Vambrace: Cold Soul Reviews
The roguelike nature of Darkest Dungeon combine with more substantial narrative and exploration, and a Korean manhwa aesthetic. Unfortunately, the mechanics of Vambrace need work. Your squad of mercenaries is largely disposable, there's too much randomization in terms of progress, and there are several issues with the user interface. Perhaps a sequel can bring the gameplay closer to the excellent aesthetics, but Vambrace: Cold Soul doesn't come together completely.
Sky-high ambition meets sub-par execution in this roguelike fantasy-epic. Vambrace: Cold Soul delivers a large helping of worldbuilding but fails to provide engaging gameplay to accompany it.
Vambrace: Cold Soul is a project that uses the mechanics of Darkest Dungeon in the hope of marrying them with anime style and a good plot. Restrictions spoil the gameplay, turning it into a worship of grind and pure chance. Devespresso Games released a variety of patches, but it didn't really help...
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Although the developers' love for the craft and medium is on full display at all times, Vambrace: Cold Soul does suffer considerably from just how much it proudly lifts from other titles.
This is, for the most part, a disappointment. By no means a terrible game, Vambrace: Cold Soul plays it a bit too safe with its concepts, as most of them are straight up copied from better tactical rogue-likes and RPGs, and especially Darkest Dungeon. Gorgeous character design can only get you so far...
Vambrace: Cold Soul is by no means a bad game. It's far too derivative and simple to reach the same league as Darkest Dungeon as a classic, but it's an enjoyable time waster, with superb production values and neat, clean, classical turn based combat action. The best way to play the game is probably on the Nintendo Switch, too, since it's the kind of background noise that works while you've got the sport or a movie on TV.
Vambrace: Cold Soul is not bad, but it quickly becomes a mindless, repetitive, grinding slog of the same battles that require very little strategy, not to mention the lack of any sort of enemy variety.
Vambrace: Cold Souls is one of the best-looking games we've seen on Switch – it really is a stunner – but in terms of gameplay, it's a pedestrian affair. Dungeons are boring and difficult, combat is bereft of any real strategic depth or flair and it thinks nothing of wasting hours of your time for zero reward. The story gets off to a cracking start and it's obvious that an amazing amount of artistic talent has been channelled into creating the City of Icenaire and its surroundings, but, in the end, it's all rendered a little pointless by the fact it's attached to such a monotonous and dreary plod of an RPG.
Vambrace: Cold Soul falls down in almost every way that matters, and there are far better games out there more worthy of your time.
It looks gorgeous enough, but will you ever warm up to the combat in this rogue-lite dungeon crawler?
Vambrace: Cold Soul creates a compelling fantasy world for fans of the genre. However, progression can be slow due to the heavy reliance on RNG, which can be frustrating for some.
Vambrace has the art, sound and story direction of a top-flight RPG, bolted onto a badly designed roguelite.