Wulverblade is a 2D Beat ’em Up that takes place around 120 A.D with the empire of Rome seeking to take the entirety of Britannia. It is not with the well trained and powerful army of Rome that we’ll stand with however, it is with the barbaric tribes of the north as they do what they can to repel the foreign invaders. We take control of one of three fighters each possessing different stats and excelling at different fighting styles. First off is Caradoc, the most well rounded of the lot and the easiest to learn the game with. Then we have Brennus, a titan of a man that as one can expect packs quite the punch. Finally, we have Guinevere whose sheer speed turns her into a mad flurry of death when faced against multiple weaker foes and is the most suited to aerial combat. After a mission, it is possible to switch characters so we can get a chance to play as each and find the one that suits us best on our journey.
Our two choices upon starting up the game is a Campaign and an endless Arena mode. The arena is a pretty useful form of getting the gist of how the game works as this is not a mindless combat system where you will simply be mashing the attack button. The Campaign, on the other hand, is where the meat of the title is and does contain a surprising amount of plot to it. Before, after, and even during missions, we will be briefed via either cutscenes or hidden notes about multiple aspects of the game ranging from the story to actual historical facts that inspired them. It is split into two modes, Standard in where there are checkpoints with you having the ability to load the game up to the last mission you were on, and Arcade, that gives you 3 lives & 3 continues to get through it all in one go. For first time playthroughs, it is pretty obvious which one to go to unless you are really up for a challenge.
In the first level, we are given some leeway and face off against low tier barbarian enemies to tear apart. Castle Crashers this is not, it is very violent with people being split apart, have their heads stomped in, and pretty much painting the surrounding area red with the amount of blood from a skirmish. To make sure we aren’t the ones losing limbs there is quite a decent selection of moves to make use of. There is a basic attack, air juggles, rolls, parrying and much more than you’d expect from a Beat em up. It has more in common with games like Devil May Cry than Golden Axe due to its fast and fluid combat where combos are king. Our main weapon will always stay the same, but we can temporarily gather others to throw at your foes or hit them over the head with depending on what they are. Chopping down a tree and using the entire thing to smack your enemy straight into oblivion is as fun as it sounds while stuff like daggers to throw at archers are equally as useful. Picking up a new weapon will unlock some background history of their real-world usage to read later on or on the spot if you like some fine reading in the midst of battle.
You can take a friend along for the ride in two player local coop. There is no online option sadly, though playing solo is still a perfectly valid choice. If you find yourself swarmed by enemies, there is a special area of effect attack that does take up some life but will give you some breathing room in turn. When things get really bad, you can call in a pack of wolves once per level that will decimate near everything on the screen aside from boss characters. And then you have good old-fashioned Rage. Causing or receiving enough damage will allow you to enter a berserk frenzy in where you don’t take any more damage as well as attack much faster & some health regenerates all throughout. Those three powerful abilities more than even the odds and makes whatever character you choose a one-man/woman killing machine. There is an incentive to become good enough to get through the stage without using the wolf ability in the form of extra points in the end. That goes for the timer you always see ticking down on the top as well. It won’t kill you once it reaches zero but the more time left when you finish, the bigger the point payout to try and dominate the leaderboards.
Once you slashed your way through the grunts, most levels will have some form of boss fighter whether it be a structure to knock down or a rival just as good at killing as you are. When facing an equal, it would be a good idea to keep in mind that defense is just a valuable an asset as attacking. Blocking attacks still causes you some damage, but you don’t lose your footing and are left open to another blow. Some things will break right through your defenses, so learning when to dodge or roll is vital as well. If you are feeling confident, you can risk it all and try to parry a blow by blocking it at the last possible moment to leave your opponent vulnerable to an onslaught temporarily. All of these can also be performed on regular enemies. Combat has a good amount of depth to it and is something you won’t tire of which is an excellent thing considering that is most of what you will be doing.
On the topic of bosses, I feel like this is the one area in the game that was more balanced towards coop play as they take an enormous amount of punishment to go down. Enough so that it kind of diminishes the fun of going toe to toe with a superior foe where any careless move can end badly for you. It also drove me mad all throughout this title that enemies can not damage each other. From a boss charging right through a crowd of grunts to an archer being able to fire carelessly. That made your positioning pretty meaningless aside from making sure you aren’t surrounded during a fight. Then there is the rather odd oversight in where you can not execute stunned opponents on the ground when you have specific weapons like spears or are in rage mode where every second counts and wasting time waiting for your foe to get back up is a larger issue.
The single biggest flaw in the combat system has to be the combination of weapon drop rates and that picking up an item is the same button as attacking. Nearly every enemy drops something once vanquished, making it all too likely to accidentally bend over in front of their mates to pick something off the ground and getting a warhammer to the back of the head for your efforts. It is most prevalent when facing a cluster of enemies, and the problem isn’t so much the drop rate itself but how you pick them up. The tired and true method of holding down plus the attack button to pick an item up would do wonders here as having a bountiful supply of limbs to fling at people is morbidly fun. Moving on from its bad aspects, let’s talk about the enemy variety. Each foe has different strategies to try and take you down. Some may throw daggers from a distance, others can rush you in an attempt to impale you with a pike, and others wield shields that negate straight on attacks. Learning each enemy and predicting what they plan to do next is key for long-term survival and adds some strategy into how you approach things.
Occasionally, it is possible to use the environment to your advantage such as shield bashing someone into a set of grounded pikes or tossing an exploding barrel at them. Barbarians are easy enough to handle, but as soon as the Romans show up, you will have quite the fight on your hands. They come in multiple forms and get more troublesome the higher their ranking in the Legion. Facing a centurion in combat is basically like fighting a mini-boss fight, though they are rare and will always retain that sudden moment of dread when one shows up instead of slowing the game down. Should you meet your end in battle, you have two additional lives to go through before being sent back to the last checkpoint. There is only a single checkpoint for each level, and most levels are pretty lengthy. To give you a perspective as to how long they are, there are only eight stages, but it took me four hours to complete the game. Four hours is considerably long for this type of genre, and it doesn’t feature any grindy RPG elements like others that reach this same length by padding it out. Your character is as good as she/he will get from the start and the rest depends on your skill.
As you find secrets and progress through the game, you will unlock many collectibles. These can either be videos of ancient locations that inspired the devs, concept art, and information about darn near everything from the game. You will learn about the type of house Britons of old lived in, Roman training, as well as the background of the characters you play as. The people behind Wulverblade clearly have a ton of passion towards the setting and are all too eager to share what they know with you. I really enjoyed reading all they had to say but if you are not one that likes to read a ton of text it can all be safely skipped, even cutscenes too if you just want to slash more people apart. Its plot is mostly grounded in reality so your merry band of barbarians won’t be marching into the heart of Rome anytime soon, though things take quite a suddenly odd turn towards the end.
Beating the game will unlock a new mode which allows you to replay it in an entirely new matter. I can’t go into much more detail about that without serious spoilers, but it is a neat addition and is yet more content to bite into. Due to how well the combat system was pulled off minus some nagging flaws, it is all too easy to want to replay it or step into the Arena to fight until your eventual demise then see how you compare with other players. The artstyle is quite something to look at and captures the intended gritty look they were going for while the music is very fitting to the time period. Wulverblade has had a ton of passion poured into it, and one can’t help but share their enthusiasm as a result. More importantly, it has the gameplay and content to back it up. This makes Wulverblade all too easy to wholeheartedly recommend.
[Review copy was provided]
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