"ScourgeBringer" - that's what the inhabitants of the game world call a mysterious monolith that brought devastation to their planet and almost wiped out the population. What can you do about it as the young warrior Kyhra? Dive into the depths of the monolith and solve the mystery! Along the way you will die, die and die again. But at the same time, you will become stronger and stronger by gaining blood currency.
With a very small pixel heroine (for which it would almost need a virtual magnifying glass), after a good tutorial you go directly to the first level "The interwoven entrance". Although the standard enemies still act tamely here, even small bugs constantly nibble away at Kyhra's scarce life bar. You start in a room in the middle, from which doors lead off in all four directions. If you step through one, there is no smooth scrolling, but the camera jumps (fortunately without loading time) immediately to the next room: In most cases, all doors close immediately, and two waves of enemies want to get at Kyhra. Once the brood is defeated, the doors open again and you choose the next room. This way you gradually fight your way through the 20 to 30 room levels - the arrangement of the chambers and the placement of merchants, blood altar, or boss room is different every time. Nevertheless, ScourgeBringer never degenerates into a search game - you're busy enough with fights, you're happy about rooms where no enemy is waiting, and you never lose track thanks to the map that always fades in. In addition, a teleport to already visited rooms can soon be unlocked in Kyrha's talent tree - but for that, you need Judge's Blood!
And judge's blood can be obtained from judges and fortunately also from their gatekeepers. That means: Only if Kyhra succeeds in flattening more and more gatekeepers and then defeating the judge in the final room of each level, Judge's Blood will flow into your account. And only with it is real progress possible because only with it you can buy the numerous improvements: For example, a starting bonus of blood points for each attempt. Or a simple increase in health points. Or a longer stun of enemies. Or a more forgiving combo counter. Or the aforementioned quick travel to previously visited rooms. All of these make Kyrna's difficult task more doable, make her hero's life easier. Once purchased with Judge's Blood, upgrades can be deactivated (handy if you don't like an upgrade), but not returned. Wise consideration of what to do with the hard-earned currency is, therefore, part of the game.
Conclusion
ScourgeBringer is a really strong video game! Due to the always precise, but easy-going combination of fast cuts, dash maneuvers, smashing blows, and double jumps, Kyhra seems almost weightless - elegantly and nevertheless lethally, the woman with the blue mane, who is only a few pixels tall, whizzes around between her enemies. But even in its present form, including countless deaths and somewhat tough unlockable upgrades the game is good. Because despite the manageable number of environments, ScourgeBringer doesn't get boring anytime soon: because the individual stages are rearranged each time, because the bosses look cool plus are mostly fair, and because the idea of linking ammo for your firearm to melee combos is just good. Also, there are some really strong level design tricks built-in, like teleport walls or projectile-permeable platforms.
