Bravery and Greed XBOX Review 9/10 "On the surface, Bravery and Greed looks like a souped-up Wonderboy clone" ⚔️ @BraveryAndGreed #IndieGames #GameDev

On the surface, Bravery and Greed looks like a souped-up Wonderboy clone. And, excellently, that's pretty much what it is. Rekka Games, along with publishers Team 17, have brought us a retro-styled rogue-lite hack and slasher that's really easy to pick up but presents a proper challenge.

The story, such as it is, revolves around a group of four adventurers who are seeking good old fame and fortune. Well, fortune anyway. The objective is to gather four runes to open the way to the dwarven sky fortress, which basically sounds like Scrooge McDuck's money pit, with all the gold you can eat.

You start the game by choosing your character from the four available. Warrior and Amazon specialise in close-up hacking and slashing, while the Rogue and Wizard attack from range with a bow and magic respectively. Each character has its own move set, and there's a room in the tavern where a trainer takes you through the ins and outs of murdering all comers.

Initially, you are dropped into the Ice Caves. Once you defeat the boss you unlock the Subterranean Jungle, and the pattern continues until you can pick your starting stage from the four available. This gives you the choice to either get a tough level done early or gear up before taking on the challenge. 

Gear, gold and food drop from chests, and you can carry four items to help you along the way. Item bonuses include better damage or life steal, double jumping and quicker dodge rolls, the ability to charm enemies to fight on your side, and lots more. You also occasionally discover cages, and freeing the occupants gets you a follower who will fight alongside you for as long as they can stay alive.

Once you die (and you will), the game counts up your gold on a nice summary screen which features awards for that run (e.g. Pot Breaker, if you've smashed up enough scenery, or Glutton, if you've eaten all the food you discover). 

As you gather gold through repeated runs, you unlock new features. You'll get new items available to drop in-game, or new followers to rescue, while Arcanum cards are optional modifiers to tweak the next run. Each card tends to have a perk coupled with a drawback, meaning you have to choose carefully. For example, The Sun card enhances the amount of gold you receive, but enemy corpses explode, causing you damage. 

Picking Arcanum cards is a delicate balance, but can result in a much different experience. Like rogue-lite royalty title Hades, the right combination of modifiers and RNG item drops means that in one run you might hammer through the levels, but next time you'll get steamrollered in the first five minutes. Happily, the nature of this game means it's got that 'just one more go' edge to it.

The graphics are beautifully retro-styled, and in the options, you can even add different scanlines, for that full 8- or 16-bit experience. The music is standard fantasy fare that fits the overall aesthetic nicely. 

And I haven't even mentioned the multiplayer yet. 

You can play Bravery and Greed with up to three others, either online or locally. I'll bang this drum for as long as I live, but I can't understand why more games don't allow couch co-op, particularly in a game like this where it adds so much fun. As well as the main quest, you can play modes like deathmatch or king of the hill, which extends the life of this already fun game even further.

In summary, if you fancy a fantasy slasher that you can either throw 10 minutes at or get your head down and have a good long blast through, alone or with friends, you cannot go wrong with this game.