In May 2019, developer Blue Manchu released a roguelike first-person shooter called Bastards of the void, an evocative title for an evocative game. Bastards of the void was met with much love from critics and fans alike upon its debut in 2019, and five years later, Blue Manchu is back with another vibrant roguelike adventure. But while Savage Bastards While retaining the same style and tone as its spiritual predecessor, it features some major differences in terms of gameplay.
In short, Savage Bastards It is a roguelike first person shooter just like Bastards of the voidbut it has an extra layer of turn-based strategy that its predecessor didn't have. This gives Savage Bastards a very different sense of pacing, and while that might disappoint some fans, there's still a lot worth checking out. Although, not everyone Savage BastardsThe elements have a satisfying impact.
Wild Bastards has a gripping sci-fi narrative
After a very short prologue, Savage Bastards' the basic premise is revealed, and it's a pretty engaging classic Sci-Fi/Western narrative. Aboard the mysterious sentient ship The Drifter, players must travel the galaxy and collect the souls of their dead former crew members, all in the hopes of eventually reaching the promised land, a haven for bots, mutants, and xenos.
Savage Bastards' the story is simple but effective and gives the player a strong incentive to keep hurtling through the galaxy. There are also a lot of fun little in-universe Sci-Fi explanations for the game mechanics, such as The Drifter sensibilities as the reason behind the game's roguelike loop. Savage BastardsThe main campaign took about 9 hours to complete on normal difficulty.
Savage Bastards It also has a procedural campaign mode, a challenge mode, and an Iron Man mode if players want an even tougher challenge. These extra modes are a nice addition that help the game feel like a complete package, but their modifiers won't really change the basic loop that much.
Wild Bastard's gameplay is more than it can chew.
Savage Bastards throws players into the deep end, and isn't afraid to let them shudder for a bit. From the start, Savage Bastards offers players quite a few overlapping systems, and they are often left to figure it out on their own in the game's opening hour. This makes for an intimidating first impression.
But after a lap or two, Savage Bastards' initial hurdle begins to fade away and an engaging gameplay loop emerges. Players will quickly get into the rhythm of teleporting to a new sector in search of a new Outlaw to unlock and begin the lengthy rescue process. Once in the new sector, players must plot their path across the stars, with each planet offering a key upgrade along the way. Once over a planet, players teleport to the surface, and that's where Savage Bastards' new elements of turn-based strategy come into play.
With a party of 1-4 Outlaws, players arrive on a planet that is mapped out like a board game, with key points of interest dotted along linear paths. Players have a certain amount of movement per turn, and the overall goal is to grab as much loot, upgrades, mods, and valuable resources as possible before a powerful boss comes hunting them down and forcing them to leave the planet empty-handed.
In addition to power-ups, resources and helpful tiles that restore the player's movement or health, Savage Bastards' The board game-like planet maps are littered with combat encounters such as checkpoints and enemy patrols. Reaching one of these combat encounters forces players into a challenging first-person Showdown, where they are required to shoot every enemy in order to progress.
This fundamental cycle repeats itself for Savage Bastards' entirety, but it remains quite engaging thanks to the game's many overlapping progression systems and evolving mechanics. In each sector, players will encounter at least one new gameplay mechanic. These can be permanent power-ups like axes, tonics that grant the player a way to heal team members, and the Pal/Feud system that sees the player's band of outlaws feud or befriend each other at random intervals. These mechanics that are delivered to the player in a drip-feed throughout the game fuel a sense of rewarding progression that is essential to a roguelike, but it's not quite perfect.
A major problem with Savage Bastards' the gameplay loop is that while unlocking these mechanics feels immediately rewarding, some don't really have that much of an impact on the game. The Pal/Feud system is probably the best example of this. Initially, this system seems very in-depth, with players being presented with a large graph explaining who is feuding with who and who is friends with who, all displayed via multiple lines connecting the Outlaw icons.
At the beginning of the game, it matters which characters are feuding, because they cannot teleport together. But once the player has unlocked six or more Outlaws, this system can be largely forgotten, because they will likely always have a duo they are happy with, regardless of who is feuding. This means that the Beans resource is almost redundant, because the player will rarely need it to heal feuds. This criticism extends to several of Savage Bastards' gameplay mechanics, many of which are fun to unlock, but ultimately lack the depth to make them engaging throughout the entire game.
Unfortunately, with this lack of depth, Savage Bastards' the gameplay loop can start to feel quite repetitive after a few hours. This is especially true if players don't appreciate the turn-based nature of the game's planet map, which takes up a large portion of the gameplay.
The outlaws of Wild Bastards are a mix of friendly scoundrels
As the name suggests, much of Savage Bastards' the story and gameplay are based on the Outlaws cast. Throughout the game's main campaign, players will unlock a total of 13 playable Outlaws. Much like its spiritual predecessor, Savage BastardsThe game's distinctive comic book-style art does a good job of making each of the game's 13 Outlaws stand out, and the game's voice acting does a great job of fleshing out the characters' personalities.
From a gameplay standpoint, each Outlaw wields a unique weapon and special ability. In theory, this means that Savage Bastards offers 13 different play styles. But once again, things are not as pretty as they seem on the surface. In reality, Savage Bastards' 13 Outlaws is a mixed bag, at least in terms of gameplay. While Savage Bastards It hosts many useful characters with powerful, versatile weapons and special abilities that are very satisfying to use, but it also hosts some that are simply not worth bringing into battle.
While opinions on some Outlaws vary depending on the player's preferred playstyle in first-person shooters, there are some Outlaws that are objectively weaker than others. Smoky's fire-breathing finger gun looks cool as all hell, but it's incredibly weak and its reload time is just too long, for example. In a standard FPS, these features wouldn't be a major issue, but Savage Bastards It's a tough game where every single shot counts. There's simply no room for weak Outlaws on the team, as weak Outlaws mean a quick death, and death means an abrupt end to a run, the need to start over, and a strong feeling of frustration that quickly tarnishes the entire experience.
Unfortunately, this leads to Savage Bastards' roster feels a bit unbalanced, and by the halfway point, players will have found their favorite set of four Outlaws and will likely ignore a good portion of the roster. That said, things do improve with the game's Ace upgrade system, which grants Outlaws powerful stat boosts and new abilities. These Aces go a long way in making the weaker Outlaws on the roster a bit more bearable, but they still won't convince players to replace their favorite four.
Wild Bastards makes more shots than they miss, but it's a tough call
Savage Bastards It's a very vibrant and very ambitious game that makes an effort to add new gameplay mechanics and playable characters. But while that effort is certainly commendable, there's no denying that many of those elements just don't hit as hard as they should. There's still plenty of room for fans to enjoy Savage Bastardsbut that period will not be free from moments of confusion, frustration and a little boredom.
Savage Bastards is now available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Game Rant received a PS5 code for this review.
