Developed and Published By: Polished Games
Categories: Action, Rougelite
Release Date: 06.18.24
Price: $4.99
*Game Download Code graciously provided for the purpose of review
I have yet to play Vampire Survivors. I’m aware that it’s really good and super cheap, but I never got around to playing it. But that’s how I found out about Be My Horde. When it was first announced, I saw a lot of people saying it looked really good and were comparing it to Vampire Survivors. But I didn’t pay much attention to it either.
But then I saw the game again while I was at PAX EAST in early May and I was able to try it out on the Steam Deck. I did one ten minute run and I was locked in, I tuned everything else out because I was having a lot of fun with the trial. Once I finished the trial, I knew that I wanted to get it for myself and invest some time in it.
You play as Moriana, a necromancer. What makes Be My Horde unique is that you don’t do any of the fighting. You start off with a few minions and they do the fighting for you. When other enemies are killed, you resurrect them and they become part of your horde to do even more fighting.
I had a lot of fun with the trial but the actual game itself is so much bigger. After acquiring the complete game, I had a few runs that weren’t as good as I would have liked. But once I better understood the mechanics of the game and worked on upgrades, the chaos of the game began to shine.
The more enemies you kill, the more chaotic the gameplay experience becomes. Tougher enemies begin to appear and there’s really no limit to how many minions and enemies can be on the screen at once. You can have an army where the entire screen is filled with minions, and I thought that was a really cool mechanic.
But it’s not all about getting more and more minions. Upgrades and buffs play a very important role in the game. As you collect souls, you fill up an EXP bar and you gain a permanent buff or instant skill every time you level up. Once you are defeated, all the souls you collected can be used back in your hub world as a currency.
Spending 10 souls allows you to resurrect two minions at once and then spending 100 allows you to resurrect three at once. This moderately speeds up gameplay as you need to stand still near corpses if there’s a lot to resurrect. Buying these upgrades also allows other upgrades to appear such as buffs to movement speed and starting army.
The main campaign involves defending against King Richard and there’s also a Hell mode once you’ve conquered the game. But that’s not all, because the developers promised that there was going to be more stuff added to the game in the future, since the game is still in eatly access.
Be My Horde also includes full voice acting, clever writing, and a solid soundtrack. Even though it’s still in early access, it’s well worth the $5 price tag and can land you many hours of gameplay just doing the Kingdom scenario. I can only imagine how big the game may become in the future and it’s worth a pickup.
8/10
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