Some people work to live, others live to work. Personally I like to think I live to game but perhaps that’s just me looking at life with rose-tinted glasses. Yet somehow I find myself insanely curious about a game with a hook such as, “Deny an insurance claim, save the world.” How could denying someone’s insurance claim actually save the world? Well, it’s not quite that simple, but it makes for an interesting starting point in Ledgerbound.
Ledgerbound is perhaps a simpler Fire Emblem in terms of tactical RPG with some of the humor of a much hornier and crude Dispatch. The game still deals with interpersonal relationships in the workplace, well, I should say a workplace of sorts. When HR is your friend and also one of the crudest people in your area, it makes for quite an interesting dynamic. But before this becomes the review equivalent of “this meeting could’ve been an email” let’s dive into the nitty gritty.
Auto Saving
Before I dive into all of the great things about the game, and believe me, there are many, I want to make a note of the auto-save feature. Why you may ask? Because the autosave feature is not something you can turn on and off. The game will always be continuously saving and you can do nothing about it. This means your choices are your choices. You can’t just go back and save scum to see how things could’ve been different. Not without a whole new gameplay of course. This means you have to be very willing to commit to the choices you make. It also means that unfortunately a gameplay bug may have disastrous consequences, as one I encountered early on during the review. Thankfully it was resolved and should no longer linger, but it is worth noting.
You will never have to save in Ledgerbound. You will never have to worry about losing progress if your power goes out or you somehow unplug your PC and it turns off. But you also will need to be committed to your decisions such as reading this review. You won’t be able to unlearn what you read here. Alright, carry on!
Story
In Ledgerbound you play as Rayna, an insurance adjuster who does her best to make sure the company wins. In this case, the company winning means that they do not pay out. A hero dies? Well, that’s probably too bad for the beneficiaries. If Rayna can prove that the heroes should have been able to survive the battle and died due to their own stupid choices, the claim is denied. Unfortunately for many heroes and their families, Rayna is REALLY good at her job. She prides herself on this and puts in extra hours to always benefit the company.
That is, until one day, the strongest heroes in the land meet their demise. No matter what tactics Rayna tries, she can’t find a way for the heroes to win. She then finds herself on the field, looking to see if there were any clues missed in her re-imagining of the battle. This fateful field trip leads her on her biggest journey yet. You must get out from behind the desk with your new found powers, manage the cast of characters that join you, and prove that there is nothing more dangerous than an insurance adjuster ensuring that you don’t get a dime.
It’s this humor and oddball commentary within the story that really works. The world is at stake and yet we’re wondering if we can stop a claim. Do insurance adjusters really work this hard? And while this is what starts the journey, it actually becomes so much more. Through this wacky adventure, we see more about what makes these characters tick. We see how people bond and learn about the world around them. Some are driven to succeed, some are driven by lust, and some are just trying to escape the shackles society has put on them. For many of these characters, the journey to save the world takes a backseat to their own personal stories.
Characters
In the same way I won’t spoil the full plot of the story, I won’t spoil the character development of each character. However, I did want to highlight the characters and their arcs as it does help the game stand apart from other “we have powers lets save the world” sort of narratives.
For example, we have Rayna who is overly dedicated to her job. So much so that her best friend is a hat rack that she will come to use in battle. But is Hat Rack truly a friend, a crutch, or just a rack that needs to be adorned with hats? Early on we also meet Jazz, our HR representative who is looking to get out of her father’s wing and stand on her own. While she’s clearly old enough to work there is a youthfulness and naivete that at times feels like the worst of teenage years and the best of them. The angst and disappointment in her father while he tries to love her feels oddly grounded despite their dragon lineage.
The first two who join your team are homeless Hobknob and Prince Avarice. These two couldn’t be more different yet they both find a home and role within the team. Hobknob and his rats are clever while being oddly befuddled at all times. The rats may really be the clever ones with Hobknob just being their entertaining caretaker. Whereas Prince Avarice is cared for by his manservant Grigsby. Avarice puts on airs of being smarter than he is, but it’s easy to get a read on him. This is the character I also chose to romance (and as he is monogamous the only character I romanced) and his growth, while not unexpected, felt rewarding. We see him at some of his best and some of his worst.
As the story progresses, we meet more characters with their own plights. Some, like Joy, who are trying to break free from the metaphorical shackles that were put on them. Others like Cazian looking to break free from the actual shackles the team has put on him. There are also the elusive Shareholders, powerful, almost ephemeral beings that seemingly represent the overly rich and powerful. Something many unfortunately strive for but may not realize how lonely it can actually be at the top.
See, what makes many of the characters and their stories powerful is the grounded in reality aspect. Again, it would be too easy to have these characters seem overly powerful, overly goofy, all in the name of a ridiculous concept. But the humanity of them, despite not all of them being human, is what allows the story to resonate. The writers did extremely well in finding the balance of humor, heart, and yes, of course, horny.
Voice Acting
This is going to be a short section. Why? Because I don’t need to tell you that these voice actors deliver time and time again. The cast of actors is extremely stacked. Many of you already know Yuri Lowenthal, Matt Mercer, Ben Starr, Shelby Young, Travis Willingham, Erin Yvette, Robbie Daymond, the list goes on. But the ones who really sine for me are Rayna’s VA Heather Gonzalez and Sylvie’s VA Cherami Leigh.
Gonzalez brings a raw and vulnerable depth to Rayna in her darkest moments. When she’s unsure of herself, I can’t help but feel I too have been there. It resonates in such a way that feels almost uncomfortably real but comforting. We’ve all been Rayna at some point haven’t we? Haven’t we wanted to impress others too much? Haven’t we wanted to succeed at something so bad we’ve given it too much? We’ve all sat at home, read too much smut, and given the characters voices? Wait is that just me?
Then there’s Sylvie voiced by Cherami Leigh who at times has so much manic energy it almost felt like I suddenly had more energy to get out there. The uncertainty, the anxiety, the stress, it all feels like ways I have been. Especially after messing something up and wanting to not be punished. At times I could almost feel my own heart rate go up hearing her. Yet all I wanted to do was hug her. I wanted to tell her it would be okay. I wanted to pat her head, let her know she is so much more than the caster’s may have made her believe. And above all, I wanted her to be my best friend.
Battle Gameplay
Battles are like a simplified fire emblem. Instead of weapons it focuses on elements providing a tactical advantage. These elements are also improved by the fact that there are also glyphs on the ground that help boost a characters power. A fire element on a fire glyph? Enjoy the boost. But be sure you aren’t on a water glyph or you may find yourself at a disadvantage.
The combat otherwise is a simple tactical grid with turn based combat. Each fight has objectives which translate into stars which allow you to move closer with your shareholder while at camp. The more stars you earn, you’ll also be able to turn these in to get better items for your characters.
Your characters can also level up and find themselves promoted along their class line. However, in order to level up, characters must actively participate in battle. They only earn EXP for being engaged be it a defense or taking the action. This means that in order to keep your characters progressing, you’ll want to be sure to use them all fairly wisely. Sometimes, the game will also try to get you to do so. In one such fight a goal was to have anyone other than a specific character deal the killing blow. So while that character may be your strongest one, you’ll have to bounce around and keep all characters in the fight.
Some of the maps also allow for more than just a fight. Some maps require exploring and interacting with the map to find items or change up the terrain a bit. You can use these terrain changes to your advantage in battles if you figure out the best way to do so. It’s not the same however for items you find in battles, You cannot equip them during the battle and will have to wait to spend time back at camp adding your swag and liabilities to your characters. The same is true for any promotions you earn. These can only be shifted back at camp.
I enjoyed the somewhat simple animations for the fights as well. The characters end up with chibi inspired models and show off their attack. These moves never need to be overly complex or long. The animations felt like they took up just the right amount of time overall.
Down Time
A lot of the story and character development takes place during the downtime outside of battle. There is bonding between characters to learn more about them, give them that well deserved promotion, and possibly even give them some new swag for battle. However just like in the real world, all of this takes time. During the downtime, you have one minute (60 seconds) to spend how you choose. Even just getting characters equipped with liabilities and swag will use up some of your time. Let’s not forget how good Rayna is at her job as well, that’s because she works diligently. A one minute break is all she can afford, or is it?
If you want to ensure you can spend time with all of the characters, do all of the downtime activities, there are a few ways to do so. The first would be to ensure you are completing the HR trainings as some of these will provide you benefits. Some of these benefits is reducing the amount of time spent on activities. Of course, mandatory trainings can be boring. Perhaps you don’t mind allowing Rayna to slack off a bit. You can select an option to earn more time back but at the risk of adding to Rayna’s burn out.
This mechanic itself felt very clever because it never truly let go of who Rayna is despite her new surroundings. Being sure just to name it procrastination, burn out, using the time mechanic, reminds us who she is at her core. It’s up to you to decide if she’ll shed some of her dedicated to the company energy for her new found life.
Company Swag (And Liabilities)
One of the clever things about Legerbound is the way they use terms within the game. You boost up your characters by providing them swag or by adding liabilities to them. Of course, characters can only have so much swag on them while on this journey so they are limited by the four slots in their character page. The liabilities are buffs to the character that are limited by the amount of insurance coverage they carry. These don’t remain stagnant either as character can’t see their insurance coverage amount increase allowing them to have better liabilities along the way.
While the swag and liabilities won’t change the way the characters play, promotions will change the way characters look in battle. You choose their track as they level up and you’ll see their clothes change slightly. During battle they’ll also get slightly new animations and some promotions may also change the way they fight in battle. For example, Sylvie begins as a ranged character but depending on the promotion track you may see her become much more of a melee fighter. Did I somewhat regret this when it happened? Somewhat, but my choices were my choices and I could not go back so we carried on. It actually made her one of the strongest fighters on my team so at the end of it all, no regrets!
Romance
I can’t talk about a game that is this horny and not touch upon the romance. Yes, romance. While there is a lot of lust and crudeness, there is true romance in Ledgerbound. You’ll find characters drawn to each other in ways that feel sometimes a bit ridiculous and sometimes endearing. While I romanced Avarice, I did find myself sometimes wondering what would it have been like to romance Sylvie? But then the closeness of these two girl friends made it feel like I made the right choice. While there was a flirtatious undertone, the friendship was what was truly strong. So even if you don’t romance all of the characters, you’ll quickly find that the relationships are what really keeps this cast of characters together.
As a note, just like in life, characters can be monogamous or polyamorous. Each will have a partner preference in their employee information page. I did notice that by choosing to be with one character who was monogamous, I had to tell another monogamous character that we could not move our relationship further. So depending on who you romance, be quite careful how you choose to move forward. You will get to spend quite a romantic or steamy night with your beloved. One day I’ll get to see how the rest of them turn out. For now, enjoy Rayna and Avarice ready to enjoy what could be their last night together.
Multiple Endings
The game does actually have what seems to be at least more than one ending. So yes you might have to play it a second time. Remember, it doesn’t allow you to go back to earlier times. It ALWAYS saves. This means you can’t change your decisions. You won’t be able to change who you romanced or make better decisions. It’s actually something that I found enjoyable though. Too often the temptation to save scum and wonder “but what if I did this” is there. This time, it just means dedicating more time to the game. Which I plan on doing very soon.
Enjoy your second play, enjoy your romances. Make some decisions in a different way than you did before. Play Rayna as someone who experiences much more burnout even while on the road. Or play her as someone who sticks to a very defined schedule and makes time only for those deemed important. While Rayna is a fully fleshed out character with fleshed out voice lines and behaviors, you can still very much impart your own desires on her and shape her into the next version of herself.
Great, it has lots of strengths. Where’s the weaknesses in this evaluation?
Ledgerbound isn’t a perfect game. However, I can say that the development team has been very good about hopping right into the game and resolving any issues as they came up. Of course, that still means I’m going to do my due diligence in sharing some of the issues that arose while playing.
Early on in my review period, I ran into a game breaking bug. In case you forgot, the game uses the constant save feature. And it truly does constantly save, even in mid battle. In some ways, this sounds great! You can quit at any time and not lose your progress. This was not great when one of the battles would stop moving forward when the enemy died to a rat trap. There was no way for me to move forward and make different choices to prevent the game getting stuck. However, the good news was that once I was able to get this information to the development team, a fix was deployed in almost no time (approximately 2 days). Was this because they were already fixing it? Was it a happy coincidence? I’m not sure, but it’s great to know this bug has been resolved.
The other bugs that arose, although rare, had more to do with the voice acting and dialogue. At times, the voices you would hear did not match the text on the screen. While they weren’t vastly different, if you’re someone like me who sometimes has to both read and hear it, this sometimes was a bit jarring. It does not break the game, and I’m fully aware that the development team posted on their social media quite often indicating their working through some final tweaks. So by the time you play this game, this will all be fine! But I have to be fair and call out what I saw at the time of playing. Hopefully it’s a non-issue for you.
The development team was constantly busy crossing off their tasks, completing the work, and doing their best to ship out the best product it could be by it’s release. If you followed the game closely, you’ll know that there were some delays in getting the game into the hands of the players. I am not going to dock any points on the actual delays themselves. Instead, I’m going to give kudos to the development team for working as hard as possible to ship out the game as the best version of itself. Even if this meant some unexpected delays on the Steam platform.
Final Thoughts
Humor? Check. Heart? Check. Satisfying combat? Check (if you want simpler tactical combat). Satisfying character growth? Check. Good gameplay? Check. Romance? Check. It checks so many boxes. Combat is smooth and satisfying, even rewarding at times. The voice acting is fantastic which is no surprise with the amazing cast of talent.
It’s not afraid to even poke a little bit of fun at itself, which is quite clear after the final battle. To be fair, some of the humor and crudeness of characters (looking at you Jazz) may wear thin on some players. For others, like me, you may find joy in the characters and their behavior. All in all, the game is quite great for playing who want a bit of visual novel, a bit of tactical RPG, and a bit of choices determine your final ending. I would have given the game a slightly higher score had it not had the bugs I encountered during the review, but I have confidence that by the time the game is in the hands of players, it will be much closer to the 9 and an enjoyable experience for all.
Ledgerbound is available now on Steam. Gamer Social Club would like to thank OmniMegaSuperCorp for the review code.
