Deathbound (PC) - Preview | Phenixx Gaming

I see the sun saw fit to rise this morning, so I guess another Souls-like is on the horizon. Brazillian Studio Trialforge Studio’s Deathbound is something I’ve had an eye on for a while, a Souls-like with a difference. Aren’t they all? Trialforge actually has something to say about that sarcasm, as it is a “party-based RPG,” but not like a Final Fantasy, Persona, Darkest Dungeon, and many many more. However, it isn’t a case of Dark Souls either as you carry around a party as you adventure.

You play as Therone Guillaumen, a noble and a knight in the army for the Church of Death, a zealot that follows the orders from the Goddess Death. In his crusade to bring the word of death like a Jehovah’s Witness banging on your door with a sword, he is plunged into a massive pit after fighting an ugly big monstrosity. He wakes to wonder why the ever-reliable death has failed him this time. You know the drill – wake to realize death is never the end, hit things with something heavy or sharp, collect Souls, Spice, and everything nice, gaining XP to level up.

Exploring the City of Akratya, you are plunged into the Essence Lab deep underground and work your way up through the Underground, Lower Streets, and beyond. As Therone explores the more linear, constrained world he comes across those who are part of the Cult of Life. Anna Lepus, Haodai Tehkri, and Iulia Tchevlaskia are all part of a loose collection of those who shun the lady Death. Therone binds their Essences to his, creating a group – party members you can switch to at any time, and in fact, this plays into a mechanic to provide an extremely powerful hit.

With my broad explanation and story elements out of the way, let’s talk about gameplay, feel, and the world. First up is the overall style and look, something a bit fantasy and medieval but with a modern dark fantasy setting. The underground section features trains, chainlink fences, industrial-sized pipes, and so on that bring this modern feel, but Therone is dressed like a knight of the round table. Though above all of that is the style. It isn’t crisp, it isn’t sharp, and it feels very much like a budget being extended as much as possible. Despite everyone else’s ideas, I kind of like that sometimes.

If the style is a bit “rough” I don’t care as long as the gameplay backs it up. Unlike a couple of other budget or lower-end indie Souls-likes, Deathbound has some heavy hits. It attempts to refresh the gameplay loop a little and offers something a bit original. One example is the stamina not being its own bar in the UI, in fact, there aren’t many bars in the UI at all. In the bottom left, you see a collection of diamonds with character silhouettes which are tinted in a green-ish color. That’s the stamina and the health “bar” too.

As you might imagine, tying the stamina to the health changes up the style overall. Taking hits becomes a bit more difficult but also more strategic as you pick up Essence Enhancers, which by the name you might imagine do something about your 1-3 extra essences. To a degree, that’s your Estus Flasks, but gaining health also takes away health from your fellow party members. By the description, it takes 40 HP from allies and applies 80 points to the active Essence. From the top of my head, I can’t think of another Souls-like to do that. Not many are party-based anyway.

However, that’s not the only thing changing up the formula, as it were. Where some games might do things in half-measures, especially when trying to play with an established genre like the Souls-like, Trialforge Studio tries to play with that a little more. Once you have more than two Essences in the party, all “bantering” with each other upon deaths and trudging through the mazes we call the Metroidvania level layout, their beliefs, and theories on the world affect how they work as bound Essences. For example, members of the Cult of Life negatively impact members of the Church of Death and vice versa.

I mentioned the Essences allowing you to make an “extremely powerful hit.” Switching on the fly is all well and good, especially as everyone does a Cody Rhodes impression during the “Whoa.” However, as that’s one part of the gameplay, it also becomes part of the combat too. Along the bottom of the screen, you’ll find a Sync meter which fills as you hit enemies with any attack, and once you’ve filled one of the bars you can press Y/Triangle after an attack and perform a Morph Strike. This switches party members mid-attack. Effectively a tag team move in wrestling.

However, if you fill all the bars and use the attack, said attack becomes massively stronger, killing smaller enemies and heavily wounding the larger, harder-hitting ones. To use Deathbound’s own phrasing about it, it is a synergy and tactical part of the gameplay beyond running up to everything, hitting it, and dodge rolling away. Or in this case, dodge phasing away. It is a nice set of systems and gameplay changes to the idea of a Souls-like that feels somewhat original.

That said, I do have my minor personal gripes. If you don’t get that Morph Strike timing right, you are morphing and getting hit in boss battles. These are boss battles with multi-stage cutscenes triggering every time you return to them. Each party member is effectively the classes you see in the likes of a conventional Dark Souls game, so if you’re not a knight-type or a spell-caster type, chances are you’ll have a bit of an issue getting to grips with Deathbound. I also think the character movement is a bit light and floaty.

I can’t say too much about Deathbound as we preview it, but what I can say is that Trialforge Studio certainly achieves something not many Souls-likes do. The studio set out to bring something different to the world of hitting things with big and small sharp sticks or potent spells, and it does that well enough.

With only a few hours in and wishing the tutorial levels weren’t as heavily character lore-based so I can get to hitting things, I’m interested to see how (as the press guide notes) Deathbound stretches out into 20 hours. Or if you’re like me and grind like gay men, closer to 50 hours getting every level and upgrade to defeat minor bosses with ease. You can wishlist Deathbound right now on Steam, Epic, and GOG, where it releases on August 8th. You can also pick up Deathbound for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with the latter also allowing for wishlists.