Lightbringers: Saviors of Raia Review

I come not to bury Frima's Lightbringers: Saviors of Raia, but to praise it. At least, to a certain degree. The game is not necessarily all that impressive: it tries some technically complex elements that do not always work, and the game itself is in the vein of the repetitive hack 'n slash variety, but it will be enjoyable for a good number of people.

This is pretty standard hack 'n slash material. Players go on missions through 72 levels, which have a variety of objectives, but ultimately they all have one same spiritual goal: kill everything that moves. Thankfully it's possible to join up with friends and strangers online, but there's no "players on this level" indicator like what Meltdown has, so finding allies may be hard at times.

The impressive thing is that the game is cross-platform between iOS, Android, and the web. Just login with the same Facebook account to synchronize between the myriad editions. However, the game is rather rough around the edges in its launch version: all sorts of odd bugs where things just won't quite work as they should will pop up. For example, on one mission I had the timer not count at all, costing me energy and the chance to get anything above a bronze medal.

Lightbringers is free-to-play, and is very much based around grinding. As soon as the tutorials are finished, players see that their levels are below what's recommended. Seriously, this game doesn't monkey around: it wants players to start grinding previous levels in order to raise their level, and get more money in order to buy and upgrade items to face the massive enemy hordes more effectively. Playing levels costs energy, a system that is introduced with no subtlety whatsoever. The game almost literally says "Oh yeah, there's an energy system, forgot to mention that." Thankfully, replaying levels can get players quality loot if they complete them in platinum time, so it's not just about getting more XP and gold, there's actual rewards to be had.

But really, I think my issue with Lightbringers is just how chaotic it is. Attacks are done solely by holding down on the attack button. The huge hordes of enemies become indistinguishable after a while. All the items get confusing to keep track of, especially since there's eight different passive abilities and three different abilities, with all sorts of elements that never really made sense when I was playing.

My ultimate opinion on Lightbringers: Saviors of Raia? It's neither the best nor the worst, but I appreciate its ambition - even if it falls flat on its face sometimes.