Bone Marrow Console Edition Review

It doesn’t matter how you spin it, if a gaming release comes tethered with the Ratalaika Games branding, be it through development or publishing, you can usually guarantee that what you’re about to experience is a quick lesson in how to boost your Gamerscore. Often this is as far as the lessons go, with most of these such experiences proving too short to be anything more, but there has been the odd occasion that we’ve been treated with something that resembles a somewhat satisfying or even enjoyable experience. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how Bone Marrow holds up.

Developed by HugePixel, Bone Marrow is a game that looks to expand on the widely known and traditional pairing number game, 2048 and turn it into something a little more. Saying they have succeeded in doing this, however, wouldn’t be the most accurate way to describe this latest adventure.

From the first moments, players can choose from one of two characters, Agyid or Bernard, with a third and final character unlockable later on. The differences between each of these characters are still something I’m yet to figure out, as it seems the only real difference is the face that appears on screen and the name attached, with no stats or abilities that are made aware to the player, and no notable differences coming into play with either one chosen.

The goal of the game is to progress through each of the four areas by way of collecting items, growing your attack and defence stats, and eventually beating the boss at the end of each area as you go. It sounds fairly simple, and it is indeed very simple. In fact, a full playthrough of Bone Marrow should take no more than an hour at most. After just 40 minutes of that hour, you’ll have popped every achievement available in the game, with just the first few levels completed and by the end of the final level, you’ll be sat wondering why on earth there needed to be four in the first place.

There is a story to it all which tells the tale of how the Bloody Moon came down in the years of 780 AD, unleashing all manner of evil creatures that have been lurking in the darkness, but besides an opening text depicting such information, there is very little to get sucked into going onwards, with the core focus pointed firmly at gameplay.

Gameplay sees players taking to the screen as their chosen battle-ready warrior, and by making movements up, down, left, or right, you must match together with the various items on the screen, doubling their value with each successful match before collecting them to increase your stats and your overall fighting chances before heading into battle.

The items in need of matching come in three different types. Food provides the player health, swords add to the attack stat, and shields add to the defensive stat, all of which is of importance when you face off against enemies that jump into battle on a near-daily basis.

Now to make things slightly more interesting, the game does follow a day and night cycle which is depicted by sun and moon at the bottom of the screen along a progressive bar. During the night state, players are unable to fight. Instead, this time is best used to match as many items together as possible for collection later on. When the sun rises, however, you’ll find yourself able to make free movement about the screen to collect all the items you’ve been matching, with their full values being added directly to the aforementioned attack and defence stats. The daytime state however is also when you will find enemies jumping into battle, with fighting also only a possibility during the day, with any attempts to attack at night losing you valuable time to prepare resources for collection.

Now for me, this is where my niggles with the game started to come into play.

The focus of matching items is to raise your attack and defence stats to be higher than that of any enemy that appears, ensuring you have the power to defeat them in battle. The awkward reality of this however is that should you avoid conflict by moving away from your enemy at all times until you’ve elevated your stats high enough, there is never any real threat that can be posed, even by the end of level bosses.

Now of course this may seem like a deceitful way to play, but should you simply head straight into battle at the first opportunity, chances are you’ll be defeated fairly swiftly, with most meaningful enemies besides the odd rat, or snake spawning with more health than you.

What does make things slightly more interesting is that enemies such as skeletons, bandits and bosses are able to gain the same advantages as the player should you make a movement that pushes them into the matched items you would normally be collecting yourself. This means that should you have just matched an item all the way from a lowly 2-stat power, all the way to the lofty heights of a 16-stat power, and an enemy lands on it, you’ve given that entire boost to your opponent.

Sadly, what then ruins this ingenious idea is that enemies and the player are both capped at certain health limits depending on XP level, and the players limit is always much higher than that of enemies.

To get through each level, players must proceed to collect items and defeat enemies long enough to reach XP Level 6. At this point, the boss will arrive and it’s a fight to the death, with victory completing the level and defeat sending you back to the menu – although you can then simply continue from the level you died on.

As far as gameplay goes that’s everything there is to know, story-wise, that’s all wrapped up too, and with just an hour of playtime and no real reason to jump back in once you’ve got to the end – unless of course, you’d like to have a few battles against a friend in two-player local multiplayer, but even then, Bone Marrow is very much a one-and-done affair.

It wouldn’t be right however to sign off without telling you of the wonderful visuals and exciting soundtrack. Sadly, this isn’t something I can do today. Sure, Bone Marrow comes equipped with Xbox Series S|X optimisations, but with 16-bit pixelated visuals and basic sound cues to imitate swords and fighting, there isn’t a whole deal to talk about that goes beyond hitting the general expectations. Bone Marrow certainly doesn’t do a bad job in either the audio or visual department but it’s not a game that is going to put your shiny new console or expensive sound systems through their paces either – or your old ones for that matter.

Conclusion

Overall if quick and easy are search terms you’d use to find your next gaming adventure, then Bone Marrow is going to be one you’ll want puffing its chest amongst your collection. If you’re after a meaningful experience that you can invest any serious time and effort into, or gain any real enjoyment from, then there are certainly many better options out there.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.