Voidling Bound Review: Top-Notch Action

I don't think I've ever played a game quite like Voidling Bound before. It does seem a little similar to some games I previewed, like Aniimo, but with a dash of Spore and a handful of others to mix in. It's a surprisingly deep game with a simple premise that makes it easy to get into.

There's not a lot wrong with Voidling Bound, but some of the things in this game seem to be trying to bridge a gap that comes up due to some design choices. If you're a fan of games with some interesting mechanics and creatures, then Voidling Bound is a no-brainer, but you may be a little displeased with some of the more limiting factors of the game early on.

After "finishing" the game, the game technically doesn't have an end, but I can say with confidence that it's a ton of fun. It isn't perfect, but it seems like this is a game that'll be seeing some additional content in the future. More of this game is exactly what I want, and I'll dive into that a little deeper later on.

What is Voidling Bound?

In the most basic of terms, Voidling Bound is a creature collector shooter RPG, which is a lot of words. It's a third-person shooter where you'll collect up to nine species of Voidlings and evolve them into various forms using mutagens. Every Voidling fills a sort of niche in a traditional playstyle you'd find in something like a great MMO, but there are some ways to adjust this and change how these things work.

The Voidlings all look different, have different types of attacks, and have different evolutionary paths. These paths cost a specific type of mutagen, such as Pyro mutagen for fire-based Voidlings, which you'll gather as you defeat enemies and complete missions. Each Voidling is only compatible with two mutagens, which determine the rest of their tree and what abilities they can unlock at first.

The missions you go on by mind-melding with your Voidling breakdown into two categories: exploration and survival. During exploration missions, you'll spawn onto a map with a specific objective to complete, whereas with survival missions, you just have to defeat every wave of enemies.

It wouldn't be much of a creature collector without the ability to breed your Voidlings, which comes in handy for farming specific stats to make your perfect partner. You can also train your lower-level Voidlings to reach a certain level, provided you can afford it and are willing to leave them there for that amount of time.

Combat-wise, you'll have at least three different attacks that you can use and upgrade with the currency you acquire on those missions. When you fully evolve a Voidling to its max, it'll receive a mutation that can be incredibly helpful in determining a playstyle for that specific Voidling. Eventually, you can mix and match these mutations across species, which makes for some amazing combinations.

Creative and Beautiful Environments and Creatures

The game is a little cartoony, but that doesn't stop some of these creatures from being completely adorable, and some hilariously ridiculous. One of the Voidlings looks like it's basically a floating top hat, which just killed me when I saw it the first time. But it doesn't stop at the creatures; the environments themselves are pretty good-looking.

It makes exploration feel rewarding in the game and gives you a reason to explore beyond just wanting to find those eggs or mutagens scattered around the maps. Combat does move pretty fast, which detracts a little from how good the world looks, but still, there's at least a place on your ship where you can appreciate these cute creatures at your own pace.

On your base ship, where you'll be in between missions, there's a nice little sanctuary where you can see all the Voidlings in your party. It gives you a way to sort of visually get a feel for what they all look like and see them interacting as they meander around. Some are very adorable when they end up falling asleep.

Despite the cartoony aesthetic, the game manages to really have some great-looking creatures that evolve and grow without looking too different. I do wish they had changed a bit more significantly, as they do in some other games, but that's mostly a personal gripe. When you unlock splicing, you can also alter their appearances with various colors and body pieces.

A Lack of Cohesion in Game Design

This is going to sound nitpicky, and honestly, it kind of is, but the game's design regarding leveling and having a party just makes no sense to me. Here's the thing: when you reach a certain point, you unlock the ability to train your Voidlings up to the maximum level, which is 20. You'll most certainly reach this point before you even have one of your Voidlings hit level 15, especially if you're evolving a lot.

When that happens, you can just stuff them in the machines for like 15 minutes and then, boom, they're max level. For most of the game, this means you'll be over-leveled and easily able to stomp out almost any enemies you encounter. On top of that, it felt like it took away the attachment I had to the creatures I gathered because I just wouldn't use them except for evolution purposes.

It seems like a way to make sure you don't have to grind the missions over and over again for levels, which I appreciated, but it really hurt my connection to the creatures I had, which leads to my next point: your team doesn't matter. You're always going to pick whichever Voidling is either right for the job or whatever you have that's just the overall best.

See, enemies have weaknesses that you can exploit, which is great, but for most of the game, you're pretty much stuck with singular types that you either find or evolve. This means that picking something that doesn't take advantage of this weakness just puts you at a disadvantage. It would be like taking a fire-type into a water-type battle.

This crops up more than a few times, and eventually, I unlocked a Voidling, Ur-Sek, that could do Plasma damage, which is effective against all enemies. It basically became my main immediately, and the rest of my team just started to gather dust. The game never seems to give another reason to just not use whatever you have beyond the best Voidling after that.

I can definitely see why things work the way they do, but with no sort of PvP or battle-type situations, you basically have one Voidling you use and a bunch of others that you like sitting in a party for no reason. This could change in the future, but for now, it almost felt pointless to even offer a party outside of having them in the sanctuary.

Deep and Interesting Combat

For all the things I could say I didn't like about Voidling Bound, none of it matters when you're actually playing the game. This game has some deep creature building that lets you set up your creature the exact way you want. Some of the combinations will make you virtually unkillable, and being able to mix and match abilities from different evolutionary trees for a species can make you unstoppable.

Combat isn't without issues, like how guard is definitely the best thing to get in the game, but you forget about it when you're crushing enemies underfoot with some sick combination you discovered after splicing a creature together. By far, this is one of the best creature-collector games we've had in years, just thanks to these kinds of combinations.

Once you unlock splicing, the game opens up immensely, so it felt a little odd that it was so far into the game. It gives you the ability to take mutations from any species and put them on a specific Voidling. With nine total Voidlings and each one having a total of about 15 mutations, that makes for some crazy numbers of combinations you can make.

What really drives this home is the relatively simple combat and how easy it is to understand, but how deep you can dive into it. When you reach the endgame, that becomes a necessity, but for the most part, you have time to learn. You can also lean into your playstyle by picking a Voidling that fits with you and finding some mutations that push it in a certain direction.

Combat is exactly what you might expect from a top-notch action-adventure RPG. Every enemy will fire off attacks as projectiles or create an AoE on the ground that you need to move out of. You can dodge, block, or tank these attacks as you shoot and slash your way through enemies. It's unbelievably satisfying to do, especially when you manage to set up a Voidling with a satisfying build.

We're in the Endgame Now

After completing all the game's main story missions, you'll be given a chance to run Void Strikes. These are effectively a roguelike way of keeping you playing the game once you finish the story. You'll fight through a level that's either an exploration or a survival mission in a place called the Abyss.

Here you'll be able to move through an unending run of these levels, and at the end of each, you can either take what you have and leave or keep going for better rewards. It's a great way to test your skills and see how far you can go. It also makes for a great proving ground of how good one of your builds might be.

Unfortunately, the endgame isn't all cupcakes and rainbows, as the game suffers from something similar to Monster Hunter. It basically becomes a game of menus and traveling back and forth between locations to interact with those menus. It isn't a major problem, but it does get annoying after a while.

That's really the only complaint about the endgame, beyond the menus, is that you don't have much else to do. Regardless, that doesn't take anything away from how fun the game is, and it's absolutely something that can be added to the game at a later date. I have faith that whatever the developers add, it'll be a fantastic addition.

Voidling Bound is a phenomenal game with a lot of great parts that culminate in something truly unique. While it certainly isn't perfect and suffers from the same afflictions as similar games, what is there will keep players engaged and wanting more. If I could levy one major complaint against the game, it's that I want so much more of this game. Fantastic combat and a colorful world make Voidling Bound a game that's very much worthwhile.