BloodRoots is an excellent game. The game from developers Paper Cult is a fun and strategic top-down action slasher game that stands out as one of the very best in its genre.
Visibly Stunning
The first thing you will notice when starting BloodRoots is its beautiful art style. The game has a cartoon-like art style taking inspiration from hit titles such as Guacamelee, matching vibrant colours with a sharp cartoon art style to create a visibly stunning game. The games art style varies between missions, offering various backdrops to BloodRoots variety of levels. The combination of levels present in the game is also a standout, although each level is the same old defeat all the enemies to get to the next checkpoint. The level design varies between tasks, offering different camera perspectives and gameplay mechanics. The gameplay mechanics make this game shine.
Fun and Addictive Gameplay
BloodRoots gameplay involves fast-paced top-down slasher gameplay, which is incredibly fun and addictive. The gameplay also involves a one-hit kill mechanic. Meaning it takes one hit to kill the enemy and one hit to kill you. Thus, the gameplay offers a degree of challenge and strategy. I found myself strategically making decisions about to take down a specific enemy with the range of weapons and items I had around me.
In this regard, the variety of weapons available are outstanding. You can pretty much pick up anything and use it as a weapon. I used a roast Chicken to blindside an enemy and a ladder to take out many enemies in one scenario. Finally, alongside Bloodroots brilliant gameplay is its cutscenes which are exceptional, taking that vibrant cartoon-style art style and gameplay to create humorous scenes within the game’s story and cut scenes dedicated to showing off the characters various finisher moves on enemies. BloodRoots also has a great soundtrack mixing wild west vibes with rhythmic beats on top of all of this.
Unfortunate Technical Issues
On the flip side, although BloodRoots is excellent, I did have issues with framerate drops and glitches. Entering areas with many enemies saw a significant decline in frame rate. I played BloodRoots on PS4. Although harnessing previous generation tech, the game should not have had such drops in framerate. I did not get the chance to play BloodRoots on Nintendo Switch, but I can imagine the framerate issues would be a problem or even worse on the handheld device. Likewise, I encountered glitches when playing through the game, such as gettings stuck behind various in-game objects and obstacles. Although this was relatively infrequent, the game has technical issues.
Verdict
Overall, BloodRoots is an outstanding game. It combines fun and fast-paced strategic action with a stellar soundtrack, appealing art style and weapon variation that makes this game stand out within its genre. Despite some technical issues, Bloodroots is an excellent top-down action game, one of the very best.
