as someone with a massive backlog I am always moving forwards and this may not be a big deal for others who are looking to get more out of the experience.
For $20 (often on sale for $10) Songbringer is a strong contender for those who are looking for what it offers. I enjoyed it a lot and have definitely hung it up inside the "return-to-this-one-again" closet.
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