Reignbreaker wears its inspirations proudly while offering a unique world and its javelin mechanic that creates tons of unique combos in battle. Following in Hades footprints, Reinbreaker is a fast-paced roguelike set in a “medievalpunk” world, combining knights and mech with a heavy focus on keys.
I got to play the demo, which is now available on Steam for everyone. It lets you take on the first section of the game and a few upgrades as well. The combat is high-octane, asking you to dash, smash, and shoot, all while managing a heat system. Using your javelin, which can take different forms as you unlock them, increases your heat, limiting how often you can use it instead of just punching. While this system felt a bit overwhelming to start, as managing a meter while dealing with the constant projectiles from the enemies was a lot to wrap my head around, it quickly became part of the flow of combat.
Fast-paced, medievalpunk action
Mastering the Javelin System
I was also getting upgrades that reduced the heat build-up or increased the cooldown fairly early into each run, so after a few attempts, I felt like I had a strong grasp on the flow of combat. Your javelin has multiple easy for it to be used, with even more available in the between runs skill tree. You can shoot it, which depending on your attachments might be a machine gun or a shotgun, from the handful in the demo, you can throw it, and you can drop it to shoot out around it. All of this offers different ways to handle the enemies thrown at you, and the upgrades can power up these different abilities, letting you create builds around your favorite moves.
The story bits in the demo were fairly limited, revealing two enemies you can interact with, some mercenaries obsessed with fashion and a knight, your former sister-in-arms. While the story and dialogue in the demo didn’t paint a full picture, it does seem like this world and Clef, your character, has a detailed history, offering lore to uncover as you move through the world. The big baddie here is the Queen, who uses some type of technology to control people’s minds, and trained Clef before she rebelled.
Perhaps my favorite system in Reignbreaker is the choices you have on each floor. You will need to obtain a certain number of keys to raise the bridge at the end of each floor, but you will have multiple options to obtain those keys. There will be vaults, which contain the keys and upgrades, but they will have different combat scenarios to open them. Sometimes they were tied to your former friend knight, sometimes to the mercenaries, impacting the upgrades available. The battles could be different too, with some of them being time-attacks, while others just require you to defeat all enemies. You can also open more vaults than required, risking some health to get another upgrade.
The only downfall of the demo was the lack of enemy variety, both in visuals and mechanics. The section of the game in the demo features only robot enemies, which do have some cool visuals, like clocks that have been unlocked in an execution move, but there were only a handful available and the majority just send out a large amount of projectiles. Of the two bosses I saw, one was just a more powerful version of a normal enemy, which was pretty disappointing, but the other was a unique boss with a more intriguing design, so hopefully the full game as a bit more variety on that front.
You can earn new abilities in a few different ways. First is during runs, when you reach a new safe floor, you can get a new javelin if you reached the room fast enough, and while there wasn’t a new item to collect the second time through, there was a ton of variety in the javelins in just the demo, and there were new ones to get fairly often. The other way is by taking purple crystal earned in each run and buying perks in between runs. These boost your health, or unlock new attacks, or offer powerful passives, like gaining health every time you open a vault. Only a small number were available in the demo, but there were even more I could see. You can only equip a limited number, forcing you to pick and choose the best combination, giving you more control over your build for each run.
A Promising Roguelike with Huge Potential
Overall, Reignbreaker seems incredibly promising based on the demo. The combat feels great, the world feels fresh with its “medievalpunk” world and aesthetic based on keys. If the rest of the game offers even more unique javelins, characters to meet, and unlocks to get, it could be something special. Plus, it’s got some killer punk music for the soundtrack. Reignbreaker launches on Steam on March 18, with a demo currently available for everyone to check out.
