Lootbane is a semi-auto-battler. You choose between different paths, gear up, stat up, and gather a few followers; then once you get into a fight, the foes will each try to chip away at your health bar on a cooldown, while you chip away at theirs and maybe heal up a bit.

That sounds a lot like Grail, just with half of an old-school CRPG instead of Grail’s half-a-deckbuilder. And I kinda liked Grail.

So why was I so underwhelmed by Lootbane?

Maybe it was the presentation. Lootbane had a lot less spectacle, and its sound design was… it had a soundtrack, and your attacks would make a slight noise, but it wasn’t much.

Or maybe it was the difficulty balance, which was hit or miss. I ran through it four times in “roguelike” mode, twice as a warrior and twice as a wizard. (There are two other classes advertised to be in the full game.)

• The first time as a warrior, I didn’t know what I was doing yet, so I died.
• The second time, I had some idea, and that warrior’s armor, Second Wind (self-healing) perk, and healer follower made him hard to kill. I know, because I tried to kill him deliberately by running him at the hardest fights available, one after the other in a dungeon crawl, and it took seven or eight rooms.
• The first time I played a wizard, I lasted for one and a half fights. No armor.
• The second time, I didn’t have much luck boosting my armor (it’s partly dependent on random loot drops), but I did get a couple of other sorcerous followers and scattergunned goblins to death with magic… as long as I stuck to the smallest fights available. I still didn’t last long enough to get to the first boss.

That boss was pretty underwhelming, too… as a warrior, anyway. It’s mechanically just like a regular enemy, chipping at your health bar every few seconds; it just has a bigger health bar of its own. If I’d have gotten that far as a wizard, it’d probably have four-shotted me or something.

 

The final release, expected sometime next year, would have to add or polish a lot to attract me. And the publisher seems to like pricing games at $15, which would be ridiculous. Not wishlisted.