Vinebound: Tangled Together – PS5 Review

Survivor clones have really got their hooks into me. There’s a couple of notable big shots in the genre but I’m aware there’s more filling the space. Step forth Vinebound: Tangled Together from Riftpoint Entertainment. It aims to deliver a co-op twist to the glorified slot machine. It presents its own challenges but, as a much smaller venture than its contemporaries, it burns out rather quickly.

If you’re new to the genre, I’ll give a quick rundown. These games are typically single-stick shooters where delivering firepower is on a series of timers. You can aim but you choose when you shoot. As such, most of your time is spent on your positioning in the map. There’s roguelite elements where you have an experience bar that fills up by collecting juice. Levelling up presents the player with a trio of potential upgrades and you pick whatever you fancy.

At steady intervals, boss enemies will spawn and the main gameplay loop is about staying ahead of the advancing hoard. Managing upgrades so you can be powerful enough to fell bosses and complete a run. Vinebound: Tangled Together follows this blueprint closely. The twist is an emphasis on cooperation. At the title suggests, you and a friend are tied together with a weaponised vine. Despite this, the game can be enjoyed as a solo player, or as a duo with a single controller.

This complication does mean movement now has to be coordinated. Pulling the thread in either extreme can cause the two of you to recoil like an elastic band. It’s a lot easier to wrap my head around it in solo play but there is some fun to be had buddying up. You can revive a fallen comrade and both players contribute to the experience pool. Reviving requires you to huddle around your fallen comrade until they return to life. Each player has their own upgrades to manage and the gimmick does allow for some interesting compromises.

Upgrades are plant-themed with weaponry tending to be based around garden vegetable and fruits. They cover familiar ground like applying elemental damage to your weapons, increasing the experience gain and so on. There’s a lot of them but I definitely had a favourite to start with. Anything that focused around the tether would be my weapon of choice. The Acai Blender can upgrade with some gigantic blades and deliver plenty of crowd control. The Strawberry Rod delivers a steady shock of damage from the beginning.

I don’t think it has the build variety of something like a Vampire Survivors. There’s 28 upgrades to find and only about ten of them are explicit weapons. As a result, I tended to stay in a particular mindset. I prioritised experience gain so I could come away with more upgrades. I don’t feel your health pool makes players especially resilient so I would also look to max that out. Speed is also a concern with attack timings cycling as a flower passes between each player. Shorten the thread and you’ve got yourself a quick fire rate. That is a lovely consideration.

More permanent upgrades can be bough by exchanging seeds for them. This effectively allows you to start characters, cards and weapons with higher stats. Worthwhile when you consider how quick runs can be. You only have ten minutes to get the job done and, whilst that does lead to a swift power curve, it can go south suddenly. There’s plenty of luck involved and enemies do tend to swamp the arena. The levels themselves are small in scale. It doesn’t allow much exploration although you cannot stay still. It encourages you to really command both ends of the tether.

The second stage certainly puts a premium on space. Spawning spikes and exploding enemies can make everything feel like a danger. There’s also interludes whether the icy floor can give you an unwanted sense of momentum. It’s where most of my frustration with Vinebound: Tangled Together came from. Seeds are usually dropped from vases or defeating mini-bosses and some runs can be over before reaching that stage. It does not have a steady sense of progression.

The presentation is cutesy and clean. Enemies have a goofy appearance and the music is very jolly. It’s light-hearted and the little pops of combat do well to convey an energetic experience. For the most part, the action is easy to read. The exceptions come from when the arena is simply packed with enemies and juice. Power ups come with their own full screen effects which, whilst flashy can obscure the action. Boss arrivals are monumentally announced which, whilst welcome, also takes up plenty of screen real estate. Reaching the extremes of your tether are given a healthy hint of controller vibration and the heads up display is sound for giving you crucial information.

When it comes down to it, Vinebound: Tangled Together has an interesting gimmick that doesn’t quite work out. The complications of being tethered can lead to some interesting moments of coordinated chaos but it’s also a genuine inconvenience in the latter stages. Whilst it doesn’t try to upset the genre too much, it feels lesser by comparison. What’s on offer feels smaller. That might entice some people who would prefer a more bite-sized experience but I ran out of worthwhile upgrades within a few hours.