Difficulty in games is a subject that many have differing views on. Some players just want an experience that they can enjoy without fear of frustration or anger; a game that they can use to de-stress and unwind. Others take the “git gud, scrub” approach and demand that games be teeth-grindingly, soul-crushingly hard, and anyone who can’t handle that isn’t a true gamer.
Well, this game isn’t going to please the latter crowd. Riverbond is about as simple as can be, which might be perfect if you’re looking for something to play with your brain turned off.
If You Build It, Shovel Knight Will Come
Riverbond doesn't seem to have a story, as it's just a series of levels that feature various NPCs who are all being attacked or otherwise inconvenienced by an assortment of baddies. You’re a vague hero who arrives in the nick of time to take on waves of enemies and complete miscellaneous objectives until you reach a final boss that you’re supposed to slaughter. And that’s mostly how every level works.
The settings are different, and the various NPCs do have some mildly amusing, fourth-wall-breaking things to say about your mission and their existence, but other than that, the levels function largely the same way. It’s just a matter of whether you want to smack around enemies in a frozen forest, an underground cave, or a village of anthropomorphic bunnies.
Riverbond is an action game that’s also a bit of a dungeon-crawler, although considering every space is a large open area that has no walls, it feels weird to refer to these locations as dungeons. You pick up weapons that you find in treasure chests and whack or shoot everyone that stands in your way. There’s an impressive amount of goofy weapons that you can find, like Hulk fists that you can punch foes with, or a blunderbuss that fires snakes.
You'll also find different skins in these chests that you can change your hero into, and there’s a surprising number of famous indie game cameos. There’s The Kid from Bastion, Juan from Guacamelee, Spelunky, Raz from Psychonauts, and yes, even Shovel Knight. At this point, I don’t even trust a video game if Shovel Knight doesn’t show up.
This is all well and good, but what can you do with all these weapons and skins? Well, the answer is you just spam the attack button until everything explodes into pixellated chunks.
A Game You Can Play With Your Eyes Closed
While these different weapons have different attack patterns with some of them capable of more damage, there's not a whole lot of strategy involved with the combat. No matter if you use a giant spear or a magic sword, the gameplay is just endlessly tapping the attack button until everything is dead. Riverbond is almost absurdly easy. Even when enemies pose any sort of threat, you respawn fairly quickly with no progress lost. You don’t even lose any points from your high score. I almost wondered why there’s death at all considering how low the stakes are in this adventure.
Some of these weapons are also guns, although it’s very hard to aim your projectiles. There’s no lock-on or aiming mode, meaning you have to keep slightly adjusting your character position to hit enemies, which doesn’t feel all that intuitive or fun. Using any weapon that fires from a distance almost seems pointless as it’s far more effective to just walk up to baddies and slash away at them.
The real draw of Riverbond is likely its couch co-op multiplayer, as it supports up to four players. Unfortunately, I was unable to find three other people who wanted to sit down and play this with me, so I had to go it alone. But, it's possible that with some added camaraderie, an easy game like this where everyone gets to run around stealing weapons and knocking enemies on the head could be a blast.
Look At The Size Of Them Voxels!
Riverbond should seem pretty familiar to anyone who’s played mobile games like Crossy Road or any game that's tried to ape Minecraft. It has that blocky voxel look where everything is made out of collections of pixels and cubes. It’s adorable, but it just feels like there's far too many games that feature this style. However, the boss designs are pretty good, as you’ll fight big bad guys like a giant fish chef armed with a frying pan, or a bunny driving a giant mech. The characters are pretty creative. The voxel look is just not very appealing anymore.
One of the major advantages of using this graphical style is that it’s easy to make almost every part of the environment destructible, which is exactly what Riverbond does. You can just start cutting down trees or destroying structures to snag out of reach treasures. I wish more emphasis had been put on breaking stuff rather than combat, as a game about wrecking levels would be way more fun.
The Literal Opposite Of Dark Souls
Riverbond is a game that you can play while eating dinner, listening to a podcast, or even while you're playing another game. You can mindlessly slice and dice enemies without fear of challenge or difficulty. Riverbond might be more fun with additional players, but that’s going to depend on who you’re playing with. If you’re looking for something easy to play with kids or family members who aren’t sure how to use a controller, then this might be a good choice.
On the other hand, if you’re yearning for a test of skill – or at least something that can’t be beaten by taping down the attack button and pushing forward – Riverbond is unlikely to fulfill your need for hacking and slashing.
A Nintendo Switch copy of Riverbond was provided to TheGamer for this review. Riverbond is available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.