It’s time to start dungeon-diving once again. With so many roguelites releasing constantly in the indie sphere, it takes an ever evolving sense of taste and outright creativity to not just release the same game over and over again. For instance, Bravery & Greed, at first glance, does look and feel a lot like yet another roguelite, Neon Abyss, but Bravery & Greed feels much more evolved, expanded on, and all around much more fresh and enjoyable. That’s not to say Neon Abyss isn’t a good roguelite, for it very much is, but this just shows how much the genre has evolved in the two years since that game’s first release.

The first step that Bravery & Greed adds is being a 4-player roguelite. With a variety of classes available, everyone can pick who works best for them and work together to tackle the dungeons. Building your character can feel similar or entirely different every round, based on choices you choose to make. I don’t mean this in the simple “I look for the same weapons every run” type way, but instead you immediately pick between four styles. Life, dark, order, and chaos. Each attunes itself to a slightly different playstyle like chaos is for fast, high damage tempo, while life is a bit slower.

Bravery & Greed looks a bit simple. The areas match the deities they are based on, but there isn’t anything crazy by any means. Darkness is set in a cave, while law is significantly lighter, and less chaotic of a dungeon system. Being able to pick the order you tackle these four deities is quite fresh though. If you choose to start your run with support from life, you should decide to start your run in the life dungeon. Sure this will give you a bit of chance to get some life items early and maybe have a mid-range character who with some luck will be able to finish a run. That, or you can take some weapons in other dungeons that maybe you’re less attuned to, and tackle life later, getting significantly stronger items, but fighting significantly stronger enemies in the dungeon to achieve them.

I appreciate the tempo of the sounds throughout Bravery & Greed, some of the rooms are quite large, so you might not be able to see all, or any, of the enemies in the room. Although, you might be able to hear skeletons spawn, or mages that can cause some big problems. Listening is quite a big deal, which means you’re likely also listening to the music in game, instead of your own. The music is alright, it’s the right tempo for this style of game, but it just isn’t significant. Team 17 have released so many games with memorable music, see Overcooked, and unfortunately Bravery & Greed just simply isn’t one of those games.

While Bravery & Greed might look simple, the artwork is anything but. Yes, the areas aren’t crazily overdeveloped by any means. They are quite barebones, but distinguishable from each other. The characters are similar to that, they aren’t crazy different, mostly just reskins of each other, but they’re distinguishable. Everything looks clean, and the colours are quite good, keeping lighter areas looking light with whites and yellows, while darker areas are full of blacks and greys, without looking overdone. The foreground looks like it belongs with the background, without blending together and creating objects that look like background, but are actually foreground, and the other way around.

Bravery & Greed is a great new addition to the roguelite genre. It has a lot of pros, specifically being able to play co-op and attack each run in such a different way every time. The cons are the less than stellar distinctions between the different dungeons, and the less interesting soundtrack. All around though, this is a very solid title and is definitely worth the pick-up ahead of the holidays to play with your family around the big new TV most people plan to pick up.

Graphics: 6.0 Bravery & Greed looks solid. It definitely wouldn’t win any awards for its visuals, but everything looks purposefully made for each area without anything feeling too over used, or simple reskins of enemies just to match different areas.	Gameplay: 8.5 There is a lot of fun to be had in Bravery & Greed, amplified if you have friends to play it with.
Sound: 6.5 Each area has its own unique sounds and tones. While it’s nice that everything feels specific to an area, there’s nothing really standing out past that. No specific music tracks or anything to make you go “I want to tackle this area first because the theme is a banger.”	Fun Factor: 8.0 All around Bravery & Greed is a roguelike that I’ll continue to jump into for a run or two when I only have a little bit of time to play around with.
Final Verdict: 7.5

Bravery & Greed is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One.

Reviewed on PS4.

A copy of Bravery & Greed was provided by the publisher.