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…
Steam User 34
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 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.
Please follow my curator page, Designer Plays, for a truly massive number of concise and honest reviews from a 25-year veteran Game Designer.
Steam User 5
Written for 1561's Thoughts - Honest reviews, for busy people.
Bookbound Brigade is a 2D platformer where you control a mob of classic fictional characters, and traverse through a land of broken stories. It's an interesting concept. 6/10