Bookbound Brigade
What if all the protagonists of books lost their memory? Venture into their world and beat the hell out of historical and literary characters you studied in school! Bookbound Brigade is a new take on the established Metroidvania genre where classic stories and well-known characters get the video game treatment, and where the player gets to lead a colorful bunch of real and fictional heroes through a 2D side-scrolling platform-adventure in a quest to battle overwhelming hordes of monsters and bring order back to the literary world. • Explore, fight, backtrack, grow your skills and tackle challenging quests and puzzles, as in any Metroidvania game worthy of its name, but get ready for a twist… • There is no single hero in Bookbound Brigade: you play as a party of unique characters, each with their own traits and skills, who move in formation and fight as one • Expect to meet some familiar and less familiar faces, as all the characters, both playing and non-playing, are drawn from the pages of history and literature • Enjoy distinctive hand-drawn visuals, inspired by book illustration from all time and straying far from the pixel art dominating the Metroidvania genre • Explore, fight, backtrack, grow your skills and tackle challenging quests and puzzles, as in any Metroidvania game worthy of its name, but get ready for a twist…
Game Discussion
Steam User 37
Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
Is this game a masterpiece? This one is a winner! A Metroidvania, but one with a special mechanic. You do not play one hero, but a group of characters who move and fight as one. You can switch formation any time (if there is enough space), from a line formation to venture through tunnels, to a column to reach higher places or a wheel to move very fast.
Your party consists of heroes from history and literature, from Count Dracula, Robin Hood, King Arthur to Queen Victoria. All of them have lost their memory (but not their individual character). Same for the 50+ NPCs you meet on your travels, who all have something to say, which often leads to grotesque situations. Your first quest is to find a fire-proof armor for Jeanne d'Arc (who has a little fire-phobia since meeting the British...), then you meet Don Quixote who of course fought windmills just for fun... and so on. There is always something to smile at during your breaks of fighting hordes of monsters on your quest through 5 worlds. The frequent dialogues might be considerably less funny if you haven't read the original books (or at least seen a good movie adaption) or if your history knowledge is very limited. And yes, there are texts to read. A bit hard to read when you play on a TV, btw.
Explore, fight, backtrack, grow your skills and tackle challenging quests and puzzles, as in any Metroidvania. Fighting is a bit unusual, best jump on an opponent and mash the attack button. This is very funny, especially the sounds your heroes make, but might not be liked by purists. The game starts easy, but gets rather hard later on, especially the boss fights are no cake. While checkpoints are frequent at the start, they seem to become more spread later on.
Conclusion:
Funny Metroidvania for literary people and with unique play mechanics.
Steam User 7
The literary references in this game are hysterical!
The platforming feels very good the formation changing turns the world into a puzzle platformer for short spurts and I enjoy that.
A floating Head's Gameplay:
The fighting can be a bit challenging with the Column Cannon and all but just makes it a little more strategic than hack and slash.
I'd recommend if you like games like Hollow Knight - without a linear path, find new abilities to access new locations. Boss battles. and tons of funny humor! (extra points for the jokes! - except for the monkey, I don't understand him!)
Steam User 6
Bookbound Brigade is interesting. Odd cast of characters, good comedic tone, great quality art, and the gameplay itself kinda plays like a growing puzzle of actions that you learn to figure out ways to traverse the landscape or defeat enemies. Honestly pleasantly surprised.
Check out the first 30 minutes of Bookbound Brigade here to give yourself an idea if this game is right for you:
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Disclaimer: I received this game for free. I was not paid to promote or write a review. All thoughts are solely my own. Thanks!
Steam User 5
Light platformer game that is very creative thematically, placing you in an enchanted library, as a glob of famous literary icons. Decent dexterity puzzles. Combat is spammy, but not the main focus.
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Steam User 7
This game is a sidescroller with a difference. It has the chance to be great with its cool and unique concepts but just falls off short when it comes to gameplay. Sidescrollers are many these days and to make a game worth playing in this saturated market it needs to stand out in many aspects just not one or two.
Pros
* The art style is fun and simple makes you feel like you are in a kids cartoon which i like for this game perfect fit.
*There are plenty of characters that you can meet and join your brigade.
* Carrying on from the characters each one that joins your brigade has a certain skill. may it be draculas double jump or robin hoods song. This creates dynamic in walking around the world and in combat.
* The World your basically in a story/tale which is fun and i like it.
* The soundtrack and sound effects are on point with the music like a classic traditional fairytale soundtrack and on hit sound effects like your in the cartoon so they match.
Cons
* Now in Sidescrollers combat is a main issue and in this early game it is the best of button bashing for a combo but later on this is effected by the abilities of your characters so keep that in mind.
* The hitboxes can be annoying to say the least. When it comes to fire in your stacked formation you cant't be one pixel off or it kills you there is no room for error, and for this casual type of platformer it just does not fit.
Roundup
Overall this game is not bad and is worth the try fun and engaging dialog from the characters and a nice new addition to the platformer world, It also has the power to grow with added characters and more "Story worlds" But falls short of being memorable as a great platform with it's mediocre combat, and a few head frustrating things would still recommend if you are a fan of platformers.
7.5/10
Steam User 6
This is definitely the cutest arwork of all games I've ever played. It looks easy but never easy, I found myself being so made chanllenging again and again which really helped me to grow patience. The difficulty of the game is just so surprising.
Steam User 3
Great game, I really feel nostalgic and going back to my childhood with all these mythical characters! Totally recommend 10/10