Behold, I like Shiny Things!

So this morning, May 30th, I woke up feeling like I wanted a change in pace. Lately, I've been heavy into mobile games with a side of League of Legends, and I decided that I didn't want to have a day in which I was frustrated at my teammates, or grinding away on character leveling in one of like three mobile games I'm currently playing. So I booted up my G.ROUND client and looked at the current roster and found The Lightbringer, by Rock Square Thunder, to fill that itch of difference that I wanted. This puzzle-platformer has you playing as a young man who seems to be on an adventure to bring light back to the world. Granted, they may have said his name in the game, I don't remember, but that is a personal thing, in which I don't usually dive too deep into stories of games like this. It's all about the gameplay for platformers and well, this game really brings the shine.

Let's first get this out of the way. Love the musical score. It induced great feelings of relaxation and calm in me. It was pleasing to the ears and my sensitive senses. Not only that, but the sound effects were very well polished and suited the game in my opinion. Definitely an A+ in my book, I had no issues with the sound quality of The Lightbringer. Paired off with the amazing colors and art design, the game felt like I was playing a Mana game mixed with some Mario and a sprinkle of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Using jump puzzles, traps, switches, and adorably evil slimes sporting some heavy-duty hardware, I had a lot of fun navigating the stages and exploring the world with youthful vigilance.

While you're navigating the stages, you are searching for these green light fragments, and stocking them up till you get to the light monolith at the end. There are some red gems as well as other objectives in the stages, that give the game something to look forward to before you decide to just run it down the main path and finish line. Once you collect the important fragments, you are then teleported to another stage, rinse and repeat, but what gives this game that real love and joy for me, the boss fights. After you navigate through a couple of stages, you are introduced to a fight, and using only your jump, dodge and trusty boomerang you must defeat these slimes controlling objects to win. Now, one of my grievances was that, in this alpha demo, once the boss fight was over, which I might want to add that it took me 20min of dying a lot to do, the game kind of just stopped and froze. I wasn't sure if this was due to a bug or that was all to the demo, but I didn't have any closure at all. I wanted to see more and play more. Just to make sure, I reset the game and did it again and it stopped at the same point. Whatever the case may be, I wanted more. Especially after spending so much time on dying to a head and two hands, it made my inner child squeal.

Rock Square Thunder, which is an interesting name I must add, has done an amazing job with this game from what I played. I loved it a lot. It triggered a lot of nostalgia in me, as well as brought me to wanting to revive some older games that I have locked on the hard drive that I haven't touched in ages. With great graphics, soundtrack, sound effects, and more, The Lightbringer really is developing on the right track in my honest opinion. I really do wish to play more of this game and could see myself getting it for those times I'm not in the mood for my main genre of games. Even though I tried to lookup more info on this developer, but couldn't find much, it seems to really show that they are familiar with the blueprint of puzzle platformers. If you are looking for something to rechange and re-invent the wheel, the Lightbringer isn't it. But if you are looking for a game that makes you feel good, makes you excited, makes you move your hands while using a controller as if it makes the character of the game move (you know what I'm talking about), and overall just makes you have fun, then this game is right for you. The Lightbringer is definitely shining all high beams on a, particularly bright future ahead of itself. (Yes, I'm aware the puns are bad... I don't need you to tell me okay?)

You can find The Lightbringer on Steam, and will also be put on Nintendo Switch. You can find the steam link >>here<< as well as the G.ROUND demo >> here <<.