Bladebound is Artifex Mundi's first stab at a hack-and-slash RPG

There’s certainly no shortage when it comes to action RPGs on Android, but that’s not stopping Artifex Mundi from throwing itself in the ring. Breaking from its tradition of adventure games, Bladebound is the company’s first attempt at an action RPG.

So what exactly is Bladebound all about? In short, the game is basically an old-school top view hackfest in similar vein to games like Diablo. That means you get all the genre must-haves including hundreds of weapons, armor, and other loot yours for the plundering. There’s also dozens of skills, spells, and three different difficulties. Furthermore, there’s several character customization options presented in the game.

Story wise, its pretty much the standard “you are the last hope against a major evil” scenario. In the game you take on the role of the last guardian of the Bladebound order, who has returned after a thousand year absence to defeat the Betrayer, a former Bladebound who turned to the dark side or something like that. These kinds of games aren’t known for super strong storylines, but Artifex Mundi seems to have put at least some thought into its cutscenes and story element, so that’s a nice plus.

As for the gameplay itself, it is a tap-and-click action RPG that has you swipe to attack, double tap to do a jumping attack move, a circle swipe to do this Zelda style sword swing, poking the screen to move, and so forth. While it might get a bit tiring after a while, the mechanics seemed to work pretty well in the 20 minutes or so that I tested the game out. I will say the levels seem to be pretty short, but for those who are looking for hack-in-slash experiences on the go — the short length could be exactly what you’re looking for.

Since this is a free-to-play game, there’s all the gems, orbs, and energy aspects you’d expect, though it seems to be pretty playable even without parting with your hard earned cash. Things like energy automatically refill over time, and gold can be found easy enough throughout your adventures.

Overall, this seems like a pretty fun game, though far from groundbreaking. One major downside is that the game does require you to be online, as character data is stored in the cloud. Still, if you like action RPGs, this one is free, so we recommend at least giving it at look over at Google Play.