In Bardbarian you play as Brad. He used to be a barbarian who was responsible for defending his village from the hordes of goblins, orcs, and demons that attacked with all too much frequency. One day, he felt that the axe just wasn't doing it for him anymore and decided to follow a new calling, that of the bard. So, with a song in his heart, he slapped some strings on his axe, started plucking away, and inspired the other defenders in town to do the fighting for him.
Brad's sole responsibility is to defend the big, glowing crystal in town from the waves of attacks. There's a vaguely tower defense feel here, except without the towers. Enemies still spawn from three points on the map and march along until they get within striking distance of the crystal where they will proceed to wail on it.
In order to fend these things off, you'll have Brad run around, playing songs to summon different units that will follow him around and do the actual fighting, as well as a few ditties that act as buffs to enhance offense, defense, and movement speed. The whole thing feels almost like a bullet hell shooter, especially on later levels, since most of your units as well as the enemies specialize in projectile weapons. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing, so quite enjoyed all of the juking and dodging. It gets even more complicated if you find yourself getting overrun and need to fall back to protect the crystal because you'll still need to dodge these bullets, but sometimes actually have to run in front of them to protect the crystal. So, this leaves the player deciding whether or not to sacrifice one of their minions or a bit of Brad's health as the situation is getting dire.For a good while, hitting this level of intensity can be quite fun. However, killing enemies rewards Brad with gold and over time you really start grinding this out to spend on various upgrades. These include improving structures in the town, enhancing Brad's own stats and abilities, and, most importantly, leveling up the various units available. This becomes a problem when everything gets maxed out because then players find themselves in a situation where much of what they have at their disposal is rather overpowered. What once was a grueling test of skill suddenly becomes a pushover. It's kind of a drag, as it takes the wind out of the sails for the game to an extent.
There are a couple of other game modes that do remain challenging simply because they don't incorporate any of the enhancements that one can find in the shop. One is an escape mode, where Brad runs from a wall of demons trying to achieve the greatest distance possible, all the while dodging pits, monsters, and projectiles. It's not a bad mode, and serves as a bit of a time waster. If anything, it feels like something one would expect to find in the realm of mobile gaming. The other way to go is survival mode where Brad runs around the arena, picking up minions to help him, while trying to stay alive for as long as possible. This mode actually does push the player surprisingly hard, especially when you consider how boss spawning works, as it's on a timer. So, if you're taking too long to kill one boss, you could well find yourself in a situation where suddenly you have two bosses to deal with since another just spawned. This is the mode that feels the most interesting in the long haul, as it actually manages to maintain a decent level of challenge.
It's a shame that Bardbarian becomes so easy once players have unlocked a bunch of the stuff in the shop. For much of the game, it provides a decent challenge and manages to be enjoyable, but once your minions start getting overpowered the fun really takes a nosedive. Even the tongue-in-cheek silliness isn't enough to make up for this. The game was originally released on iOS and Android, so I could see the game being harder there where one has to tap to move Brad around as opposed to using more traditional controls, but that just isn't the case on PC. The combination of genres and attempts at humor should have made this game pretty good, but the lack of difficulty later on makes it feel like a waste of time in the end.
