Those familiar with my posts know that I really enjoy Vampire Survivors and necromancy in video games, so Boneraiser Minions was a match made in heaven for me. Boneraiser Minions is a twist on the Vampire Survivors formula, where your character’s job is to raise an undead army.
Instead of becoming a massive wrecking ball of destruction, you walk around gathering bones to keep raising more undead minions and leveling them up. There are quite a few different minions available, and they can be upgraded, fused, or melded into stronger units.
It’s as pure a necromancy simulator as we’ll ever get, and it’s weird that it’s coming from an 8-bit game instead of a massive RPG.
You can read the game’s Steam description below:
Boneraising auto-battler action: Dash around avoiding enemies and collecting their bones to raise and upgrade minions who fight for you! Each minion type has their own fighting styles, from melee pulverisers and magical missilers, to supporting hexers and augurs.
Multiple game modes: There’s several game modes to keep play fresh. In Mausoleum Awakens you must protect your crypt against King Gigald and his forces, making best use of traps and contraptions you place before the show. There’s Necrotic Skirmishes for a quick bash to simply see how long you can last against an ever growing horde of meanies. The Daily/Weekly Challenge were you compete against the world on an equal footing. There’s Clashful Cards, a collectable adversarial card game offering respite from endless boneraising. And a full Castle Conquest mode where you travel through various maps choosing your path in a quest to conquer the Queen’s Palace!
Relics and Spells: There’s not just bones to suck on during the fight. You will find curious Relics with strange boosts and abilities, or Spell Scrolls with powerful attacks or buffs to be used at the perfect time!
Boneraise Lore meta: Between games use collected coins to increase your abilities and boneraising powers, such as learning to raise Enboned Giants and Possessed Deamons. Meta can also be upgraded and refunded, encouraging you to play around and find your perfect meta loadout!
Heroic Force meta: You must also bolster the forces against you too if you wish to survive King Gigald. Why not provoke a Beggar’s Revolt, Goblin Looters, or Mercenary Cyclops, and use their bones to raise an ever greater army of dead!
Class Heritage meta: By stealing hero souls you can also learn new abilities and perks for a particular class. Each class offers their own playstyles, from the Liche who prefers quantity over quality, to the Deamologist who favours huge deamonic minions. Or even classes that specialise in raising versions of the enemies themselves!
Steam Leaderboard: Battle your foes, and your friends, to reach first place on the online Steam leaderboard! Even after defeating King Gigald the crusade wars are endless, and only the greatest legion of undead ever assembled will reach the top spot!
Soundtrack Album: Comes with an album of all the game’s catchy tunes (check your Steam Music Player!)
The game has multiple classes, all with their own talent trees and special abilities, as well as increasingly difficult game modes and even a built-in card game similar to Final Fantasy‘s Triple Triad.
Boneraiser Minions is a really fun adventure into necromancy and a very engaging game to pass the time while you slowly unlock meta upgrades to make your undead army even stronger.
If you want to read more about some similar games, check out our preview for The Unliving and our spotlight for the Vampire Survivors genre.
Boneraiser Minions is available for Microsoft Windows (through Steam).
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