Towerborne is a pretty drastic departure from the Banner Saga series, developer Stoic Studio's impressive set of story-driven strategy games. But even with just a short look at it, it's easy to see some of the familiar Stoic DNA in Towerborne. It carries a beautiful art style that recalls a hand-drawn aesthetic, similar to Banner Saga, and that gives it a powerful vibrancy.
I played a short demo of Towerborne at Xbox's recent Gamescom event in Los Angeles, which gave a very quick look at its moment-to-moment combat gameplay. Towerborne is a side-scrolling co-op action-RPG that takes its inspiration from beat-em-ups. There's clearly a lot of inspiration being drawn from old-school arcade entries in the genre, but Towerborne separates itself through a combat system that includes a variety of combos and special moves, offering something a little deeper than just mashing buttons.
First, Towerborne lets you adjust your fighting style based on the weapons your character uses, and from the sound of things, you can change those weapons frequently to give yourself new options. I teamed up with another journalist to run through the demo, starting with a character who dual-wielded daggers. The fighting style for that character was pretty fast and frenetic, slashing away at close range and mixing in kicks for heavy attacks.
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