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Golden Bros Review: Going For The Gold

16K View2022-05-06

As a relatively newer genre over the last decade, battle arena games were influenced slightly by battle royale games with maps and teams minimalized. A perfect example of what I mean is Brawl Stars and how the game features a shooter experience, but instead of hundreds of players fighting to be number one, it's just a few looking to control the map or beat the opposing squad. Golden Bros is a derivative of the genre. However, it differentiates itself through blockchain implementation toward its primary focus: playing to earn while having fun.

Image Credited to Golden Bros | Netmarble

Golden Bros is a play-to-earn, three-versus-three battle arena game featuring various characters with unique abilities and immersive gameplay that allows players to earn cryptocurrency. It's the first game under developer Netmarble introducing acquirable non-fungible tokens (NFT) through paid character cosmetics and loot boxes.

Nine characters are available for beginners to take into Golden Bros’s battle arena.There’s enough variety in even this initial batch of characters that most players should find someone to hook them, depending on their preferred fighting style. I liked playing Shooting Star K, who uses a bow to dish out precise and massively impacting abilities. Some other favorites were Lady Thunder, who uses electricity to deal consistent damage and a gravity well ultimate to pull in and hurt enemies over time, and Jennifer, who fires volleys of bullets rampantly.

Image Credited to Golden Bros | Netmarble

New and older maps rotate each day so that every day is never the same. Despite alternating, I never got to know the difference between each map, or the details of why another map with trains, or a junkyard one was better or unique to itself. They’re all pretty similar in size and feature roadblocks like cars, interactable boundaries, and goal points so the rotations weren’t attention-catching.

Once you get into a match, the first thing you'll need to do with your team is to eliminate zombies, who will then drop capsules to pick up. The capsules, in turn, upgrade your abilities or passives.

Image Credited to Golden Bros | Netmarble

Once your crew has defeated all the zombies, you'll move towards the center of the map. Here, the two teams will clash while new control points emerge. The goal here is to control all the points over time or defeat every remaining enemy. You can respawn if your teammate hovers over your corpse, which will bring you to life. But once everyone on your or their squad perishes, it’s game over.

After winning, you'll receive points toward your rank—and if you lose, you'll lose points. Playing games earns you gold and camp medals towards opening the camp box. Opening the box unlocks character charges to upgrade your characters, while you'll need gold to buy enhancements and use them on characters.

Although refreshing at first, characters like Master Kung and Jennifer never game me time to breathe between bombardments of stunning attacks. Golden Bros doesn't impose a limit for how many of the same characters can be on a team, which makes the imbalance of some of the heroes stand out more. It means that nightmare scenarios are unavoidable—like when I had three Master Kung's clubbing away at my entire, defenseless squad with their absolutely busted close-combat abilities.

What makes Golden Bros so unique is the integration of blockchain into gaming. If you buy loot boxes and open them, you may get unique cosmetics worth actual cryptocurrency. You can also play casually and still earn these rwards, but it'll take some time before you earn anything of monetary value, as is standard with play-to-earn titles.

Image Credited to Golden Bros | Netmarble

The gameplay of Golden Bros has been polished to a smooth, glitch-free sheen. My only problem was getting used to the third-person, isometric camera angle, which was too zoomed out for me to feel immediately comfortable with my movement. The view didn’t alienate me beyond the point of no return, though, and I was able to get the hang of most of the character's skills relatively quickly.

I say “most” because there was one type of skill that kept causing issues for me: point-and-drag skills, which feel extremely slippery and imprecise. Whenever I used Jennifer's ultimate, for example, it would shoot everywhere, requiring me to make minuscule movements to prevent missing shots. And although the game has aim assistance, that feature primarily benefits close-combat characters like Sugar-Sugar or Master Kung. I felt at a slight disadvantage choosing long-range characters despite usually preferring that style of play.

I’ve enjoyed my time with Golden Bros so far. The idea of adding NFTs to gaming is something the industry is only experimenting with right now, but despite being on the cutting edge, this game doesn’t just rely on the shiny new technology. This game takes one step in the right direction towards a potentially revolutionary new approach to games, but it manages to do so without losing sight of what makes for a solid multiplayer title in the first place.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Brawl Stars is almost an identical game. The significant difference is how this game provides all the characters upon playing at the start and uses NFTs as cosmetics for its blockchain experience.

• Battle royale games are a clear inspiration. Golden Bros offers a lot of what makes that style of game fun, but on a smaller scale and on a mobile platform.

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