Thanks to Disney, many of us have a general understanding of the themes permeating the centuries-old One Thousand and One Nights (commonly known as the Arabian Nights stories) that is a staple of Middle Eastern folklore. Genies grant wishes, thieves get their hands chopped off (or worse), and luck outweighs skill. It’s not as glamorous as the tales of knights in shining armor fighting dragons to win the admiration of a princess, but that grittiness is part of the appeal, in my opinion.
City of Brass built its foundation centrally within the One Thousand and One Nights lore, literally taking its origins from the similarly titled City of Brass story. While the game and the actual story deviate from one another, their themes remain tightly-knit: seek riches in a city full of evil magic and try to escape with your life.
Be greedy, but not too greedy.
To facilitate fast-paced, exciting gameplay, Uppercut Games integrated a timer that ticks away as players dash through the City of Brass, parkour-style. Equipped with a melee weapon (typically a scimitar of some sort) and a whip with a very generous range, players run, jump, slide, and swing through the city’s haunted streets, bazaars, and alleyways.
Undead monstrosities plague the city, deadly traps threaten every step you take, and evil genies spring up from their stationary artifacts and hurl fireballs at you like you’re a minion in a tower defense game. The City of Brass isn’t exactly a welcoming city.
Unless you’re a treasure hunter.
The only thing the City of Brass has more of than its deadly traps and inhabitants is treasure. Priceless amounts of treasure are stashed in seemingly every corner of the city, and you’re going to want to snag as much of it as you can, not just to improve your personal score, but to have something to barter with when you happen to encounter a genie who wants to take your valuables, rather than your life.
Friendly genies, as I called them, function similarly to the vending machines found throughout the Bioshock games (which Uppercut Games had some involvement in). When you find a friendly genie you can use some of your treasure to buy better gear and abilities that give you a better likelihood of surviving the game’s often-brutal levels.
The difficulty was a bit too intense for my liking. City of Brass is a rogue-lite, so I expected the steep difficulty curve, but the fact that you start from scratch every time (there was no save mid-game feature, either), and many traps are one-hit-kills, elevated my frustration to near-intolerable levels. Luckily, the developers saw the need for some training wheels which come in the form of Blessings.
From the main menu players can activate Blessings which augment the game’s difficulty in different ways. Some blessings make the traps less common, others give you more health or stronger weapons. After tinkering with the Blessings system, I found a Goldilocks zone that worked for me, and the game became much more enjoyable because of it.
On the other hand, if you are a super-intense gamer and like super-intense difficulty levels in your games, City of Brass has a Burdens system that parallels the Blessings system, allowing you to activate traits that increase the game’s difficulty in different ways. My thoughts and prayers to all keyboards who suffer at the hands of players who decide to stack up on the Burdens.
In addition to the Blessings, players get three wishes that they can utilize during their run. The wishes are initially used to refresh item variety with friendly genies, wish for the favor of evil genies, or improve the items up for sale. However, as you progress through the game’s four districts, wishes can be used to teleport to the start of the next segment. So, essentially, once you reach the final quarter of the game, if you die, you can expend your three wishes to skip through the first three quarters. The downside is that you no longer have any wishes to use to improve your gear and shop items.
If City of Brass had a theme it would be Risk vs. Reward. The game promotes fast-as-you-can looting, linger too long in a level and you’ll be punished (I’ll let you figure out what the punishment entails), but with treasure literally lying around everywhere, it’s hard to just ignore the valuables that could make the game easier for you. Do you use your wishes to bypass alleys of enemies, or do you save them in the hopes that you discover something glorious in your adventure? Choose carefully, there is no coming back from death. Not for you, anyway.
[RECOMMENDED] City of Brass is a challenging rogue-lite that forces the player to keep moving forward, and that near-breakneck speed intensifies what would have already been an action-packed game. This challenging game isn’t for everyone; slow-paced game lovers, beware. However, if you feel the need for speed, City of Brass is an easy recommendation.
[City of Brass on Steam, also available for PS4 and Xbox One.]
City of Brass was reviewed on PC, with a Steam retail copy provided to Epic Brew by the developers.
