Sometimes, a great art style is all you need to capture players. That’s even clearer on a game show floor. This year’s Digital Dragons in Krakow, Poland, showcased a wide variety of upcoming games, and the most attractive amongst them was Vinebound: Tangled Together. In fact, its artstyle dragged me across the showroom floor to the booth, exactly like you and your co-op partner will be, as you fight off wave after wave of plant-based badniks in a Bullet Heaven style, while being tethered together. When I got home, I had to check it out again, and given that it’s priced at an ultra-budget level, there was very little reason not to.
Vinebound is cute. You take control of a flowery little guy or gal, each of which offers its own stat benefits such as higher critical rates. As you progress, you unlock new characters, some of whom might have higher health but lower damage, and you can find the right chap for the job, and for forming the foundation of your build as you tackle each run.
Vinebound is best played co-operatively, though you can play alone if you must, taking control of each character simultaneously via the left and right analogue sticks. The subtitle is Tangled Together, and that should give you a good idea of how the two characters interact. A vine passes between the two of them, and you can move a certain distance apart or come closer together, before the vine springs back into shape. It means you have to work together as you move around the arena, especially as the resulting spring from an overstretched vine can send you careering into one of the many, many enemies.
As you move about, a flower travels along the vine, and each time it reaches your character, they fire their weapon. That means you need to be closer together to maximise firepower, but that’s not always possible, with copious bad guys spawning in, or hazards appearing to slow you down.
There’s then various weapons to equip, from a straightforward bow and arrow that fires in a straight line, to homing carrots that head to the nearest enemy. As you fell bad guys, they drop juice, and as you collect it, you each get to choose from three levelling-up cards. These boost your stats in some way, and you can begin to tailor your characters’ build until they’re a monstrous, carrot-firing menace.
The further you get, the more enemies there are, and the more weapons you can add to your twosome, but the harder it is to collect the juice. There’s plenty of risk and reward here, and if things are going your way you can find the upgrades popping up every twenty seconds, giving you just a little more chance of staying alive.
It all feels great. Playing through the game with my nine-year-old son, we were able to work together, taking out enemies, reviving each other, and dodging the bad guys and their bullets, even as the screen became more and more congested. It’s pure, focused and undeniably fun, and when our run came to its end, I just wanted to start again.
Luckily, you can do just that, pouring the currency you’ve unlocked into unlocking and upgrading your armoury, giving you a better starting point for your next run, and giving you more chance at finally making it all the way through a level, defeating the big boss that lies in wait at the end.
While the artwork for Vinebound: Tethered Together is going to be its initial selling point, it’s the frantic co-op gameplay that’ll keep you coming back for more. While we played on PlayStation, it especially feels like a perfect Nintendo Switch title, and since it’s launched across every platform for a very reasonable price of just a few quid, it’s well worth checking out.
