Developer/Publisher: Cococucumber || Overall: 5/10

Overview:

Riverbond is a hack and slash beat-em-up game for kids. It looks like Minecraft since it has the voxel art style, but that’s about all the similarity it has with that genre. You’ll be traversing through multiple levels completing a quest to get from one area to the next. It’s all very rote and despite looking pretty, a very trying task to keep interested in any of it.

Graphics:

Far and away the best part of the game. I love the look of it, the art is absolutely fantastic. I love the colors, the different stages, the different enemies — there’s nothing about this that looks bad at all.

Sound:

The sound is fine, and the music is pretty good. None of it is really amazing, though.

Gameplay:

What this amounts to is choosing a boss to fight on a selection screen, but before you get to that boss you have to get through like 3 or 4 other areas that have a quest you need to complete before getting into the next one and then eventually the boss level. The quests are pretty standard, such as collect, kill, or activate things. Nothing too special there. You basically have infinite lives, so you can just keep dying over and over to beat the level.

The gameplay is super simple. There is no overall progression, experience, gearing system, etc. The only thing to do is to beat levels faster with more points, sort of like an old sidescroller. This is probably fine for someone who is like 10 years old or something, but you’ll be pining for something more engaging than collecting skins after about 30 minutes. One of the bigger features of the game is the 4-player couch co-op, so it could definitely be a nice distraction for a 3rd grader’s birthday party I guess.

Crappiest Part:

Simply put, the game is boring. The quests are very simple, the quest givers talk about things you don’t care about, and there’s no interesting story or any progression to keep you going. I gave the game a real go several times and ended up putting about 4 hours in before never wanting to play again. You can’t say I didn’t give it a chance.

Conclusion:

In the end, the game is super casual and there’s a ton better games out there in this genre that are more worth your time. There’s a very specific audience for this game, and I ain’t it.