Published On Jun 27, 2024
You can find The Bloodline here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/11...
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- Transcript -
The bloodline Proves that if Elder Scrolls was made by one guy it would have just as much Quality Assurance.
The Bloodline is an Steam early access sandbox adventure RPG by solo dev Miles Whittaker and is an exercise in trying to work within a manageable scope and failing miserably.
I got a review code months ago but I’ve avoided doing a video because every time I logged in the game had changed. reviewing a game this early almost feels like reviewing an omelette while the eggs are still inside the chicken.
The Bloodline is an RPG that seems more concerned with just chucking everything you like about First Person RPGs into a big pile and just hoping for the best.
This is a game that could only exist because there was no one boring and sensible enough further up the command chain to say no to a debuff that farts you to death. Or, if you time it right you can make the farts a speed buff apparently. Every cloud has a brown lining.
It brings back climbing as a levelable skill, Chucks in wall running and since there was a meme about grappling hooks making every game better that's been YOLOd in there as well. The number of movement options alone make this game a playground of options.
There's even Town building because the only place adequate housing can exist now is inside fantasy games.
When I started the game it made a big deal out of letting me be free to do whatever I want so I took that as permission to ignore base building and anything in the game that looked boring to me and instead just became a full time goblin slayer
The spells and abilities are ridiculous. Imagine the spells you'd cook up with your friends and then you just went ahead and did it. Or you can pick people up by their blood, or teleport inside them and explode em, or turn into a rabbit that immediately gets stuck on a blade of grass. Now this is videogames.
There are even spells just lying around in the world waiting to be discovered which makes poking around surprisingly rewarding.
Skilling is up to the eyeballs in optional mini games, making everything engaging all of the time. Successfully doing them gives bonus xp and materials. For crafting it makes the shit you make more valuable.You can Roleplay a nerd who sits in a library all day learning spells even. That's immersive.
You’re going to be gaining XP from pretty much everything you do. There are no wrong answers in this game. Except fishing. Most of my footage is fishing. Fishing… is a problem..
About the only thing that hasn’t been let off the leash in this game so far is a writer foaming at the mouth to bash out an interesting story, but I’m too busy becoming arsonist spiderman to worry about that.
Since making a huge expansive detailed world can be somewhat difficult for one guy to achieve the game is broken up into explorable zones separated by overworld travel interspersed with enough random encounters to completely derail all of my play sessions as I get immediately distracted.
So this review isn't a “you must buy this game immediately” review. This is more of a general alert to keep an eye on it till the game is in a state you're personally happy with. I like to imagine this game is going the same way as Caves of Qud did for me, sitting in my steam library for the better part of a decade before opening it again to discover I'm the proud owner of one of the best games ever made.