Godbreakers is one of the hardest games I’ve ever written about. I put in over a dozen hours into the game, but I still have trouble describing my thoughts. This is a game I wish were better than it is. Some aspects stand out. But the weak parts cast a big shadow over them.
Not much of a story to talk about
I’m going to get this out of the way first: the story in Godbreakers is forgettable. You’re a robot-like creature that travels to different planets. I completely forgot the plot of the game because none of it is memorable. This is a run-based game that expects the player to return to planets many times to complete quests.
Each planet you visit has its own unique theme. But they all fit the same structure. You’ll teleport down and go through roughly 6-8 “rooms”. Each room will contain 1 or 2 waves of foes. Once you defeat them, you’ll open up the next room to visit. There is a bit of randomization on each planet.
You won’t see the same room every time, and its placement also changes. The only constant is that each planet has one mid-planet boss and a final one. Some enemy types are exclusive to a planet, but there are a few that appear on each one.
Fantastic combat with depth
For those familiar with “Soulsborne” combat, you’ll feel right at home. You have your basic and secondary attacks, but you’ll also have the chance to tweak your build in different ways. At the start of the run, you’ll get an ability attack. These are either grenade-type projectiles or area-of-attack abilities. On top of that, each of the game’s six character types has its own special attack. The default character has a rapid slash that I enjoyed using every chance I could.
The other big feature is the titular Godbreaker ability. As you attack with your other moves, you will build up a meter. Once filled, you can take control of an enemy character. Once you destroy them, you gain their ability for a one-time use. So, if you break an enemy that shoots a laser, you’ll be able to shoot one. These do more damage than the other attacks, but these are one-time use attacks.
This forces you to think before using them. You might want to save a particular one for a bit so you can use it on a boss character. This thought process plays a huge factor in how you proceed between bigger fights.
When the camera gets in the way
While I was enjoying the combat, the camera was super frustrating. For starters, the game doesn’t default to a lock-on camera. You have to enable this through the game’s menu. But even when you use the lock-on feature, it’s not that good. If a character jumps, you lose targeting. Even if the character is visible, the lock-on loses its tracking. Switching between enemies was cumbersome, often not changing to the closest target. This led to a lot of times of me getting hit when I should have been able to avoid contact.
Even if without the lock-on feature, room sizes pose a problem with the camera. Enemies love to swarm together. If you’re in a corner, this causes the camera to zoom in close. This, in turn, makes it difficult to rotate the camera and focus on avoiding enemy contact.
Boss fights are in larger arenas, but they also suffer from camera issues. With so much happening, the camera takes a while to focus behind your character’s back. In a game where one hit from a boss can take a huge chunk of your health, you will curse at the screen in frustration.
Unique boss-types, the same boss-fight
The boss fights are both good and bad. I liked every boss fight. While each fight felt unique, they all have the same three-stage structure.
Each planet’s boss fit the theme of the environment. This allows for some interesting fights. But you know exactly how each fight will progress. The first part is always the boss and your character fighting one-on-one. Yes, they will have their attacks, and they use the environment, but there are no distractions. But once you reach the second stage of the fight, the minions join the fight.
You need minions to activate your godbreaker ability. Because of that, these spawn every couple of moments. Which also means that you have to take them out. This was especially annoying on one planet. One planet is a garden-like one. The boss character here spawns mini plants that fire ‘bullets’ at you. These are one-hit kill foes, but you’ll notice that killing them also causes a bar on the boss’s health bar to increase.
Once filled, the boss transforms, and its speed and attacks increase. The logical move here is to avoid these to prevent it from shapeshifting. Unfortunately, if you leave them alone, more spawn. You have to take out the smaller foes or spend more time avoiding projectiles.
Built for co-op
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to play the game’s co-op mode because there isn’t a quick-match option. You can either host a room or join one that you know the code for. This decision not to offer this at launch might pose a problem. Sure, you can play the game on your own, but there are aspects of this game that feel better with a group.
While the game scales, the layout of boss fights feels better with friends. Even when you play alone, you can see how having teammates can make a difference. When there are a lot of enemies on the battlefield, each player can focus on something. There are no ranged units (anything resembling an archer), so you do have to rely on close combat. But, if you have the right team make-up, I can only imagine how effective you’ll be in boss fights.
However, what’s strange is that only the boss fights feel designed for group play. The stages on the first two playable planets are narrow. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of space to fit swarms of enemies and up to three other players. In solo play, smaller enemies love to swarm your character. I can’t imagine how crowded that gets when playing with others.
Wish I had a better time
If Godbreakers had a better camera and a story I cared about, I would like it a lot more than I did. The camera caused me far too many problems, leading to some embarrassing mistakes on my part. Meanwhile, I didn’t bother following the story, and the bits of lore you get in each run aren’t engaging. I’m not too sure there’s enough here to appeal to a wider audience. If you can gather friends to play this, then you’ll definitely enjoy the combat.
Note: I received a game code for the purpose of reviewing the game. Code was supplied by the team managing the game.
