Soulbringer is a 3rd-person perspective RPG/Action game that had potential to be a great game, but it's technical problems and near impossible to defeat final boss made it a not so enjoyable game.
The hero of the game is sent to live with his uncle Andrus in the city of Madrigal. While there, his uncle tells him the story of an ancient warrior named Harbinger, who sealed the Revenants (demon kings) in the well of souls. Well of course, that seal has since been broken, and now those demons, as well as every evil creature they have since spawned, has escaped and are now threatening to destroy this World.
This is your typical quest driven RPG, and for the most part you cannot progress too far into the game until certain quests are completed. Soulbringer is very linear and does not offer the gamer much room for just doing things in any order they wish. Other gameplay features that were present in this game included a Journal (used to keep track of quests), and a World Map. There were also structures called "Hex Stones", which were used to travel to other areas of the game world. There were also a number of gameplay problems. I encountered some spots in the game that would actually freeze up my computer, and I either had to try to avoid those particular spots during the game, or re-load it. Both solutions were very annoying. Combat was extremely difficult as well, and I could never seem to land any decent blows upon my enemies. Another aspect of combat that was unsatisfying was the fact that you never had any NPC's to help you out. No mercenaries, hirelings, or whatever they are called. It was just your character. No matter how many badies you had to deal with; you always had to deal with them alone. That sucked!!! And last but not least, the final boss creature seemed damn near impossible to defeat and forced me to just quit the game entirely, so I never finished this game.
Graphics were pretty decent in Soulbringer. There were a lot of snowy landscapes, and most of the environments you will explore include the town of Madrigal and other areas outside of town. Places like cemeteries; the type of place you would expect skeletons and zombies.... LOL.
The learning curve was not very good in this game. There was not any kind of tutorial, and you had to find out on your own how everything worked. Granted, it did not take a long time to figure out how to get to your Journal and so forth, but some kind of in-game help screen or something similar to that would have been good.
The sound was another strong point. You had good weapon sounds, and other characters that initiated dialogue with you had understandable and clear voices. I think there may have been some kind of background music as well, but don't be surprised if I am wrong about that, it's been awhile since I played this game. I don't remember much about a music score.
I would be very surprised if anyone wanted to play this game more than twice. As I said before, I did not even get completely through it once, much less play it again. Some of the things typically associated with replayability, (like different character class choices, difficulty settings, and maybe even a chance to get different quests) were missing from Soulbringer. In fact, I am not even sure if it had a Multiplayer option. So yeah, it would take a lot to get me to try this game again.
Alright, as you can read, I did not like this game very much. But I have noticed that other reviewers gave it some more positive remarks. Maybe this game was just not for me, and maybe you will find something in it that you enjoy. I sincerely hope so. Even though I enjoy writing these reviews (I of course hope that people check them out and gain something from them) that does not mean that I expect each of you to always take my advice. I would hope that my fellow GTZ gamers would make their own decision as to whether or not they want to play a particular game. Don't let a review make that decision for you!!!
