Review for Bookbound Brigade. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/01/2020
When we entered the indie area of Milan Games Week at the end of September, our attention was immediately captured by the Digital Tales booth, with its delightfully hand-drawn game flowing across the screen. We then met the developers, who told us how their project was born thanks to a European Union tender aimed at creating a work that would enhance culture in an innovative way. Bookbound Brigade, like other productions of the Italian studio, was born with an edutainment soul with the aim of promoting literary culture, and it does so in a decidedly stimulating way for any gamer.
The adventure takes place in the metaphysical Literary World, held steady and in harmony by the Tome of Tomes, an exceptional book that contains every single story that has ever been written, real or imaginary. Unfortunately, however, the Tome is stolen by a mysterious entity, and this generates chaos in the Literary World, which risks collapsing. To avoid the huge crisis we will have to take on the role of Bound Brigade, a group of literary and historical characters that includes King Arthur, Dracula, Robin Hood, Sun Wukong, Dorothy Gale, Queen Victoria, Cassandra and Nikola Tesla. Ours will have to travel through the Literary World in search of the Tome of Tomes and retrieve the countless pages scattered everywhere.
The story behind this adventure has no dramatic or epic ambitions, but rather walks on light and comic tones. The disappearance of the Tome of Tomes has left the Literary World in complete disorder and every character who inhabits it is now "deranged", a parody of himself in a modern key. So we see Arthur making fun of other characters with goliardic jokes, Achille who has given himself to tip tap, Circe who wants to transform people no longer into animals but into vegans, and other amenities that provide the game with a pleasant and never humorous vein. excessive. A witty mood that is also seen in the dialogues full of puns and in the hilarious descriptions of the characters, a job he has dealt with Dean Wilkinson, a comic writer who in the past has written the various titles of LittleBigPlanet. In short, Bookbound Brigade immerses us in literary culture, but it does so to the sound of various puns and approaches to pop culture, continually tearing us more than a smile.
The concept behind the gameplay is that of a metroidvania with a strong platform component in which, however, the nature and skills of our heroes make everything more unusual than you might think. The eight members of the Bound Brigade actually keep themselves tied to each other without ever leaving, and therefore the player controls them as a single entity, which basically moves in standard formation in two rows one above the other.
During the game, however, the Brigade will learn numerous skills and new formations that will allow them to be more and more eclectic, adapt to the environment and overcome obstacles. In online training they will be able to overcome the lower steps; in the column one they will be able to reach switches positioned at great heights, while the wheel formation will allow them to roll at great speed. The skills that individual characters will learn will involve the entire group; Dracula for example can use his cloak to make the Brigade perform the classic double jump in mid-air; Arthur will issue the command for a shield turtle to make the group momentarily invulnerable, and so on.
As per the tradition of the metroidvania genre, the pace of exploration is marked by the acquisition of new skills. The group will have to explore various literary settings condensed into four thematic worlds (five including the Library which acts as a hub) continuing in the various dungeons until they encounter an insurmountable obstacle. To continue we will therefore have to explore another world in which we will end up finding one of the many (more than 50!) NPCs who will teach us the right skill to continue. The game will gradually expand through a cyclical and exponential backtracking, and will require the player to increasingly control the Brigade through the obstacles of the dungeons.
But don't be fooled by its cute and cartoonish appearance, The difficulty of Bookbound Brigade proceeds incrementally along the progress, and if in the first hours of the game it may seem like a light and undemanding adventure, as you will find that the challenge rate will require an increasingly refined mastery and increasing use of the brain. Everything is punctuated by a careful and varied level design that we guarantee will make it impossible for you to get bored.
The constant curve of difficulty also affects the recurring fights that Bookbound Brigade is dotted with. Also in this respect, the Brigade will gradually learn new "choral" techniques to get the better of it, finding itself facing more and more difficult opponents. Periodically we will find ourselves locked in rooms in which to take out hordes of opponents, while continuing in the advanced stages of the game we will have to deal with large bosses that will require different approaches.
Adventure also has a pretty good longevity, considering it needs it from 20 to 30 hours of game to complete, depending on how much you want to embark on the quest of finding all the NPCs and completing their respective sub-missions, which usually require you to find a personal item for them for which they will reward you with a substantial amount of pages of Pages of Memory (consumables needed to upgrade the characters of the Brigade).
In short, we found the game formula of Bookbound Brigade effective and fun, a good format between the typical structure of metroidvania and the interesting solutions derived from the eclecticity of the Brigade. However, not everything has thrilled us. For example, the backtracking is at times a bit forced and watered down, also because the supplied map is not at all precise in indicating the structure of the "rooms" of the dungeons, the position of the exits and points of interest.
But the problem that has resulted in the most indigestible is the frustration that sometimes makes itself felt by not being able to overcome some obstacles in which you have to be precise in the movements really to the millimeter. The difficulty would not be a problem in itself if one did not get in the way fluctuating responsiveness of the controls and an occasional input lag, at least in the Nintendo Switch version we tested. We also found the key combinations to change Brigade formation and execute some skills rather awkward, and it's a shame that we didn't include an option to remap the controls.
Even in clashes the feeling is of not having total control on the Brigade, which is actually rather clumsy especially on occasions when you have to avoid many enemies and related bullets on the screen, and at the same time be precise in the attacks. The most heated fights therefore end up being chaotic and unpredictable. These are not serious defects that cannot be overcome with a good dose of habit and trial and error, but for a game in which precision is gradually more and more fundamental these small flaws as a whole make themselves felt.
Visually speaking, Bookbound Brigade is simply delightful. The hand design of the characters and settings is truly distinctive and exudes talent and attention to detail. The comic and colorful garment is outlined by an angular and caricatured stroke, and makes the appearance of the title cheerful and joyful to observe. Even the sound sector defends itself with a soundtrack perhaps not very full of songs, but all capable of capturing and enriching the mood of the various situations on the screen.
Too bad for an unstable frame rate in the most hectic occasions and rather long loading times to wait every time we enter one of the five macro areas of the game.
Bookbound Brigade is a stubborn title with a great personality and humor. One of the most peculiar metroidvania of recent times, mostly offered at the reasonable price of € 19,99, which will delight fans of the genre. It is probably not suitable for more casual players or who generally do not suffer a certain frustration stress due to the difficulty of certain points. Despite some flaws in the controls and balance, we can only praise the work of Digit Tales which with its title offers something original in mechanics and style.
► Bookbound Brigade is a Platform-Adventure-indie game developed by Digital Tales and published by Intragames for PC, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/01/2020
