Riverbond — Not a Roguelike in Disguise

It’s… cute… I suppose

Sometimes I browse digital stores for games because retail is virtually dead at this point, hoping to find a roguelike that may have flown under my radar. Sometimes I do, while often I don’t, but sometimes the genres get mixed up, and you surprisingly find a game in a category it doesn’t usually belong to. Basically, I thought I could find a hidden roguelike in the dungeon-crawler genre because roguelikes are all the rage right now. One time I successfully found something, while the other time, I did not, and this is (sadly) a tale of the latter when I thought a game called Riverbond was secretly a roguelike.

It wasn’t, and I spent a good portion of time trying to figure out what genre it belonged to. Do I regret it? Not at all, but I definitely could’ve used the time to do something better, like watching grass grow. I’m not referring to the feature in the game where you cut the grass only for it to grow back near-immediately ­– because destroying the environment is more fun than the main objective. It’s not the first time I’ve ignored the main objective in a game to curb my OCD with redundant features like breaking the balustrade, cutting the grass, or anything similar.

As I was searching for more roguelikes on my journey to discover more of this genre, I stumbled upon this peculiar game, Riverbond, mistaking it for a roguelike. In retrospect, it was dumb of me not to realize it, but I thought maybe, just maybe, there was something good deep down there, as the game seemed colourful and attractive enough. The game seems to revolve around this particular feature of “falling up” waterfalls. I know it sounds weird, but that’s as special as it gets. And what, might you ask, was the rest of the game like?

It’s not a roguelike, and it’s not Mega man, either

Let me say that this game came out a few years ago, so I don’t know how relevant spoilers are. Not that there is much of a story to spoil. Anyways, it goes like this…

The game is an isometric 3d platformer dungeon crawler of sorts; I’m not entirely sure about the genre. You have a selection of characters to choose from, ranging from a doughnut to a watermelon to a pug and a bunch of overly colourful characters to play as, even though they have no difference whatsoever from one another other than to look different. I started the game, and it already tried to sway me with its childish humour, but the jokes were surprisingly kind of funny. Anyways, I finish the tutorial, and then I’m required to choose a level from one of nine levels, each represented by a signature boss that will fight the player at the end of a level. I immediately noticed the similarity to Mega Man, where you can choose which level to play in and which boss to fight, and that was a signature feature of that franchise. This game does the same, except I’m already very familiar with the concept, so it doesn’t impress me too much.

Anyways, I choose one of the interchangeable levels, and I move around, and some creatures come at me. I swing my sword, and they die. The game then required me to open chests, and in one of the rooms, I spent roughly 40 minutes trying to find whatever I was supposed to obtain to get past the level. It got so tedious that I started cutting grass for kicks, and then I found the chest! Even though I wasn’t exactly sure where I went but at least the search was over. At some point, I got a pencil for a spear weapon, a literal pencil. I died a bunch of times, but when you die, you return to the last checkpoint, so there’s virtually no penalty for dying, already making it evident that it’s not a roguelike. Oh yeah, and I guess I “fell up” a waterfall at some point, which is the most memorable feature of the game… I think.

Anyways, I get to the boss and kill it within a minute or so. Basically, it was fun while it lasted… but it’s not a roguelike… obviously.

Did you fall up a waterfall?

I don’t even know how this game popped up in my digital game library. I suppose maybe I got it for free on one of those sale-filled days. I usually forget about irrelevant mumbo jumbo that does not concern my research for roguelikes… when researching because I don’t do that exclusively. Anyways, it’s not a rog… actually, forget about it. Did any of you play this game?

In Conclusion…

So… this game is not a roguelike… or anything that could sustain me for long periods in front of the computer. It was… cute, I guess… but it’s not something that shines through planets.

Anyways, the following article may or may not be about my continued research on roguelikes… if you can call it that.