ScourgeBringer Review

Have you been thinking that there has been a lack of heavy metal music and intense fast/paced action in games lately? I have the game that checks both of these boxes. ScourgeBringer, developed by Flying Oak Games and E-Studio, is an intense roguelike game that will keep you busy for a long time! Especially if you are constantly being defeated like I was in the beginning.

You take on the role of Kyhra, who has been chosen by her village to figure out why they have been attacked by the ScourgeBringer who came from the sky and burned everything. What have they done to be cursed like this? Many people have attempted to go in and destroy the evil beings, but no one has come back out. The child Kyhra is their last chance, she is their last light. So it is up to her to search through the multiple biomes, defeating the evil demons and bosses that reside there.

Luckily Kyhra is very skilled at using the sword, and she has her robot who is also her gun to help her battle. As soon as you enter the room you are greeted by the first wave of enemies and pounding heavy metal music. Once all the enemies are dispatched, the music calms down and is a lot more relaxing. Most of the rooms you enter will have two waves of enemies, the first wave being the weakest, then the second will have the stronger versions of these bad guys. It doesn’t take long to realise the enemies you want to make sure to avoid are the ones that shoot fire projectiles at you. With multiple fireballs coming at you, it doesn’t take long for Kyhra to run out of hit points, so watch for the exclamation points that appear over the enemies heads when they are going to attack. I try to target these guys first if possible, the room is a lot easier to navigate once all the projectiles are out of the way. 

If you are defeated, you aren’t completely dead. You come back to life at the Chiming Tree, here you meet Garo, the old guy who gives you a bit of information about the tree and what exactly is going on. Beside the tree there is a skill tree that lets you spend your Judge Blood to learn new attacks to help you on your quest. Once you learn these skills, you will not lose them no matter how many times you die. These special kinds of points are earned by fighting and defeating the mid bosses or the large biome bosses. Once you defeat a mini boss, you will earn a point, and even if you die you will keep these points so you can go back and defeat the boss once again to get more points. Keep at it long enough and you can unlock some really useful stuff. 

I died a lot. There were hours where I didn’t make any progress and I was getting super frustrated. I was wondering what it was that I was doing wrong and I realised that I wasn’t using Blast.32 to fire his weapon. Apparently being focused on slashing everything as fast as you can is a ticket to your death and getting sent back to the Chiming Tree. Kyhra has to be strategic in the levels and use the platforms that are placed in the room as cover to avoid incoming projectiles, and a sneaky spot where you can reach the enemy but they can’t get you. Feels like a cheap move, but based on the amount of time I spent dying and restarting I really didn’t feel that guilty.

As you explore the biome you will realise that within the rooms there is always a main boss room, a mini boss room, at least two different merchants and a room with the altar of blood. The altar will give you a choice of three blood blessings to use until you die. My personal favourite is the one that restores all your health, and replenishes your ammunition. Some of the power ups make the enemies weaker and the bosses too, so you have to figure out which of the rewards will help you the most. Most of the time when you first regenerate in the biome you will have to do a lot of exploring to find all the rooms, but if you are lucky an enemy will drop a stage map that will show you where everything important is. Just be sure to defeat the mid boss before you even bother heading to the main bosses room as the entrance will be sealed until the mid boss is defeated.

Kyhra is a very talented fighter. Besides being able to run on walls, she can double jump, smash, dash, and pull off a special fury attack. With these skills at her disposal, the overwhelming task at hand doesn’t seem nearly as bad. Especially if you are smart, unlike me, and use Blast.32 her rechargeable weapon buddy. Be sure to practice using the smash attack to take out the projectiles that fly at you from the small enemies and bosses. This attack can also be used to stun a bad guy or boss and give you a second to attack without getting hit.

Once you defeat the mid boss and main boss for that biome, Kyrha will move onto the next area. Keep in mind even if you do make it to a new biome, if you die, Kyrha will have to complete all the biomes again. Though to keep it interesting the mid boss and main boss will have changed so there is always someone new to fight.

This game is definitely one of those that can become extremely frustrating, but the great controls, crazy music and cool-looking 8-bit graphics will keep you coming back for more. ScourgeBringer is really addicting and hard to put down. Being able to continuously unlock more attacks on the skill tree really helps make your run more successful, and not having to keep buying the same stuff over and over again is a welcome addition.

I love that on some attempts a merchant dressed in blue will show up and give you free items to help you on your quest. If you are playing and find that you just can’t make any progress, you can go into the settings and you can decrease the game speed and the speed of the projectiles. It is definitely worth tweaking if you were just going to walk away from the game and give up.

Once you figure out the timing to deflect the enemies projectiles, you can always reset the speed to the default and test yourself again. If you are looking for a challenging game, with a crazy metal soundtrack and great controls, ScourgeBringer is a game worth checking out.