Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands

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Why

Why Not

Impressions

With over 19 000 games released on Steam each year it's inevitable some will get lost in the shuffle. It's an absolute crime Deathbulge was one of them though; its cant-miss humour may be subjective but the music-themed, far more active twist on traditional turn-based combat alone would make it worth playing. But even if the humour doesn't land for you, combat isn't all Deathbulge has to offer.

The premise itself is kinda whacky but within that premise characters act consistently and don't completely change from minute to minute for the sake of a gag. Character designs are all brilliant, and characters/enemies all have memorable animations. Almost every side quest has enough interesting interactions or outcomes to justify its existence beyond just 'collect x items for reward', and the build variety is actually pretty crazy for such a short game. Wayyy more people should play this, and I plan to spend the rest of the review convincing you why.

Story

What could be better for a band struggling to gain popularity than entering a 'Battle of the Bands' giving them a chance to tour with the legendary Pokalyps if they win? Nothing, except maybe entering one where the 'Battle' part is less literal, and all entrants other than the winner don't die at the end. Having enthusiastically signed her band up before reading the fine print, Faye uses their newfound musical combat abilities to drag bandmates Ian and completely-in-the-dark Briff along on a mission to save all the participants by defeating Pokalyps themselves.

Along their journey they'll evict a rapping duck from the hair of a (not ancient!) wood goddess, earn their passage on a bus by laying the giant egos of ghostly musical legends to rest, survive a reunion with Faye & Ian's mum and Briff finally realising how literal the 'Battle' is and plenty more. With worse writing all of this could be an endless cavalcade of 'hahah look how quirky our game is lol', but in Deathbulge it somehow fits together. The crazy logic of this world is oddly consistent, and there's enough recognisably human about the way characters interact with their insane world to keep it relatable.

By the end I found myself genuinely caring about the fates of a twerking-prone band called 'Platinum Scrumptious' and cyborg rivals who'd previously kidnapped & tried to kill me. Crafting a coherent story out of all the craziness in this game is quite a tightrope to walk, and IMO the devs pulled it off here.

Combat

I like JRPGs. I do not necessarily like JRPG combat, and given the prevalence of 'turn-based but with timing' combat lately I suspect I'm not alone. Deathbulge solves this conundrum by having one only bandmate be the 'lead' at any point, making them both the only one able act and the only valid target for enemy single-target attacks.

It's not as simple as just choosing who to push to the front when it's your turn; time pauses while selecting an action to take during your turn but in between turns both your band and enemies move along their own 'measure' bar, which acts as a turn order tracker and can have various helpful or harmful effects applied. The speed of your active character controls how fast you move through this bar, but high speed characters have low defence so to play optimally you'll want to leave your glass cannons in the lead until just before an enemy attack before swapping to Ian so he can shrug attacks off with his GIANT MUSCLES.

It's not really as simple as that either though; since being in the lead slot slows your hype (mana) regen if you leave your attacker there they'll quickly be unable to use their best moves. Some negative measure effects also drain hype when passed through, and characters might be strong against specific damage types despite having low defences in general. Overall there's enough to juggle that you'll be annoyed if you need to look away between turns, not something that's often true of games in this genre. Plus, it's just pretty fun overall. Animations for the attacks are great and I highly recommend trying every new mod you get at least once just to see them.

Doing so will also introduce you to the surprising amount of build variety on offer. Each character has three mod slots (spells), and the class of the first one equipped determines their class. Other mods from that class have their hype cost halved, encouraging (but not requiring!) you to use mods from the same class. Also each character has a whole new design for each class, reflected in the overworld and conversation portraits, which must have meant a lot of extra work for their already busy character artist. In addition to the mod slots characters also get a 'basic' attack with some fixed effect (not scaling with stats like mods do) that doesn't cost hype but can be very useful in certain situations. You can collect more of these from fallen enemies, upgrade them and eventually gain access to a class allowing you to combine two of them in the same action by swapping all your mod slots for basic attacks. Each character can also sew 1 (later 2) band patches onto their jacket, providing various stat boosts or meta bonuses.

Last but not least, enemies are visible in the overworld and can be (mostly trivially) avoided, meaning no random encounters! Grinding isn't really necessary either, if you beat up a few of each enemy before trying the area boss you'll generally be strong enough if you play it well. Overall the only JRPG I've played where I generally looked forward to combat encounters, especially against new enemies & bosses.

Conclusion

Deathbulge is a fun, quirky game that's clearly had a lot of care put into it. Character designs, varied but accessible mechanics and a plethora of nice quality of life touches make it clear the devs actually played their game and thought about what it would be like for others to play, which is surprisingly rare. I had a great time with it and want more people to have a great time with it so the devs can make all the money they should have two years ago and get the chance to make another great game (if they're still around :/).