The game opens in pale white. The screen awash, wind howling, silent block text credits. It all feels like the opening of an art film. The introduction of Tarrytown, bathed in blood, smoldering, punctuating the pure white cold with warmth. The music swoons with an ominous mixture of Sergio Leone and Akira Kurasawa. A confrontation, a duel, blood in the snow. What is this title with such character in the opening moments?

This is Bloodroots. A wicked action brawler by Paper Cult Games.

I went into Bloodroots having only watched the trailer once. Watching the trailer before release I thought I knew exactly what I was getting but then the game opened and I realized Bloodroots is an indie action game that has far more character than I assumed I was going to get. In style alone the opening piqued my interest. In execution, I found myself clinging to the rapidity.

You take control of Mister Wolf, an outlaw with a proclivity for violence and mayhem. Betrayed by your old crew, you find yourself on a warpath seeking vengeance. As you progress, and as Bloodroot’s story starts to take form, you begin to question what you think you know. Each encounter with your former crew shining a sliver of light on the events that led to the game’s opening moments.

Despite the story’s attempts to question your actions, Bloodroots never gives the player any agency over their actions, even in moments where one could conceive some kind of alternative solution. Where Katana Zero, for instance, puts a lot of weight on the player’s choices in conversation, Bloodroots merely feeds you dialogue and sets you loose. I didn’t have much of a problem with this however, finding a great deal of contentment murdering my way through room after room.

Bloodroots is built on a simple gameplay loop. Hack, slash, die, repeat. A familiar formula with dozens of iterations, I was a big fan of games like Katana Zero, Hotline Miami, and Ape Out. One-hit-kills for everyone, including the player. The formula means you will die. A lot. To counteract this, these games are bleeding fast. Seconds after death you’re hacking away at enemies again. Bloodroots nails this core tenant. A fact that I was immensely thankful for.

The first few passes of any given room come with your learning deaths. You have to learn where enemies are, carve out a path that makes the most sense, and then execute. Finding that path that fits your play-style can take some time. Bloodroots excels at giving you a multitude of options. Do you go left, right, down the middle? Your only job is to slay, the method is up to you.

But when you get it? When you mesh with the weapon pickups and enemy placement, the end result is pure, unadulterated chaos. And boy is it fun! Bloodroots is at its best in these moments. The push and pull of learning weapon placement, finding a best route, and executing is enrapturing. Giving players the ability to go back to each level later, offers up the opportunity to further hone your craft, should you desire to.

And trust me, you will have a desire to.

Bloodroots positively oozes style.From the music to the art direction, from the level layouts to the animations. Which reminds me, the final kill in every room is given a specific animation depending on what weapon you are using. The first time I encountered this felt like finding an easter egg, every time following I made sure I had a different weapon to see how they all play out. Vibe Avenue’s score also absolutely rips and quickly found its way into my music library.

Each act of this game ends in a boss fight, as you would imagine, and those boss fights, while certainly tough, never angered me. Boss fights are generally tricky to thread the needle on, but again, Bloodroots leans on its extremely creative design elements to deliver interesting fights that challenge you to use the skills you have developed over the course of the game. As well as giving you a few bullet-hell inspired attack phases to deftly navigate through.

Except for that one, punishing, Flappy Bird segment with no checkpointing. That part can eat shit.

Bloodroots is a devilishly smart, chaotically creative jaunt through fields of blood and mayhem well deserving of your twenty dollars. Snatch it on PS4, Switch, and the Epic Games Store now, and Steam soon!

Check out our review on YouTube! Grab Bloodroots now!

@LubWub
~Caleb

Bloodroots Review