If I were one of an archetypal party of RPG heroes locked in the throes of battle with a dastardly final boss, just about the last thing I would want to have to worry about is whether or not the adventurers’ insurance I purchased will cover me if things go awry. In Ledgerbound, you’re placed on the opposite side of that coin: You play as an insurance adjuster whose employer issues those adventurers’ insurance policies. Ledgerbound, developed and published by OmniMegaSuperCorp, has you play as Rayna Ashvale, a highly dedicated employee at Heroes United Life Group.

When I say Rayna is “highly dedicated” to her job, I really mean “borderline obsessed.” She’s been the employee of the month every month for nearly three consecutive years at the time Ledgerbound’s events take place. She voluntarily works as much overtime as she possibly can, paid or otherwise, just because she loves her job so much. I know firsthand that doing that for too long tends to be a very bad idea, but that’s a story for another time. As an insurance adjuster, your job is to review every insurance claim that comes across your desk.

Your main goal with every claim is to finagle a scenario in which the adventurers who filed that claim (or the surviving family who filed the claim on their behalf) were injured or killed due solely to their own negligence. Whether that scenario is actually true or not is irrelevant. What matters is that whatever you come up with has to be plausible enough for your employer to use as grounds to deny any insurance claim, thus allowing you to avoid paying whoever filed it. Rayna, in particular, is scarily good at that aspect of her job, which is why she’s valued so highly.

Fortunately for you, you don’t have any clients on your caseload named Luigi, so you can probably continue to get away with your shenanigans. As you’ve probably gathered by now, Ledgerbound is chock-full of satire at the expense of several aspects of modern society. That’s only one reason I enjoy Ledgerbound so much. Rayna’s life takes a drastic, unexpected turn when her boss bursts into the office one day looking like he’s about to have a fatal heart attack. He informs you that Heroes United Life Group’s most valuable (i.e., profitable) group of adventurers has died on a quest.

Those adventurers each had the most expansive (and expensive) insurance policy your company offers. Now that they’ve fallen in battle and an insurance claim has been filed on their behalf, if their claim were approved, Heroes United Life Group would have to pay out so much money that the company would instantly be bankrupted. Beyond the obvious reasons that’s a huge problem, the company suddenly going under would definitely anger the shareholders. Even in a high-fantasy environment like that of Ledgerbound, keeping corporate shareholders happy is always priority number one. I guess art really does imitate life, unfortunately.

In order to work your claim-denying magic, you’ll need to personally investigate the scene at which the group of heroes in question (called “the Regulators”) were slain. So, you set off alongside your boss, Mr. Amwing, and his daughter, Jazz. Jazz is a friend of yours who is also Heroes United Life Group’s head of Human Resources. Jazz hates her father despite being stuck living with him, though that feeling is definitely not mutual. You only bring Mr. Amwing along because his credentials will let you get past the guards at the scene so you can figure out what happened.

That brings us to the core gameplay loop within Ledgerbound. Ledgerbound is a turn-based tactical RPG with what I would describe as visual novel elements. That is, you’ll face frequent combat encounters in which you’re expected to issue orders to a party of adventurers who can gain experience and level up. Your party members gain experience points when they do almost anything in combat, whether that be taking or dealing damage, healing an ally, or using whatever their current unique ability is. There is also an elemental system you’ll have to contend with that plays a significant role in combat.

Thankfully, though the elemental system is important, it’s also basic and really easy to understand: Fire beats Grass, Water beats Fire, Grass beats Water. Every party member you can recruit and every individual enemy you’ll fight has been assigned one of these elemental types. You can still attack when your party member is at an elemental disadvantage, but of course, their performance may be impacted. Company policy mandates that heroes take breaks between battles in an effort to help prevent burnout. These “resterludes,” as Ledgerbound calls them, give you a certain amount of time to kill and numerous ways to do so.

You can chat with your party members to increase your relationship with them. Rayna’s best friend is a hat rack named – wait for it – Hat Rack. Rayna frequently seeks advice and reassurance from Hat Rack, regardless of how weird any nearby witnesses think it is that she’s conversing with an inanimate piece of furniture. Hat Rack is the staunchest ally on your quest, so it’s in your best interest to make sure you chat with him during every break. You can also complete Employee Training classes administered by Jazz. These are cutscenes with a few dialogue choices that give you various perks upon completion.

You have the option to romance party members, if you so desire. You can even romance multiple party members at the same time, but only if they’ve all filed the proper paperwork affirming that they’re polyamorous. You’ll find that Ledgerbound places a heavy emphasis on paperwork and bureaucracy for comic effect. Given my general distrust of bureaucracy, that part of Ledgerbound’s sense of humor is especially enjoyable to me. When you recruit a new party member, you must help them complete the mandatory onboarding paperwork before you can increase your relationship with them or change their equipment.

Speaking of equipment, each combat encounter has a set of (usually) three optional side objectives. These are always visible and clearly spelled out for you, which I massively appreciate. Each side objective you complete during a battle gets you a ticket, which you can exchange with Jazz during breaks to receive a random piece of “swag” (i.e., character equipment). If you complete all three side objectives, you get a fancy certificate proving you did so. Perhaps more importantly, you increase your value in the eyes of the company’s shareholders. Increasing your shareholder value can unlock unique cutscenes and encounters.

If you miss any side objectives during any combat encounter, you can spend time during breaks to replay that battle on Rayna’s “battle board” and make up for whatever optional goals you missed. Completing side goals this way is still equally as valid as if you’d met those requirements during the original fight, so you still get tickets and increased shareholder value from this. Ledgerbound won a major point in my favor for allowing players to do that, especially since I’m sure it will appeal to all the completionists out there. That brings me to another aspect of Ledgerbound that I particularly love.

The voice acting in Ledgerbound is absolutely exquisite. Each character’s personality really shines through in everything they do and say. The narrator’s dialogue is hilarious and often reflects exactly what I was thinking in most situations. When you replay any past battles on Rayna’s “battle board,” Rayna provides the voice acting for everyone involved, friend and foe alike. I think that’s a particularly great touch. That being said, however, there is a good amount of profanity and sexual innuendo within Ledgerbound. None of that bothers me in the slightest, but I know it’ll be a turn-off for some potential players.

Ledgerbound warns players that, although it has keyboard-and-mouse control schemes for those who want them, its gameplay loop is best experienced with a gamepad – an Xbox controller, more specifically. It seems Ledgerbound is firm about its specificity there: The gamepad I use can be quickly switched between Xbox, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch input modes. Ledgerbound only registered inputs from the controller when I had it in Xbox mode. On that note, though, going through the core gameplay loop within Ledgerbound with a gamepad is seamless, intuitive, and really enjoyable. You can definitely lean back and relax while you play.

I’m a sucker for archetypical high-fantasy environments, and especially for RPGs that take place within them. That was enough for Ledgerbound to at least get my attention. Once I actually sunk my teeth into Ledgerbound, though, I knew I would have a great time with it based on everything it has to offer beyond that. Ledgerbound offers a core gameplay loop that’s quite intuitive and easy to get the hang of, yet also has a good amount of depth to it. If you enjoy tactical fantasy RPGs and don’t mind some swearing and polyamory, then I would wholeheartedly recommend Ledgerbound.

A PC review copy of Ledgerbound was provided by OmniMegaSuperCorp for this review.

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Ledgerbound

0.00

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Intuitive, enjoyable core gameplay loop.
• Fantastic voice acting.
• Frequent opportunities to backtrack for anything important you missed.
• Great sense of humor and use of satire.

Cons

• Frequent profanity and sexual innuendo may disturb some players.