Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands

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I found this game on a whim one day. It looked interesting enough and the pitch really grabbed my attention so I put it on my wishlist. About a year later, I finally bought the game while it was on sale. I went in with no clear idea of what to expect. What I found was nothing less than a masterpiece.

Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is a quirky turn-based JRPG with a cartoony hand-drawn artstyle and a unique sense of humor where you control a cursed three-piece rock band who have the ability to engage in musical battles where they deal damage with their music. And it rocks.

Of all the game genres out there, it seems that the JRPG is the subject of some of the most experimentation. I think that in large part, that's because the traditional turn-based JRPG just has a lot of flaws. People still make and play JRPGs, but very few of them still have all of the annoying elements associated with the early days of the genre. Some measure of defiance, therefore, is the norm when creating in this space. I also believe that, due to the nature of the mechanics at play, there are so many ways to put your own personal spin on the JRPG formula; in this way, it is a uniquely spinnable space to create in. Think of how Earthbound sets itself apart from its contemporaries mechanically versus how Undertale does or how Paper Mario does. I think what sets Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands apart from its contemporaries is that its creators came up with ways to break RPG conventions that no one else even thought of breaking.

To introduce this concept, I'd like to start by discussing the battle system. Deathbulge has a turn-based battle system with a strong active time element (think Chrono Trigger). Your fronted character moves across a bar and when they reach the end, they can perform a move. The uniqueness comes from the fact that the bar is subdivided into four "measures," each of which can hold some kind of effect that is applied to the fronted player while the marker is in that measure.

This bar replaces many elements of the traditional turn-based battle system including status effects, summons, and more (which I will not spoil because I think it is best to experience what else the bar does on your own). In the image above, the flaming skull effect is called PAIN and is a stand-in for burn, poison, and any other automatic life-loss status effect. You can also see HASTE, which speeds your marker up as it passes through those measures and MAD PAIN which is an upgraded form of Pain. The purple one on the far right of the image will remain a mystery.

This mechanic is so cool! I've never truly engaged with status effects that deeply before. I think it's because, although I do understand that they're there, it's hard to visualize what tangible benefit it gives me to inflict status effects on enemies, especially the more complex ones. This game really hit for me because finally I have a way to understand what effects do and exactly how helpful they are. It adds an additional strategic element. Fundamentally, it is a kind of open-ended puzzle that you play alongside the main combat system. It additionally adds some more dynamicity since things are happening all the time, including between turns.

The litle carat in the image indicates where the next effects will be applied. In this case, if the player were to make a move that applied two measures of an effect to their own bar, it would override the Haste, not the Pain, which would obviously be preferable. After looking at some others' reviews, I noticed some people say that it's frustrating that you can't choose which measures to apply effects to. I couldn't agree less! Maneuvering around the temperamental bar trying to override negative measure effects and retain positive ones is integral to the puzzle. The most I would ask for that I don't believe the game provisions is a beat or move that allows you to skip measures, applying no effect to them, but even that is not necessary as there are ways later on in the game that can provide a comparable effect that provides more utility anyway.

The moment I realized that I was truly in for something else entirely was when I got a tutorial on how to use items. That's right, one element where Deathbulge innovates where I can't think of any other game that does so is in its item system. I'd never thought of JRPG items as something to be fixed. In fact, I noticed while writing this paragraph that the phrase "item system" doesn't even sound like something that's real because no one in the history of gaming has ever said anything like "that game has a really interesting item system." Yet this dev team once again proved that I am stupid for not talking about item systems in games.

In Deathbulge, you have a limited quantity of "stock" which can be redeemed in various quantities for "merch," which provide different item effects. For instance, a low-potency restorative item costs 1 stock, while a higher-potency restorative item costs 2, and a group-healing item costs 3.

This system innovates in a few interesting ways, adding onto what is usually a pretty rote system in most other games that have consumable items, not even just JRPGs. First, it adds versatility: once you have a certain piece of merch unlocked, you can use it in any battle, so long as you are willing to pay its stock cost. It also adds balancing: there is an issue that occurs in many other RPGs where lesser healing items lose all relevance once you reach the endgame and have enough money that you can just purchase a full inventory of better-quality items. No, every item use is an intentional choice here with its own considerations.

Finally, it does something truly grand: it combats the ubiquitous analysis paralysis among gamers that prevent us from ever using our items. There are no single-use merch items and there are no ways that not using an item in a particular fight would benefit you in a fight further down the road. The only thing it costs you if you want to use an item is money, which is easily acquired.

A large part of this game is dependent on building your character. But, like, in a cool and innovative way. Many games, including some that I quite like, encourage you to pursue a specialized build for your character, but give you very little incentive to do so as just randomly picking moves and stats will get you to the end with no major hitches. In Deathbulge, this couldn't be further from the truth. You have one "beat" slot that can be filled from a shared pool of options, three "mod" slots that contain moves unique to your character, and one (later two) "patch" slots (again, pulling from a combined pool) which provide passive benefits. All told, that's not too much space to work with, meaning that there is no room for fluff. You have a lot of choices for each slot, so find those synergies or die. This is the first game that I've played that has actually gotten me to spend time theorycrafting potential combinations.

The one major thing in battles that doesn't strictly adhere to this philosophy is items. As mentioned previously, you do have access to a wide variety of merch items by the end of the game, which on paper seems like it could break the careful balance of battles. In practice, they do not and probably cannot break the game and in fact add even more interest to the battle system. Many of the good merch items eat up sizeable chunks of even the maximum final stock count. In fact, stock is the only resource in a battle that is truly limited since Hype (this game's resource that can be expended to perform moves, like MP or SP in other games) refills automatically and health can be recovered. Even new lives can be cheap depending on your build and situation. Every other advantage is gained as you use your moves. But if you want even one effect that you didn't intentionally build for, you can technically have it, but that's coming out of your only limited resource pool. Tough luck.

At this point, I'll take a bit of a diversion to talk about my own build a bit because it's illustrative of one of my few problems with this game. Feel free to skip this part. Although I really loved trying to come up with builds, I stumbled onto something really effective about halfway through the game and as much as I wanted to experiment with other kinds of builds, it just kept working and, in fact, the same build just kept getting more effective with the addition of more mods that just made it even more effective.

I liked my loadout, and I felt powerful while using it (up until the final boss, which really tested me) but it left most party members with their default class and I still ended up using quite a few mods that I got at the beginning of the game, so while I was did swap some out, it didn't feel like I was constantly innovating, just switching to a better variant of the same strategy. At one point I tried swapping some of my characters classes while keeping the engine proper intact to see if I could try something different, but it just didn't feel effective and it would have taken a lot of experimenting to get it to work, I think. Furthermore, I know there were inefficiencies even in my final loadout. Some moves were quite rarely used and some mods even got in the way more than they helped. But I never had to iron that out, and it started to feel just a bit cheap later on in the game.

Diversion over.

Somehow I've gotten this far without even mentioning the art in this game. This game has a stupid amount of art and animation. I swear, almost every cutscene in this game has at least one character animation or dialogue portrait that I had never seen before. I was blown away by just how expressive these characters are. In battle, many moves have their own unique animations that don't play anywhere else. And, as mentioned, there is no shortage of moves. Also, all of the main characters have different class-based appearances which affect their sprites in the overworld and in battle as well as in their numerous dialogue expressions.

And it's not just the characters. Some of my favorite animations in this game are in the combat elements. The measure effects aren't static images. They have detailed animations when they appear and they move and sway in oddly satisfying ways while they sit in the bar, helping to provide a clear visual language during the otherwise very stimulating battles.

The game's principle artist is Dan Martin, who runs a webcomic (also called Deathbulge). This comic originated several memes that you've probably seen around. He also apparently created this image if that is worth anything to you. If you go back to the comic after finishing the game or if you were familiar with the comic and played the game, you would notice some shared characters and even a few familiar bits. By Dan's own admission, he spent every day for most of a decade working on the game. I am no artist, but I can recognize effort when I see it. The game is a cartoony visual feast, manic and exaggerated in just the right way to complement the game's off-the-wall sense of humor. This game wouldn't have hit nearly the same if there hadn't been such a clear emphasis on the aesthetic (although if there were even half as many unique dialogue portraits in this game, it would have still been more expressive than even most other story-based games that I have played in the past).

That all being said, I just didn't really vibe with the story, at least at the start. Like many video game stories, things start lower-stakes and gradually the intensity ramps up. I was frustrated by the fact that the first few chapters were completely unrelated to the Battle of the Bands. Even though plot elements from them do come back later and are instrumental in wrapping up the game, they felt so irrelevant at the time and I still don't think that it was that great of a start to the game. I'm glad that the gameplay, the humor, the characters, and the worldbuilding kept me going until the story really started to pick up.

I also had high expectations for the soundtrack, given the entire theming of the game and whoops, we hit peak again. There's over two hours of music in this game created by the two composers, Leslie Wai and Patrick Henaghen. There is no lack of variety here. A large amount of the music in this game is instrumental rock, given that that is the style that the main characters play. But certain other bands introduce different genres including heavy metal, synth pop, jazz fusion, smooth jazz, and a lot of funk. I urge you to give it a listen. There's a lot to keep you occupied. And a lot of these songs are rather substantial. I'm used to fairly short loops in video game music but the composers for this game have given us a bunch of multiple-minute tracks that make even walking around in the world feel interesting.

And while I'm individually thanking every member of the team, I might as well get everyone. Kyle Jenkins and Scott Walenty of Five Houses Games, handled the technical aspects of game development for Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands. This game is extremely smooth and polished to a sheen to the point of being almost frictionless and that would not have been possible without the diligent work of these two members of the team. Also, I need to show this because it is genuinely one of the coolest things that a game developer has ever done. Dan actually drew some fanart of the code of this game to thank the team for their work.

My save file, which finished up at 75% completion, is at 15 hours, give or take. I would say that 100% completion would probably take about 20 hours. By that metric, this is a compact game, by JRPG standards at least. I think in some ways the length is actually ideal. The game does a good job of not overstaying its welcome. If the game were too much longer, it would probably start to feel repetitious and its humor might start to grate, so I'm glad that the devs decided to cap it off here. At the same time, a part of me is screaming that I just want to play eight more chapters of the same exact same game.

Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands has no right being as obscure as it is. Only 500 reviews? Are you kidding me? This game is an innovative modern classic and should be recognized as such. I want to see swaths of games come out that are inspired by this one if only because I need more of this game. There is replay value here. I would like to return to this game in a year or so and force myself to enjoy some alternative strategies.

This game gets a hearty recommendation. I think more people should be aware of it, which is why I'm in the process of telling all of my friends to play it. If even one part of this appeals to you, I'd encourage you to give it a try as even one of the previously discussed talking points would be enough to merit a purchase, especially if it's on sale. To wrap up, though, I would just like to mention that, while I loved the fact that every part of the game from the combat to items to teambuilding was all a fun open-ended puzzle, that might not vibe with you. Maybe skip this one if you want an RPG where you can just blast through enemies. But if that particular descriptor does not apply to you, there's no reason not to give this one a try.

(Review adapted and expanded from my steam review of this game)