The first thing you will notice when playing BONERAISER MINIONS is the sheer amount of boner puns. I am not joking, the game is very liberal with its lighthearted crudeness. But if that alone would put you away from the title, please, perish the thought! Boneraiser Minions is not like any other Vampire Survivor clone. Oh yes, so, that's the start - it is a 'survivor' game in broad strokes. You're a necromancer and the nasty king with his 'heroes' are trying to stop your peaceful ways of raising undead in the coziness of your mausoleum. How rude! Of course, it is your right to protect your eternal homestead from the self-proclaimed virtuous fighters and put them into the ground. Well... Just to use their bones to raise them again as your minions.
This is the first and main shtick of the game. You're not the one doing the fighting. Well, of course, you have an array of spells and relics that beef up your run, letting you more actively take part in the ongoing struggle. But the brunt of the work will be on the shoulders of your raised army. And they do come in oh so many flavors! From your basic skeleton fellas to weird, gooey amalgamations and even undead... vegetables. The selection is vast and ever-evolving because the second main feature is the ability to upgrade and meld together your minions to unlock new, more powerful forms. As you experiment you will access giant undead, demons, monstrous apparitions, melded entities, and humongous angry veggies.
This alone would make for a satisfying game, as there is a cornucopia of options to pick from each run. Additionally, you unlock new 'necromancers', or careers for yourself. Each has its progression, unique skills, and interactions with certain minion types, spells, or other in-game features. Be a demonologist and rely on summoning a few powerful demons. Be a Vampire and strive in battle thanks to life-leeching on enemies. Or a Wax Puppeteer, making use of enemy types look-a-likes with their abilities. Those are only a few examples, the selection is pretty vast.
But that's not even all! The game is huge, and extraordinarily reachable, unlike most Survivor-likes I ever encountered. To list all the possible tools at your disposition would be quite a task but in short... You get various structures you can raise at your mausoleum to help against invaders. You get a vast selection of relics and spells to aid you in your fight. You get access to a mini card game which you can use to unlock new things for yourself. You control the difficulty yourself with a rich upgrade system that buys you not only new powers and capabilities but also new and more dangerous enemy types that will spawn at certain waves. One could say it might be a bit silly to buy an 'upgrade' that just makes the game harder... But those new waves of inventive enemies also offer you more bones, treasures, and souls in a run, boosting your progression as you play.
There's simply a lot to track. Which is good! In a game like this, relying on repetitive runs, you do want two things to be always on display: a goal to chase after. And a new challenge to scratch up to. BONERAISER MINIONS offer both in great plenty, and it will take a long time until you run out of fresh things to unlock and play with.
The sense of style is another thing. The game is crude and goofy and it is very happy about it. As I already mentioned, everything is either a pun or a rather teenage-grade crude attempt at lewd humor. Every fight is called a 'Pounding'. Some spells inform you that you're going to be sliding on a full diaper to leave a sludge zone that slows enemies. Oh, enemies? I mean Meanies because that's what they are called in the game. There are tiny additions of light-hearted humor in almost every text. You get lovely invincibility frames. Your minions' attack can be hurty. A giant pot minion sitting with a shit-eating grin in the middle of the screen? Well, that's a Giant Potoussy. Yeah. You read that right.
All that is wrapped in lovely and dynamic pixel art, with a dark background that lets the characters pop on screen. Which is much needed, because the game can become VERY chaotic in a matter of seconds. Dozens of enemies chase after your undead posterior when another dozen of your various minions bounce, roll, and shift around in an attempt to take them down. Add spells, weird attacks, random events, and bosses, and you can get quite a visual explosion on your screen. It never felt overwhelming though - fun and vibrant, to be sure.
BONERAISER MINIONS is light, and fun, and yet displays depth of options that few other games of the genre could aspire to. It's an almost endless well of engaging systems, well laid before the player, giving them a rich toolbox to tinker with. Every run can be different if you wish it so. It has a unique way of handling the core gameplay, great music, great vibes, and just the silly, goofy kind of humor to give me a few hearty chuckles. Splendid game.
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