Sometimes all you want is to just hang out in your mausoleum, raise up some undead minions, and maybe curse a king or two. Is that so much to ask? What’s an all powerful necromancer to do when the stinky nearby peasantry won’t leave you to scheme in peace? Crush every one of those do-gooders that set foot in your tidy little graveyard of course and add their bones to your collection!
In Boneraiser Minions from Caiysware that’s exactly what you’ll do! It’s an auto-battler roguelike where each run you must raise an army of various undead minions to protect you from the many waves of enemies sent from the nearby village to stop you in your nefarious tracks. So let’s sally forth on this boner pun riddled adventure together and see just how well my chosen cast of fiendish lackeys kept me knee deep in fresh bones.
Spoiler alert: this game is addictive as all get out and I think, at least for me personally, that’s a good indicator of a solid roguelike. Does it get its claws in you? Heck yes! This game had me wrapped around its boney little finger from the start. Like any roguelike worth its salt it’s going to take some major elbow grease in the beginning, not to mention a whole lot of deaths, to truly see what the game has in store for you and Boneraiser Minions was certainly no exception in this case. As you play you are given a bevy of minions, spells, and relics to choose from but until you actually choose one you won’t know what it does. For me, even if I unlocked some things I know are really useful I would still choose the locked options if I were presented with them, just to see what clever contraption this game would serve up next. And honestly most items/minions were useful if paired with the right strategy which was super impressive considering the amount of them. I think that’s part of the fun of a game like this, seeing what combos you can come up with to make your runs not only increasingly successful, but wildly different from one to the next.
Boneraiser Minions is still in early access as of writing this review but I’d say it’s pretty well feature complete. My understanding is that what’s left to be added is just more of the same. More character classes, more minions, and spells and such, with everything else appearing fairly finished. Currently you can achieve a successful run and restart on a new game plus to keep going if you like. It will be the same level from start to finish again but you get to keep everything you’ve acquired up until that point like your minions, relics and even your score. Some of the character class upgrade trees seem to be missing a spot or two but I’m unsure if that’s intentional or not. Either way you certainly aren’t lacking for interesting enhancements. You can also spend your hard earned gold on various upgrades to your general experience like increasing the number of a particular minion type you can raise or gaining a dash move or better pick up range. You can even drop some of that cash on ways to add a little more challenge to your runs or even to spruce up your mausoleum.
I can’t say I have much to complain about when it comes to Boneraiser Minions really. As I mentioned earlier it’s basically feature complete and everything as far as I can tell runs smooth as butter. Not a glitch or bug in sight, nor does it feel like anything is missing. Even the little side card game, though missing a proper tutorial, isn’t complicated enough that you can’t play without that full tutorial. Really the only nitpick I have is that though I love the art style and its simple color palette, it does set up the potential for some visual confusion, especially once the ectoplasm really starts hitting the fan, so to speak. It’s not always clear cut which bullets belong to your minions versus what’s being shot at you from the enemies. Both sides shoot similar colored blobs of magic and in a game where taking damage is a big no no, it can be frustrating to get taken out by a bullet you thought was safe to dodge through. But like I said that’s really just a small gripe and really the more you play the more your brain kind of latches on to where your ghoulies are shooting or not.
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