Game Review: Orebody: Binder's Tale

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC

Orebody: Binder's Tale (Hereafter simply referred to as "Binder's Tale".) is an interesting game as it belongs to the rather unique category of modern NES games. That means that it's made to run on original hardware, and even has seen a cartridge release in the tail end of 2022. It's also available on the Nintendo Switch and PC, and it's the Switch version that we'll be looking at today. Does this action run and gunner have what it takes to impress retro and modern gamers alike? Well, that's what we're hoping to find out! So strap yourselves in, because it's going to be a bumpy ride!

I seriously want to call him "Bender".

The first level wasn't bad.

Binder's Tale puts you in the role of the titular robot who fell out of the floating fortress city, Galvanstad. He lands on the world below, which is called Orebody on account of its rich stores of ores. He's rescued and repaired by a kind old man who quickly becomes his best friend. One day the armies of Galvanstad attack Orebody on what seems to be a random raiding mission. Random or not, Binder's mentor is struck dead and Binder himself sets off on a journey of revenge. While his final goal is the Floating City of Galvanstad itself, he has quite a journey before him. While action games like this, especially those for the NES, don't necessarily need a great story to get things going, I'm pleased to say that Binder's Tale has a pretty decent one to work with. There are some twists and turns throughout, and each boss encounter starts with a bit of dialogue that gives Binder a bit of character. That said, I actually think that is a bit too much considering how simple the rest of the game is. The opening cut scene is very text heavy and goes on for a quite a while, and I couldn't help but think that if the developers wanted to tell a story this complex then they probably should've chosen a platform other than the NES to tell it. My other gripe with the entire setup would have to be the main character's name. "Binder" is such a weird name, and I couldn't help but call him "Bender" in my head. As in Bender, the alcoholic robot from Futurama. Seeing as they basically made up a word to give him his name (In universe it's because he and his mentor are "bound" together or something.), I can't help but feel that just about ANYTHING else would've worked better. Even the name Orebody is extremely simple when you stop and think about it for more than a minute. It's almost seems like the developers had a deep story they wanted to tell, but then gave up when it came to coming up with names. Anyhow, I don't want to sound totally negative on the game yet, so I'll close this part of the review by mentioning that I did enjoy the story for what it was. I just wish that parts of it were better written and that it had been integrated into the game overall.

This boss looks cool.

Nothing like gatekeeping gameplay.

Here's where my actual thoughts on the game begin, so let's just get into it. There's no easy way to put this, but I don't think I've been let down by a game as hard as I have by Binder's Tale. I can only imagine that many of the issues I'm going to discuss later (like limited color palette, extreme slowdown, etc.) are due to it being created to run on actual NES hardware. I commend the developers for doing that, but that's not exactly a thing to be proud of when the core game isn't good. Binder's Tale reminds me of those hacks you'd find in the early days of the ROM scene that just went for insane difficulty over actual good gameplay. I think most players who strive for "Nintendo Hard" gameplay misunderstand why games came out the way that they did in the early days of console gaming. There's a nostalgia for hard games yes, but you can't just make an insanely hard game and expect people to somehow go through it without any of that pre-established nostalgia. This is my long way of saying that the worst thing about Binder's Tale has to be its insane level of difficulty. Binder only takes one hit to die, and has nothing at all resembling a life bar. Though admittedly he does instantly respawn from a pool of about 6-8 lives. These lives don't refill though, and if you lose them all you have to restart from the beginning of the current stage. As far as I can tell you can only get one or two extra lives per stage, so it's usually best to simply kill yourself at the start of every stage to give you the best shot at actually completing it. Enemies are cheap, often fire so fast that dodging is near impossible, and they pretty much all ignore walls that still hinder your ability to counter their attacks. Most weapon power-ups (if you can even call them that) seem to actually make the game harder, and I never once was glad after I grabbed one. Add in the fact that each stage has two bosses, who are of course difficulty but also have no visible life bars, and you can see why completing anything beyond the first level is an absolute chore.

My experience with Binder's Tale was extremely painful. It took a handful of tries for me to clear the first level, but I was having an okay amount of fun so I decided to stick with it. Naturally I was shocked when I lost all my lives on the first stage boss and had to start the game all over again from the beginning. This time around I placed a save state checkpoint after the mid-stage boss so I could at least start from there if I needed to. Even though this game is running standalone on the Switch, it does seem to have some emulator things in the backend, such as the ability to save and load anywhere via a special menu. Anyway, it turned out that first save state was very much needed as it took a few more tries to complete the first stage. Another save or two later, and I managed to clear it with one life to spare. I immediately snagged another life in Stage Two, but even after using another checkpoint I realized that it's pretty much impossible to not take any damage from certain enemies in this stage. I actually sort of soft-locked myself into an endless death loop thanks to all of my save scumming and I had to restart the stage even though I was close to its boss. My second try at the stage was anything but fun as I had to abuse the save state system in its fullest in order to clear it. At this point I was simply trying to see what came next as I was writing a review, and needed to see more of the game in order to properly judge it. If I was playing for any other reason I would've turned the game off then and there and never would've looked back. I honestly can't fathom how one is supposed to play this game, let alone beat it, without abusing save states. There isn't even a rewind feature, so it's all just a mess of saving and loading. It goes without saying that if your game can't be played easily without using these, then you probably should rethink your entire approach to making games in the first place. I eventually cleared the second level, died so I could get all my lives back, and then started the third stage. It was here that I realized that Stage Two wasn't a fluke, and that the entire game was going to be like this. I decided I had enough and called it a day with this game. While I'm going to assume that someone out there has beaten this game, that person definitely wasn't me.

Is this Dune?

This isn't even a cool-looking boss.

Anyhow, I guess there's still a review to write, so let's talk gameplay next a bit more in depth. Part of why the game is so difficult has to do with how useless Binder is. I actually assumed this would be a Mega Man type game where new weapons would unlock as you continue, but instead you get new abilities in a fashion not unlike a Metroidvania. This is an odd addition as this isn't a Metroidvania game, so doing stuff like not giving you access to the double jump until Stage Three felt a bit weird. I guess I should be glad Binder isn't given other weapons though, as the ones included aren't that great. Your main gun is fine, but only fires a single slow shot by default. Additional weapon drops come from robots that fly across the sky, and it actually took me a while to realize that Binder had the ability to shoot upwards to hit them. These weapons are a shot that splits into two, a boomerang that comes back to you for some reason, and a double laser beam that I think is more powerful than your main gun. There may be more weapons than that, but those were all I encountered. I took to avoiding them whenever I could anyway, since they were far less reliable than your regular gun. You also lose any weapon you have when you die, so don't expect to hang onto them too long even if you somehow find them useful. I already talked about Binder's fragility early on, but part of the issue with him being so weak comes with how clunky controlling him can be. Turning around seems to take longer than it should, and there were times when I swear that the controller inputs were freaking out and he was doing whatever he wanted. Oh, and the entire game rumbles. I'm not sure if you can turn it off in the options, but everything in the game causes the controller to rumble by default. Fire your weapon? Rumble. Get hit? Rumble. Just run around a level? Sometimes rumble. There are just so many odd design choices here that I started to just ignore them after a while.

I just couldn't go on.

Sand Ripples is pretty fun.

I'm going to cover presentation in one go because I don't have a lot to say about it beyond what you're probably going to expect. I don't think that there's anything wrong visually with Binder's Tale. It's not exactly unique in its art style, but it's not particularly ugly either. Well, that's what I have to say about the first stage at least. The graphical shift from Stage One to Two is rather insane, and the enemies in each of them look like they were all designed by different people. Out of curiosity I looked into the game's credits and saw that the vast majority of them were pixel artists, so I'm actually willing to bet that each and every asset did indeed come from a different person. What you get is a random assortment of graphical elements that don't exactly gel together. I'd be willing to overlook this if the game actually ran decent, but the slowdown here is damn near impressive. If more than one enemy is on screen and firing at you, you can expect the framerate to drop into the single digits. If there are more than two enemies on screen, expect the same. I know the NES has its limits, but a game that doesn't really do anything interesting visually shouldn't be running this badly. I even experienced a game crash of the type I've never seen before. I'm used to crashes taking me back to the Switch menu, but for the first time ever I had one that showed me a message that said I had to power off my console. This is actually scared me into quitting my playthrough as it happened right after opening and closing the save state menu. Music probably fares a bit better than graphics, but it feels equally uninspired. There aren't any glaring issues to the soundtrack at all, but it falls into the "just okay" category for sure. The one thing that the game does have going for it presentation-wise would have to be the extras like the concept art and manual. These actually look way better than what actually shows up in the game proper, and sort of catfished me regarding the experience the game was going to give me. I can't help but wonder how good this game would be if the final product reflected the love clearly put into it. I guess we'll never know though.

There is one thing I did like about the game though, and that's its bonus game called Sand Ripples. Don't get me wrong, Sand Ripples is by no means special as it's a Sokoban clone that barely ties into Binder's Tale at all. I did eventually complete this entire mode though, and I didn't even have to save scum to do it. It was the only thing that I truly found entertaining within Binder's Tale, and I'm not even sure why it was included in this package in the first place. It is on the short side though, so don't expect this to be where I suddenly reveal that this addition saved the entire experience for me. That said, I will also say that the current price of $9.99 is just inoffensive enough that I think there are players out there who will find something to enjoy here. That's clearly not the case for me though since I really don't see myself ever picking this up again once I'm done with the review. There are probably some hardcore NES enthusiasts who are looking for their next challenge who will see the difficulty of Binder's Tale as a bonus. I doubt they exist, but who knows.

This art is way better than the actual game.

The instruction manual.

I think it goes without saying that I can't recommend Orebody: Binder's Tale for the casual player. I went in thinking it would be right up my alley, and left feeling catfished and betrayed. The bonus content rocks, but the main game is just so bad that I can't help but wonder what the creators were thinking when they released this into the wild for real money. I feel especially bad for anyone who spent $60+ for the physical NES cartridge. I guess if you're a fan of really hard action platformers that also have some questionable performance issues, then maybe check this one out. Everyone else will probably be better off playing Mega Man 2 another time, or honestly just about any other NES action game.

Check Out Orebody: Binder's Tale on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/orebody-binders-tale-switch/

---

Story: B-
Gameplay: D- (Though Sand Ripples gets a B)
Graphics: C+
Music/Sound: B
Value: C

Overall: C-

Pros:
+ Bonus features like concept art and a full instruction manual are a nice touch.
+ The overall story and universe isn't bad at all, though it isn't always integrated as well as it could be.
+ Even though it's a Sokoban clone, I had a lot of fun with the bonus game Sand Ripples.
+ Though my experience with the game was largely negative, fans of "Nintendo Hard" games could possibly find enjoyment here.

Cons:
- Extreme difficulty makes this game near unplayable and I can't imagine anyone clearing the game without the use of save states.
- There seems to be very little cohesion between the visual elements of the game, as if dozens of people created each individual art asset.
- Performance issues kill just about any fun that could still be had.
- Controlling Binder can be pretty clunky at times, with each mistake most likely bringing about an instant death.
- Overall presentation feels very weak, and seems to be a far cry from what is shown in the bonus features.
- While clearly a labor of love, Binder's Tale is not only rather unoriginal, but it also doesn't pull off anything it attempts very well.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

---

#OrebodyBindersTale