We can all agree that one emotion every human being has to face day in and day out is anger. This feeling of stress, pressure, and hatred towards a topic or person. Anger can be generated from getting stuck in traffic, seeing a restaurant get your order wrong, or screwing up on a test. That anger can be directed towards others and sometimes even yourself. We need to let out that anger, but we don’t want to lash out at people. Instead you find an activity that can calm you down. In my case it’s playing video games, but it widely varies. Taking a walk in the park, going for a swim, or just listening to music. Anger is connected to stress of course, and we must relieve stress before it becomes too much. Now what happens when we don’t find a way to control our anger? What happens when you let the stress and anger build up. When you don’t find a healthy coping mechanism to let it out. Now let’s imagine you do find a way to let it out, but it’s not a healthy method. You choose to let the anger out on those around you. Let them know the pain you go through and do this again and again every single time. You don’t care how they feel and wouldn’t mind seeing them suffer. You could say this is anger issues, but I call it “rage.” When you constantly keep anger built up and unleash it through harmful ways to the point where it begins to malform into a weapon that harms others. Rage is not good. Rage is something you do not want, because once it’s ingrained into your systems it is difficult to let go.
In fact, rage is one of the main reasons people develop mental health disorders. The bad side of mental health disorders. It can even lead to psychoactive thoughts. When you find joy in other people suffering then you pursue to harm more people for fun. To lash out at them, beat them up, or better yet kill them. No longer is it rage, but instead psychotic. You have just transformed into a psychopath who is hellbent and addicted on murder and hurt. “Psychopath” is the most commonly used term and to others it’s “satanism.” However, there’s another term for this. One that has been going around for the longest time, “bloodlust.” When you desire and crave the spilling and unraveling of blood, usually human blood. Bloodlust is incurable, can’t be treated with drugs, and if so it’s really hard and most likely won’t completely cure it. No one wants to see bloodlust run through a family member or loved one. For bloodlust creates fear.
Recently I just played through a game that came out earlier this year that focuses on bloodlust. I’ve been wanting to check it out, but I was so busy catching up on past titles that I completely forgot about it. Finally decided to pick it up during a Nintendo Eshop sale and I’m surprised this game didn’t get more attention for how unique it looked. The game I’m talking about of course is Bloodroots which was created by an independent studio named Paper Cult Games. The game was revealed back in 2018, had a showcase at PAX, and didn't come out until earlier this year. I don’t even think there were people paying close attention to the development for Bloodroots, because when I tried doing research for this review I couldn’t find any information. Bloodroots kinda came out of nowhere and expected something? Like it stood in a room filled with other independent games that went without advertisement and waited for the roses to rain down upon it. Well being another independent game released in a huge marketplace, Bloodroots wasn’t very popular. It did receive a fair amount of criticism though. Those who played the game really enjoyed the fast pace murder combat, the cartoonish artstyle, and how the story was presented using bare minimum tactics. It’s one of the shiny gems to come out in 2020. A year covered in a lot of sh*t at the moment. So with no other interesting games coming out and not having enough money to purchase a Playstation 5 even though the console is nonexistent at the moment, I decided to do another one of my special indie reviews. Today we’ll be talking about why I quite liked Bloodroots and why it deserves your attention. So grab an axe, knife, arrow, gun, hook, boot, scythe, paddle, barrel, shovel, squirrel, whatever and prepare to slaughter your way through hundreds of random individuals you didn’t even know.
Story
We play as Mr. Wolf, a grumpy woodsman making his way to the peaceful mountain village of Tarrytown. Except right now it’s not so peaceful, smoke fills the sky, and the snow is now coated in red. Once Mr. Wolf gets to Tarrytown, he notices the place is in complete shambles. All the buildings were burnt to the ground and almost every civilian living in Tarrytown was brutally murdered. He ends up searching the local graveyard for survivors, but he is then approached by his fellow gang, The Blood Beasts. The group consists of a fat man named Mr. Boar, a young woman named Ms. Bison, an old lady Ms. Crow, and the leader of the gang Mr. Bad Wolf. All of which are named after the pelts they wear over their heads. Mr. Wolf questions what happened to the town, but Mr. Bad Wolf pulls out a gun and points it towards Mr. Wolf’s chest. Mr. Bad Wolf has heard talk of how Mr. Wolf is planning on leaving the Blood Beasts and moving towards a peaceful life. He finds this as an act of treason , and he can’t let him go around and spread word of the gang’s many violent actions.
Mr. Wolf charges angrily towards Mr. Bad Wolf, wanting to kill him right where he is standing for burning down Tarrytown, but looks like the bullet is faster than the slice of a blade. Mr. Wolf tries to crawl away, but it’s too late as Mr. Bad Wolf picks up an axe and lodges it straight into Mr. Wolf’s chest killed him instantly. Mr. Wolf bleeds his guts out in the graveyard and is never heard of again. Several months pass and it’s now springtime. All is going well and by now you’d think that Mr. Wolf’s rotting dead corpse would be decomposing. However that doesn't happen, Mr. Wolf’s blood begins re-entering his body and he comes back to life. Mr. Wolf then gets a message that all the members of the Blood Beasts have split up ever since the massacre at Tarrytown. Mr. Boar went to start his own private company, Ms. Bison went to cause more chaos in the desert, and Ms. Crows lives humbly in the snowy mountains. The whereabouts and last known location of Mr. Bad Wolf are unknown, but wanting revenge against the people who left him for dead Mr. Wolf goes on a wild rampage. Killing everyone who stands in his path and hunting down the three members of the Blood Beasts so he can get the information he needs so he can figure out where Mr. Bad Wolf is. He’ll do whatever it takes, Even if it means becoming the thing he hates most of all. A savage just prouncing around the woods causing chaos.
Gameplay
Bloodroots stands out for it’s fast pace, quick time reaction murder gameplay. The goal of each stage is to clear out each section of enemies and reach the end. Everything dies in one hit, but the catch is that you too die in one hit as well. Enemies run toward you at quick speed, surrounding you from every direction making sure you die within seconds. So the game goes for the approach Hotline Miami and Katana Zero do where you have to learn quickly or else. I mean I guess it’s kind of realistic since humans are quite frail, and this is the wild west era I presume so leather armor was easy to pierce with sharp objects and bullets. Luckily Mr. Wolf has a wide array of tools to cut down the enemies he encounters. What tools exactly ? Everything. Almost any object in Bloodroots can be picked up and smacked across an enemies’ face. Items have a limited amount of uses, meaning you will constantly have to pick up new items to keep fighting. This drive to scramble about to find the closest object to kill someone with is what helps keep the fast pace combat going. Hope you swing it first before they do.
Every item has different properties and when using specific tools at the right situations you can make a difficult combat scenario much easier. Tables and fence poles are pretty weak, being able to only kill one enemy each. Picking up an axe or sword allows you to kill up to three enemies in quick succession. A saber or spear may lunge you forward across long distances. A zip gun or hook can pull you towards enemies. Haystacks can’t kill enemies, but when lit ablaze they can set buildings and enemies on fire. A gun can blast from afar, a barrel can run enemies over and allow you to traverse certain surfaces without getting hurt, a ladder can be swung around like a tornado and speed up your movement, a paddle can vault you to higher ground, etc. Every item in Bloodroots is practically a weapon. Even a carrot can be used to stab a guy to death!
As you progress through the game you will encounter new enemies who can only be defeated in certain ways. Enemies with razor shields need to be killed with a long ranged attack, and enemies with a bouncy shield need to be killed with a close ranged attack. Some enemies will shoot at you, some are plump and won’t die easily, and others find unique ways to kill you. Standing still in Bloodroots is a deathwish, so you always want to keep moving. There are also some platforming challenges sprinkled about which require you to take advantage of some of the traversal abilities certain items give you. We’ll talk more about why these are a pretty big problem. You will die a lot throughout this game, and you will especially die a lot during the bosses at the end of each world. Each with their own attack, multiple phases, and need to be hit several times. However, this game respawns you quickly so it means each death is another step forward. Realizing what killed you and learning to prevent it from happening again. Maybe even use a different weapon to annihilate enemies faster. At the end of each stage the speed and rate you killed enemies is added to a score. You don’t earn anything from it, but it’s nice to know the game tracks your performance. That’s all really. Through trial and error you should be able to locate each of the Blood Beasts, beat their face into a wall, and find out where Mr. Bad Wolf is.
Thoughts
Bloodroots is a game where you’ll accept how ridiculous it is, play it casually for fun, get angry, and be hit by one of the most bizarre endings this year has to offer. I'm going to say one thing right now though. This game is not meant for everyone. It’s a one hit kill game and some of these combat scenarios are designed to kill you as fast as possible. There is an endless chain of trial and error, and eventually the errors will accumulate to frustration. The game was purposely made to be as unfair as possible, and cross the line when it comes to difficulty. However, I feel like this was kind of the point. Your body is falling apart since you were revived from a fatal wound and you aren’t really well equipped to face what is in front of you. That’s why you have to rely on what is in the environment to defend yourself. Once you do overcome a difficult scenario though it feels exhilarating. You worked up until that point and finally got to move on. That’s why I enjoy these one hit kill games or any challenging experience in general. If it’s too much though I think there’s a feature that allows you to skip an entire room of enemies easily.
The combat is what stands out the most to me. Making the player search their surroundings and bash whatever object they find into an enemy’s rib cage. It’s made even more enjoyable when there are finishing attack animations whenever you kill the last enemy within a room, and you are ranked on how fast you kill every enemy in a level without losing your score multiplier. It’s a reaction focused gameplay loop and it kept me hooked. The artstyle is stunning. Everything has this cartoonish look that pops out towards the players eyes, but the game runs on a 3D engine which helps the game stand out more. It reminded me of Samurai Jack, which I’m betting was one of the main influences for this game. The story was pretty good too as well. There’s a reason why I started this review off by talking about bloodlust. How the player is conditioned to kill everything, but it affects the main character and what happens to him. I won’t spoil the ending, but basically the protagonist gets blinded by his actions and becomes even worse than the man who betrayed him. He becomes this villain that even his villains fear. The ending is interesting to say the least. Not perfect as there’s a twist that doesn’t make sense and obscures the introduction, but it is an interesting ending that leaves you questioning what was actually going on.
Bloodroots as a whole is really good, but is it amazing? No, I did have problems with this game. The game is extremely fast paced and the main character moves very quickly, but it feels like he’s walking on ice at times. This is what led to me literally running off of cliffs, or accidentally zooming past the objects I was trying to pick up which leads to walking straight into a combat encounter unarmed. Jumping doesn’t feel good either and it’s hard to tell where you are going to land. This is made worse by the platforming sections which really suck, because they either break the flow between fights or are just there during combat when they don’t need to be. This is made worse by those slippery controls and how Mr. Wolf doesn’t always jump towards where you need to land. The controls overall are not good, noor polished, and could have been adjusted so they wouldn’t feel like a sloppy mess. For a game that lives by the motto, “if it breathes, kill it quickly,” I don’t want to stop or struggle doing platforming sections. Plus the objects used to perform extra jumps aren’t that good to use either.
The game was pretty buggy for me and the framerate dropped a lot. There was one point where I fell through the world, landed in a spot where I didn’t die, and had to reload a checkpoint to continue. Another bug was around the final boss where the game just crashed entirely and I had to restart the entire fight all over again. This happened twice to let you know. The bosses spike drastically in difficulty. That was where my frustration came from the most and there was a point where I wanted to chuck the controller at the wall. Final complaint is that while the ending is interesting the final boss is disappointing and a confrontation that has been built up throughout the entire game doesn’t happen. Maybe their budget was low or they didn’t know exactly what to do for the final fight. These are some really big complaints, but I do want to let you know Bloodroots is good. It’s highly addicting once you get used to the combat and it’s replayable thanks to the score system and choices combat offer. I do recommend it, but be wary of how hard it is. I give Bloodroots an 8/10 for pretty good.
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