Title: City of Brass
Platform: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PC, PS4, Xbox One
Genre: Action Adventure, First Person, Roguelite
Developer: Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Publisher: Uppercut Games Pty Ltd
Release Date: 2/8/2019 (Switch) 5/4/2018 (other releases)

City of Brass is a game with an interesting pedigree. It’s made by some of the senior developers for Bioshock. What’s more, it has a mostly unexplored wrinkle considering its genre.

Story

Things are mostly story light, here, with much of that relegated to the character profiles and tutorial. Which is fine; this isn’t the sort of game that needs a heavily involved narrative. You are either The Fool of his pursuer, The Traveler (or a number of other, unlockable characters); both searching after the city’s legendary wealth. Beyond that, I’ve yet to really see; Roguelikes are a genre designed around death being fun, after all.

That said, the 1001 Nights theme is not one seen very often anymore. So it’s nice to see a game adopt it.

Gameplay

City of Brass is a Roguelite, so that means random dungeons, deadly traps, vicious enemies, and loot. That said, it’s also a first person game, so that puts a different spin on combat and exploration. You’re (initially, at least) armed with a sword and a whip. And, I’ll admit, first person swordplay is a bit difficult to get used to. You’ll constantly misjudge your striking distance starting out.

The whip is a combination problem solver/navigational tool. You can use it to swing up to otherwise unreachable spots, grab treasure/throwing items, trigger traps, stun enemies, and set off volatile objects like braziers and explosive jars. Stunning and disarming enemies with it is particularly important; it makes those enemies safer to approach and fight.

There’s also a whole host of items of various types to find and buy, as well. Everything from weapons with special properties, to different armor, to charms; all meant to change how you play the game, or how it affects your character. There are also potions, which can either help or hinder you; you usually don’t know until you swig one down.

You unlock new characters by ranking up. You’re given rank experience every time you die. Most importantly, your loot is the key part of that; it determines how much experience you get when you die. So balancing frugality with what you strictly need to get through levels is important in the long run. Dying with a bunch of loot is actually a good thing, in this case.

Finally, there are Blessings & Burdens. These are a means to adjust the difficulty of the game to your liking. You want things to be a bit easier? Turn on some blessings, like extra health or fewer enemies. You want a harder run? Turn on some burdens, like respawning enemies or a lower time limit per floor. Blessings are available from the start, while burdens must be unlocked. That may seem backwards to you based on how accustomed you are to game logic, but it makes sense in reality. Making the game easier at the start helps you get acclimated to everything.

Graphics

City of Brass is definitely a stylized game. From the setting to the characters, everything is guaranteed to stand the test of time, as is common with stylized games. It also means it’ll look good, regardless of the system you choose to run it on.

Sound

The sound fits the mood quite well. You have those bold, adventurous, mystical tracks going on. You also get your share of suspicion rousing environmental tracks as well. You’re not going to find anything displeasing here. Though you may want to fiddle with the sound settings a bit; they were maxed out by default for me.

Controls

The game controls pretty well overall. Though, admittedly, it would help a bit if Switch games came with digital manuals so that you could look things up without going through a tutorial again. Aside from that, I personally found that I often had some difficulty turning around. In addition, since the right stick is super important here, having jump on a face button really makes lining up jumps and navigation a bit difficult. Things aren’t loose by any means, but they feel like by default they need a good tweaking.

Conclusion

City of Brass is a pretty good game overall. And it’s a great choice if you own a Switch; being able to take a game like this everywhere is a good thing. Especially as your runs tend to be short on a floor to floor basis, and you can save and quit in between them.

“City of Brass will leave you wanting to challenge yourself again. A great choice for the portable Switch”

Final Score:
4/5

We were provided a copy of this game for review

About Author