A fairly entertaining ARPG if you can get it during a sale, which happens often these days. I got my copy with a 90% discount.
The gameplay is very competent albeit limited. Each character has only a couple of builds you really want to go for and they aren't varied at all.
For my playthrough I chose the dwarf slayer because that's what's on the box and he's fun with the industry standard spin to win and shouting barbarian skill plus the ranged basic attack. However, I don't see myself grinding high rarity gear or anything because red items are pretty much the same with bigger numbers. Increasing the difficulty helps with the monotony, but you can only raise it so much before beating the final act so this is a temporary fix at best.
The presentation is equally mixed as I found most environments, character models and animations to be quite good looking, but the game also suffers from some of the worst sound design I've ever experienced. A lot of sound effects are nauseating and your character barks at you constantly when they are either out of energy or a cooldown is still up despite the fact that there is a dedicated sound for these as well. I ended up playing the game with no voices because it was annoying me so much.
The story is nothing to write home about and doesn't do a great job at introducing the setting to new players. The player character is a demigod who can cleave through chaos legions like a hot knife through butter and by the end of the first act you have already accomplished feats worthy of legend for the setting. This makes for fun, fast paced gameplay but not exactly the best worlbuilding.
To conclude, I don't think Chaosbane is a bad game but I'm not sure who I could recommend it to. Perhaps you need to get it on sale and be in a state of mind where you don't want to think for about 10 hours, then you should get it like I did.
The gameplay is very competent albeit limited. Each character has only a couple of builds you really want to go for and they aren't varied at all.
For my playthrough I chose the dwarf slayer because that's what's on the box and he's fun with the industry standard spin to win and shouting barbarian skill plus the ranged basic attack. However, I don't see myself grinding high rarity gear or anything because red items are pretty much the same with bigger numbers. Increasing the difficulty helps with the monotony, but you can only raise it so much before beating the final act so this is a temporary fix at best.
The presentation is equally mixed as I found most environments, character models and animations to be quite good looking, but the game also suffers from some of the worst sound design I've ever experienced. A lot of sound effects are nauseating and your character barks at you constantly when they are either out of energy or a cooldown is still up despite the fact that there is a dedicated sound for these as well. I ended up playing the game with no voices because it was annoying me so much.
The story is nothing to write home about and doesn't do a great job at introducing the setting to new players. The player character is a demigod who can cleave through chaos legions like a hot knife through butter and by the end of the first act you have already accomplished feats worthy of legend for the setting. This makes for fun, fast paced gameplay but not exactly the best worlbuilding.
To conclude, I don't think Chaosbane is a bad game but I'm not sure who I could recommend it to. Perhaps you need to get it on sale and be in a state of mind where you don't want to think for about 10 hours, then you should get it like I did.
"Perhaps," I thought to myself, "I was too hard on the Diablo clone genre. Perhaps it was merely Diablo IV and Torchlight that I did not care for." And with these kind and generous thoughts in mind, I downloaded Warhammer: Chaosbane during Xbox's free Warhammer Weekend.
After a bit of a frame story, I was dropped into the repetitive world of Chaosbane. Once again, just like Diablo IV I was assailed by countless enemies who were to me as but fleas. I came. I saw. I held the A button. I conquered. At one point I decided to just sit and see how long it would take me to die on normal mode. My enemies assailed me on all sides and my health bar barely dropped.
"This game is so easy I could play it with one hand tied behind my back" I thought. And so I did.
This was actually an interesting experience. With my thumb on the control stick and my fingers pressing the button, I was able to get through an entire dungeon. The only true challenge was pressing one of the bumpers; this was only rarely needed, but I couldn't do it without relinquishing the control stick. In fact, the game was so easy that even while playing it this way I began to lose interest and my mind wandered. I started daydreaming of "ways to save the Diablo Clone genre."
Maybe you could have a game like this that's actually a Mass Effect style CRPG, where the real gameplay is conversations and making choices, and fighting hordes of braindead enemies is just there to add some friction
Maybe enemies in these games should have elemental affinities and you should have to switch between elemental attacks really fast in order to have a shot at damaging the enemies.
Maybe these kinds of games actually just really suck, and you want them to be good because of how cool the covers of the old Diablo games look
Eventually, I finished another dungeon and gave the game a third and final chance, this time playing it on super-ultra-mega-hard mode. In the game's defense, it was a good deal more challenging, but most of this challenge involved kiting enemies until I could regenerate health. I ended up in once scenario where I was simply running around a room for a solid five minutes being chased by a big chungus and his army of smaller chungii, all while my character's voice lines constantly kept playing.
"They'll never take me alive!"
"They'll never take me alive!"
"This is not my final hour!"
"This is not my final hour!
"Well, at least he's got a positive outlook on life," said my dad, who was in the room while I was playing the game. And that, Dear Reader, is one thing I share with the main character of this game, most likely because Xbox GamePass Ultimate was able to save me the frustration of spending any significant amount of time or money on Warhammer: Chaosbane. Add this to the long list of bullets dodged. To sum up, I can't put it better than Tomonubo Itagaki:
"As a real man, I find no feeling of achievement in beating up millions of defenseless enemies. As for my opinion as a gamer, my free time is too valuable to spend it hacking away at an endless stream of dumb-as-a-brick opponents."
After a bit of a frame story, I was dropped into the repetitive world of Chaosbane. Once again, just like Diablo IV I was assailed by countless enemies who were to me as but fleas. I came. I saw. I held the A button. I conquered. At one point I decided to just sit and see how long it would take me to die on normal mode. My enemies assailed me on all sides and my health bar barely dropped.
"This game is so easy I could play it with one hand tied behind my back" I thought. And so I did.
This was actually an interesting experience. With my thumb on the control stick and my fingers pressing the button, I was able to get through an entire dungeon. The only true challenge was pressing one of the bumpers; this was only rarely needed, but I couldn't do it without relinquishing the control stick. In fact, the game was so easy that even while playing it this way I began to lose interest and my mind wandered. I started daydreaming of "ways to save the Diablo Clone genre."
Maybe you could have a game like this that's actually a Mass Effect style CRPG, where the real gameplay is conversations and making choices, and fighting hordes of braindead enemies is just there to add some friction
Maybe enemies in these games should have elemental affinities and you should have to switch between elemental attacks really fast in order to have a shot at damaging the enemies.
Maybe these kinds of games actually just really suck, and you want them to be good because of how cool the covers of the old Diablo games look
Eventually, I finished another dungeon and gave the game a third and final chance, this time playing it on super-ultra-mega-hard mode. In the game's defense, it was a good deal more challenging, but most of this challenge involved kiting enemies until I could regenerate health. I ended up in once scenario where I was simply running around a room for a solid five minutes being chased by a big chungus and his army of smaller chungii, all while my character's voice lines constantly kept playing.
"They'll never take me alive!"
"They'll never take me alive!"
"This is not my final hour!"
"This is not my final hour!
"Well, at least he's got a positive outlook on life," said my dad, who was in the room while I was playing the game. And that, Dear Reader, is one thing I share with the main character of this game, most likely because Xbox GamePass Ultimate was able to save me the frustration of spending any significant amount of time or money on Warhammer: Chaosbane. Add this to the long list of bullets dodged. To sum up, I can't put it better than Tomonubo Itagaki:
"As a real man, I find no feeling of achievement in beating up millions of defenseless enemies. As for my opinion as a gamer, my free time is too valuable to spend it hacking away at an endless stream of dumb-as-a-brick opponents."