Flamebound

Review

Build your Team of Heroes and begin your endeavor into the dungeons void of light that is inhabited by an endless horde of dark demons. Your flame is bound to you and will light your way. Take on the bloodthirsty demons and let the edge of your blade extinguish their darkness. The Death Wall chase you endlessly, desiring nothing more than to devour you in its darkness. You must battle and push forward while collecting loot dropped by your enemies, and loot as many chests and vases as you can that are found randomly as you play. You will fight mini-bosses and level bosses. The fight will not be easy.  Are you ready to challenge yourself and keep your flame from being extinguished?

Released & Self-Published June 27th, 2018, by Developer OneShark, it is tagged as an Adventure, Casual, Indie, RPG, Clicker. It is the 4th release out of 5 by the publisher on Steam, with all their other titles having great ratings. I would consider it to be more of a 2D Scroller, and not really a clicker. It has a brilliant cartoonish art style that is simple but well done, like something right out a Classic Disney or Warner Brothers Cartoon, with a multitude of characters to fight by your side and to fight against! You will be able to purchase additional heroes to fight by your side using coin and treasure you gather during your battles. As you gather more heroes you can sacrifice 2 of the same rank to merge them into one stronger character. Arm them and yourself with items you can purchase in the Mystery Shop.

With RPG elements, you will collect armor, weapons, and gems to buff the stats of your heroes. Each of the heroes you collect, depending on how far you are in the game, will be of different ranking.  There are 3 types of heroes you can purchase, each better and more expensive. Your equipment usability is dependent on your hero’s level, not rank. Rank only affects your hero’s original stats; the higher the rank, the better the starting stats. You will not only be able to buy items in the Mystery Shop, but every boss you beat will reward you with your choice of loot from 4 categories. So check your hero’s gear before you head back into battle. You will collect Gems, Weapons, Armor, and Headgear, each imbued with the different stat boost. So choose wisely. The game has an interesting mechanic that allows you to let the game autoplay, or control any of the heroes yourself. But be diligent if you use it; if all your heroes die, it's back to the start.

The gameplay takes place in a dungeon, but it is not a dungeon crawler in the way we would normally think. There is no searching around for treasure or hidden loot. All the loot will be in the playing field as you progress in the game. Pick it up or it gets left behind to the dark. The gameplay is linear, yet randomized. The enemies and bosses are all random, and no two plays are ever the same, so gameplay will always be fresh every play-through. The title does have a fair amount of replayability to it; once you beat it (or at any time you want), you can delete your save and restart fresh.

The Visual Art of the game is superb, it is like playing in an old school cartoon from a bygone era. Many of the heroes remind me a lot of the characters I used to watch in the early days of cartoons - it gives the title a great energy. As a collector of stunning visual art, it was a pleasure adding this title to the collection. I did have a bit of trouble starting into the game. I was expecting a clicker, and really I see nothing about the title being a clicker, so ignore that tag on the store page. Once I got through a few levels and the games tutorial hints got me going, it was a whole lot more enjoyable. Soon I was slaying the hordes like I actually had some skill (lol)!  All in all, it's a great little time-waster, and a good addition to one’s library.

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!