“Yup, It’s beans!”
2019’s Void Bastards was an unexpected hit for me when it dropped on Xbox Game Pass back at release. Its presentation, humor, and roguelike elements were combined into a truly memorable experience. From its hilarious enemies, the excitement of exploring countless derelict ships, to the insane weaponry you had at your disposal, not to mention the bizarre traits of the numerous convicts you play as, it's a game that was so good that it made Wild Bastards one of my most anticipated games of the year. However, while this latest from Blue Manchu has a fun cast of characters, each with engaging abilities, it sadly disappoints on nearly everything else.
Wild Bastard’s is a roguelike that sees you rebuilding the Wild Bastard’s gang as you attempt to flee from Jebediah Chaste’s gang to reach safe harbor in a location known as the Homestead. As the last two members of the Wild Bastards that are still alive, you are saved at the last minute by a sentient ship called the Drifter. As you then space jump from location to location, you’ll push through Chaste’s gang to track down and resurrect the other remaining members of your gang, regardless of whether they are happy to see you or not. And, in most cases, it is the latter.
The loop here is simple; you’ll navigate a map in space that will determine what enemies you’ll encounter and what rewards you’ll receive. From new mods to make you stronger, to additional skills as you level up, to earning a bit of cramm to spend at some of the local shops. You’ll then teleport down to the planet’s surface and attempt to reach the teleporter to then return to the Drifter and move on to the next location.
Each map varies in its environment, but all function the same way. Each location has a starting point and a goal. The goal is the teleporter, but enemy blockades will block your path and force you into combat. You’ll have items to track down on the map, visually shown in yellow, with patrols that can get in your way. You’ll have shops to peruse, points of interest on the map that can refresh your health and armor, and allies that can steal items for you that are on the other side of the map. However, if you take too many turns, one of the Chaste gang’s princes will show up, so you’ll want to gather what rewards you can and then sprint to the teleporter.
Each character can move a certain distance on the map and you’ll make groupings of one or two characters based on how many characters each location will allow. And just because you teleport down to the surface as a gang of two to four characters, there is a chance you’ll become separated and have to move to your ally on the map to have them join into the fray. This loop is essentially the game. Story moments play out like a visual novel, as characters converse and talk about what is going on, but ultimately, you find a place to teleport down to, collect the upgrades and mods that are on the map, kill whoever gets in your way, and move on.
As you dish out some space justice, you’ll earn infamy. This is used to grant rewards at the start of each run. These rewards vary from cramm to spend, mods to equip, or beans to share with your fellow Wild Bastards. Beans become an important aspect of the game as you’ll use them to calm down any infighting between the gang. Should members be at odds with each other, you cannot teleport those pairings down to the surface. So, if you have four characters to choose from, and two are fighting, then you can only send down three. So, when given the option to have beans as a reward, it can truly come in handy.
Where Wild Bastard’s disappointed me is largely upon its presentation, its combat, and its collection of fairly bland enemies. Given I was such a fan of Void Bastards, seeing what the team could follow that up with was exciting to think about. However, Wild Bastards lacks several components to make good on following up such a fantastic game in Void Bastards. The environments that you’ll engage in combat feel hollow and uninspired, lacking a certain element of character that the ships in Void Bastards had in spades. They feel like the set of a stage play, all style and no substance.
From forests to old west towns to swamps and posh settlements, locations feel empty and while you’ll find health and armor pickups here and there, these locations are only there to serve as a basis for how you engage in combat. Some fights will be against two enemies or nine, it is generally randomized upon your arrival on the planet. While there is some randomness to the biomes, each location is generally just a palette swap of the other, making every level essentially the same, regardless if it is orange, blue, green, or whatever dominant color that biome is composed of.
My full playthrough of Wild Bastards was on the Nintendo Switch. At first, I assumed the shooting felt off because of the framerate. Aiming has this tugging to it where moving the analog stick slightly would swing hard in one direction, making it difficult to make small precise adjustments to shoot an enemy, and even to just aim in general. I played around with various settings, all of which don’t explain how they work. While a Google search ended up helping me understand; Responsive curve, Acceleration, Move Deadzone, and Look Deadzone, were settings that I initially had no clue on what they did. Still, regardless of my attempt to find a combination of those settings to make aiming feel even remotely good, I ended up checking Wild Bastards out on the Xbox Series X as well, just to see if it was the Switch’s hardware that was to blame. Unfortunately, while the Xbox controller ended up helping a lot, aiming still felt off and imprecise. And for a game built around combat, this was an issue.
In Void Bastards, enemies were a delight. Especially when it came down to the presentation. Seeing the sound effects of the tapping of little feet or the stomping of a large foe, really helped sell the comic book nature of what Blue Manchu was aiming for. While Wild Bastards shares in the same art style, it lacks that comic book flavoring and while Wild Bastards does deserve to be its own thing, it honestly suffers by not allowing the same art style here to work in the same way. This causes enemies to feel largely the same as one another, especially since they generally have no personality.
Enemies, like the Wild Bastards themselves, borrow from the typical stereotypes you’d expect in a Western. From the poncho-wearing Blaster who chucks out a stick of dynamite, to the red-jacketed hunter who flees when engaged, or a few creature types in Kyote’s and Grizzly’s, there is a wide range of enemies, but there isn’t anything truly done with them to stand out.
The Bastards themselves are a decent lot with some great designs, voice acting, and some really engaging abilities. Many of them come with a history with one another, so that history leading to certain moments can really allow the game to have some great story and character moments, especially towards the end when much of the infighting reaches its climax. For as disappointed as I was in several of the game’s main systems, the Bastards and what they bring to the game was not one of them.
Each Bastard has a weapon that is unique to them. From Preach’s mini gun to Sarge’s 10mm Retirer, to Billy the Squid’s set of twin revolvers, each weapon thankfully feels different from the rest, if a tad more basic than what Void Bastards offered. However, what might make you choose a certain Bastard is their Stunt abilities. Spider Rosa, and Casino are the first two Bastards you’ll have access to, with Rosa firing off a decoy to attract fire to Casino having the ability to kill a random enemy anywhere on the map. I ended up also loving Rawhide’s ability to summon three Kyote’s to track down enemies, as well as Sarge’s fortify stunt that places a forward-facing shield on you for ten seconds.
As you engage with each character, you’ll level them up and start to equip new passive traits to them as well as a series of mods. Mods are temporary and once you jump to another section of the galaxy, they will disappear and you’ll look to build them up all over again. Mods generally affect things like earning armor on kill or how fast your fire rate is. Each character can equip three unique mods but it is the Aces where you’ll really start to affect how your character will play throughout the entire journey.
Aces are permanent upgrades that can also be upgraded as you progress. When you level up, you can choose from one of three Aces. Like mods, these will increase your health, ability to bypass armor, or allow an AI companion to join you in combat. There are dozens of Aces to unlock and equip to your Wild Bastard of choice. Core Aces are similar, but those are set with no option to choose between them. Then, you have Charged Aces that unlock when a character has time to rest between battles. This forces you to shake up your team and give others a break to refresh. Charged Aces generally affect the same types of upgrades found in your Aces and Mods.
Visually, Wild Bastards follows the same path as Void Bastards with offering a cel-shaded playground to dish out some space justice. I will say that on Switch, the aliasing is very apparent, and some of the artwork shows signs of it being low-resolution to run on Nintendo’s now aging platform. That said, I experienced no aliasing issues or low-resolution assets on the Xbox Series X. If anything, it looks remarkably better and far more crisp.
Void Bastards is a title that I absolutely adored, so it set a lot of my expectations with what I wanted from Wild Bastards. The roster itself has a great deal of charm and personality, but the elements you engage with; combat, enemies, and the environments, where both of those play out, just fell incredibly flat. The character progression to improve the gang works well, and the abilities they have make for some interesting combat encounters. The conflicts between the gang are well written, acted, and executed, making for a compelling drama with the right amount of humor. As I mentioned before, I don’t think Wild Bastards is even remotely a bad game, it just feels like a step back for the team that gave us the vastly superior Void Bastards.
Developer - Blue Manchu.
Publisher - Maximum Entertainment, Modus Games. Released - September 12th, 2024. Available On - Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC. Rated - (M) - Strong Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch/Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.