Bloodroots – brutally hard but very rewarding
BLOODROOTS Nintendo Switch / PS4 / PC / Xbox One 9/10
BLOODROOTS certainly does not provoke desires of hero worship, despite taking into consideration the fact that our main character is a murderous woodsman on an exceptionally violent rampage against the gang who almost killed him - a typical lightning rod for unchecked adulation.
All joking aside, while Bloodroots’ deranged protagonist isn’t likely to end up selling too many stuffed toys, what he does give us is a very, very good revenge story wrapped in a well crafted, razor-sharp package created by developers Paper Cult.
Anyone who has ever played Hotline Miami or games of its ilk will be immediately familiar with Bloodroots in that it is very much ‘kill or be killed’. Enemies go down in one hit, but so do you, making life in Bloodroots a very fickle and fleeting experience. The combat is fast and vicious, with the mechanics allowing you to chain multiple hits together, bumping up the grade awarded to you at the end of each level.
There’s something innately addictive about the masochistic and often frustrating doctrine of games like Hotline Miami, Ape Out etc, and Bloodroots is no exception. Further contributing to the addictive nature of the genre, Bloodroots’ arsenal of weapons is huge, varied and very wacky, with each weapon you pick up being a veritable glass cannon, having only a durability of one to three hits.
Your characters speed will also vastly depend on your mastery of the weapons provided. Replaying whole levels often revealed a specific path to take and combination of weaponry to use. Towards the end of the playthrough you may find yourself positively gliding through levels, leaving a bloody and absolute trail of destruction in your wake.
Finding a satisfying way to chain attacks together through a level will feel immensely rewarding. Bloodroots, like Hotline Miami, may look like chaos to the outside observer, but to the player it will appear an ordered destruction of levels you will have died to innumerable times.
The entirety of Bloodroots is wrapped in a gorgeous aesthetic and while the environments are subject to dramatic and sudden changes, the aesthetic remains consistent throughout, highlighting the dedication and skill of the art team behind the game.
Bloodroots is a firm recommendation for anyone skilled and insane enough to tackle yet another one of these brutally hard but very rewarding titles.