HELLBOUND

DISCLAIMER; This review is written having only completed 4 hours worth of gameplay, but I believe it's close enough to the avg 5 hour play time to write a review.


Presentation;

If there was one word I could use to describe this game, it'd be ''custom''. Everything in this game, down to the in-battle commands, is customized to fit the strange punk rocker from hell theme. When you score a critical, it's 'right in the jugular.' Your armor is comprised of graphic tees and jackets, your weapons are baseball bats.

All of the enemies in the game are hand-drawn, along with your characters. And like it says in the description, all of the music is either from local bands or original. The music thankfully fits well with the game and helps out when you occasionally find yourself grinding to get forward. Map design is okay, with the notable exception of a few stages.


Plot and Characters;

The small town of Edenville has a lot of strange events going on. People are disappearing, while mediums can sense a strange spiritual presence. Your characters are the chosen ones, destined to fight the evil forces in Edenville. Except you aren't chosen by God, oh no- you're chosen by the devil. You and your friends are imbued with demonic power to fight a corrupted heaven which is trying to take over Edenville and Hell itself.

The rest of the story is a fairly straightforward RPG plot- find the crystals, destroy the obviously evil angels, etc. However, with it's sense of humor, Hellbound managed to make me care about the main characters.


Gameplay;

Battles in HELLBOUND are fairly straightforward. You have a speedy character, a brute, a magician, and a healer. It can get repetitive at times, though the large variety of enemies helps to shake things up. The game has a random encounter system which might turn some players off. Later on in the game, there were some interesting enemy types. Enemies would explode on death, or use moves which reduced their max hp.


Conclusion;
Hellbound is a solid RPG with a punk rock twist on the classic theme. It's original music and creative enemies make it worth a try, though it could still use some polishing


PROS;
-funny
-original music


CONS;
-map design
-some grinding required