Blightbound

While I wasn’t sure what to initially expect from Blightbound, I quite enjoyed the 'Holy Trinity' class setup and addictiveness when it comes to playing alongside some friends, trying our luck on the harder difficulties as we slowly improved our characters and skills. If you have a friend or two that you’re able to grind for quite some time with in some dungeon runs you’re going to have a decent time with Blightbound. If you’re going to rely on random online players or AI bots, you’re going to have nowhere near as rewarding of an experience.

Blightbound is a couple of fixes away from being the new hardcore favourite – mechanically demanding, it plays more like a precise competitive multiplayer game than a dungeon-crawler. It is let down by copious crashing and poor pathing from the AI.

Blightbound’s problems are very disappointing because they occur on the top layer of a very solid foundation. The game’s combat is satisfying and fun, especially when playing with a group of friends. It is often quite challenging and requires intelligent play and strategic coordination, which makes encounters feel rewarding on the first completion. However, the problems with the game’s overarching systems, repetitive nature, lack of enemy variety, and lack of a fleshed-out world leave Blightbound feeling like a game that just needed some more time to become something really special.

When Blightbound works the way the developers intended the game is fantastic fun! Working together with your team searching levels for loot and fighting bosses is a blast. Which makes it that much more painful when you run into the issues with this game. Because you KNOW there is fun to be had here, you want to progress the story and find out more about this dark and gothic world. The beautiful contrast between the bright colors and dark a dreary environment is really a sight to behold. The puzzles, however simple they may be work to bring home that “adventuring” aspect of the game. Sadly, just about everything else is broken, and it makes you want to pull out your hair in frustration.