It was February 25 when we were publishing a preview of ScourgeBringer. Shortly before the global pandemic, the boys of Flying oak games they had incredibly fascinated us thanks to the small project they had built and proposed in early access. After a couple of awards won around the world and the "peace of mind" of working from home due to the Coronavirus, the developers have collected all the feedback needed to optimize and refine their creature as best as possible. The final result, now on the home straight in its full form, is far more galvanizing than any more rosy forecast. In order not to have to repeat ourselves on some concepts already expressed, we therefore invite you to retrieve our preview to which this final review assumes more an update and judgment value to a project seen and improved over the course of these months. Finally, we would like to clarify that the final version we tested is the Nintendo Switch one, so we will also try to see the direct differences between the preview on PC and this final one.
A sharp blade
Pixel art, a few text signs, and a handful of transitions. This is enough for ScourgeBringer to immediately enter the narrative mood that is immediately molded on the player's skin. An alien monolith that materializes in the sky bringing destruction, mankind in despair and in the background Khyra, silver-haired girl with a mechanical support and her sword, she will go inside the huge structure to face all the dimensional rooms - and their enemies - that will parade in front of her, trying to avert the threat and discover the secret behind the mysterious alien machine.
Nothing has therefore changed since the very first rehearsal, at least on the dramaturgical side or the little that we could define as such. Better instead the playful matrix, which goes back to the evergreen roguelite, but starting from the basic formula, which worked a bit like a starting skeleton, ScourgeBringer in the course of these months has managed to flesh out tissues, organs and tendons of great vigor on its bones, pumping blood into the veins and starting machine without the slightest sign of failure. The procedure of the title is faithful to its genre: many rooms to face to get to the final boss, momentary skills and boosts that we will lose in the moment of death - or search for the perfect run - and then literally enhance a tree, acting as a function of our in-game skills. We will die a lot, but each death will make us more aware and skilled of the threats we will face. Khyra grows in experience when we are able to press the right buttons with precision and timing, spinning the girl from one side of the map to the other.
Awareness and evolution
The developers already at the launch of Early Access had established an interesting roadmap of contents that they have duly respected. Therefore ScourgeBringer now boasts a series of not indifferent contents: The game worlds, although built with continuous procedurally created recycles, have increased considerably, as have the number of bosses and mid-bosses. Completionists or number fetishists will find an interesting screen at the time of each death that will function as a match report. Number of hits, scores, bonuses obtained, playing time and identikit of the enemy who took away our last life point, lots of little information between mere curiosity and the desire to constantly test oneself while trying to make the perfect run .
ScourgeBringer's spearhead is undoubtedly the fluidity of all elements on screen, including Khyra. Although we are talking about a basic pixel art, therefore well composed but far from being very inspired, concatenating the different attacks and combos on the ground or in the air, Khyra will whirl around the room as if it were a dancer while the response times of the commands given will be precise and sudden. . It is therefore impossible to “blame” the game in the event of a badly executed action. There is no queue of action waiting, fluidity is a tremendous advantage that makes every game and every run beautifully pressing. The structure of the map and the rooms has also received a fair optimization. Now it is possible to find more than one vendor per world, the teleportation in the rooms already visited has been revised and optimized while the mid-bosses, which were very simple and cheap, now tend to change attack patterns and summon minor enemies to give us annoyance during the fight.
A portable adventure
Before leaving us to the vote, a quick consideration - similar comparison - between the two tested versions. The preview was performed on PC, via Steam code, while our final test took place on Switch support. In these years of life, the portable console from Nintendo has proved to be an excellent hotel for indie titles of various kinds and, even more so, of any title that favors the “ready, go” factor. Well, since our first test, the idea that ScourgeBringer would have been perfect if played on Nintendo Switch immediately flashed and we can only confirm the excellent sensations.
The fluidity is excellent, in fact we have never encountered any type of slowdown or the like and indeed, the same loading speed between a level change or from death onwards; if during the preview we had the opportunity to notice the presence of some wait perhaps a little too long, now we can say that everything has been optimized and cleaned up properly. With the promise of new content on the way and such a rich, intriguing and fun homebase, ScourgeBringer is undoubtedly one of the most interesting roguelites on the square, which is increasingly loaded with contenders; never like in these years, the genre is having another youth to discover and play.
