Voidling Bound was provided by Hatchery Games for review. Thank you!
I’m not sure how it shook out this way, but I ended up getting two different creature collectors to review at the same time. I love the genre, especially as a Pokémon fan, so I was really looking forward to seeing how these two titles differ from the tried-and-true mechanics defined by the most popular games in the genre. However, Voidling Bound takes a very different route, focusing more on third-person action that revolves around getting more powerful with creature collecting. While it can start to feel extremely repetitive when it comes to grinding, the mechanics keep it interesting enough to continue experimenting and getting more powerful.
While Voiding Bound’s DNA is rooted in creature collecting, it takes a different approach that sets it apart and keeps it interesting, and it becomes more like a third-person adventure. Instead of the conventional system where there are over 100 creatures to collect that we use in turn-based battles, there are instead only 9 creatures that we take control over in third-person combat.
This ultimately makes the game focus on making these 9 creatures stand out and feel remarkably different, which works extremely well.
To further stand out, each creature has multiple evolution lines based on two elements that feel remarkably different. For example, the Kwipeck can choose either Fire or Organic, and each has a unique playstyle. Fire can modify the primary attack into a quick machine gun or give them exploding bullets, while Organic can become either a long-range sniper or slower bullets that inflict debuffs. The evolutionary tree spans out with 30 different pathways, all affecting the creature’s abilities and aesthetic, which can completely change its playstyle. And with each type of enemy having different elemental weaknesses, it encourages trying out different evolutionary lines for different situations.
These can directly affect how they play, but then we have a few ways to make them stronger. Every species has a skill tree, which we can use currency to unlock nodes that make every creature in that species stronger. And, as we use the monsters in missions, they will level up, giving us the choice of increasing their stats. There are 5 stats to increase, which can give us more strength, health, elemental damage, and attack speed.
Finally, this brings us to the main way we will grow our creature’s strength: breeding. Monsters can only grow to level 20, which means we can only increase their stats by so much. To mitigate this, we can breed these creatures, bringing in some of their strength to their offspring so they start with higher base stats.
This defines the gameplay loop. Go into missions, grind, level up, and breed to acquire more powerful companions. We can also find eggs in the world, with some being golden that hatch unique monsters, but the best way to get more powerful is going to be by breeding. We also have the chance to splice in new perks to make our creatures way more powerful, but if we do that, we can’t use them to breed anymore. Since each monster gets a level cap of 20, we could use them to breed for better base monsters and then splice new perks to them, so they can still be usable.
As for the actual combat, it was more enjoyable than I expected. Each of the creatures has their own primary tech, secondary attack, melee, dodge, and ultimate attack. They all feel wildly different from each other, and can be further defined by the evolutionary lines. Still, I was quite impressed by how much I enjoyed how fast and flashy the combat was. Cycling through the abilities to keep myself protected and healed up, while saving up for my ultimate ability that deals massive damage, was very enjoyable. And with each creature having its own playstyle, I had a blast trying all of them out to find my favorites.
As much as the combat is exciting and energizing, I did find myself mostly focusing on one or two creatures instead of constantly swapping between all 9. I loved the Kwipeck, and I focused a lot on breeding it specifically instead of going to each creature. It’s nice to have options and see what each creature is like, but I regularly found myself focusing on one or two primarily.
I love Voidling Bound's unique take on monster collecting, but it can feel quite repetitive towards the later end of the game. There are only a few mission types, and while a lot of them take place in different areas, it still feels like we’re doing a lot of the same. Since they all follow a similar structure, and we have to play those missions multiple times to grind in the beginning, it feels a little stale. And with all the creatures we have, which will need to be used to increase our power and rank, the grinding feels more like a chore to start.
This does get better later on once the Abyss is unlocked, which is an endgame roguelike-esque mode. It can also feel a little repetitive after consistently taking part in it, but it’s definitely a step up from the usual missions.
And it improves further as we unlock more facilities in our hub, with one of them being a training facility to actually increase the level of our creatures without sending them on missions. Being able to train and level up multiple creatures while completing missions makes progress go significantly faster, but it takes some time to get there to the point where it feels like it makes a difference.
The facilities in the hub help a lot and can include upgrades and ways to get materials that we need a little faster. The currency can be used to get elemental nodes for evolutions, upgrade our health charges with how many we can use or how much it heals, decrease the cost of training and increase the cap of how far they can train, and more. It all feeds into helping us during combat or improving our creatures, and it does make a difference.
As for Voidling Bound on the Steam Deck, it is a decent experience. It got rated Playable ahead of its release, and I would agree with the rating. However, after testing, there’s only one way I would recommend playing to enjoy the game on the go.
I recommend sticking to the high-quality setting, but turning down the 3D resolution to 70% with a 30 FPS cap. The game runs quite well in a lot of spots, but as soon as combat gets heavy with tons of effects on the screen, the CPU will get bottlenecked and framerate will dip. Even at the lowest settings, there will be drops below 40 FPS, so it ends up not being viable to play above. And since the game is CPU-bottlenecked, increasing quality that will push the GPU won’t make the game suffer as much in those moments.
I decided to bring down the 3D resolution a bit to help with stability, since the default High preset will drop below 30 FPS in some of these heavy combat areas, especially in later missions. In the end, the game looks great and plays wonderfully with the controller, but we can’t push the framerate too much.
Voiding Bound is an interesting and unique take on the creature collector style, and its stylized focus helps it stand out from the pack. The decision to only have 9 creatures that can branch out makes each one feel significantly different from each other. The evolutionary lines and progression systems feel rewarding and distinct, and some of the areas in the hub help streamline and speed up the process to make the grind feel less obnoxious. The missions can feel a little bit repetitive, and it’s easy to focus on one or two creatures instead of all of them, but that doesn’t take away from how rewarding it feels to make them progressively stronger.
I was hoping it would perform better on the Steam Deck, but it’s decently playable as it is. It will require 30 FPS, but because the game is mostly CPU-bound, we can push the visual quality higher. It’s definitely playable and enjoyable, but requires some compromise.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Voidling Bound is a unique take on the creature collector genre with exciting third-person combat, great progression, and decent Steam Deck performance.
