A couple weeks ago my partner was getting into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and I wanted to play a mobile game on the couch while I watched her. I’ve been on a Realm of the Mad God (ROTMG) clip lately, so I searched for that in the Apple App Store, fully knowing that there’s no mobile version.

There I saw Born Again, a game I’ve heard about before a few years ago from Sebchoof, a ROTMG content creator. I didn’t give it a shot then, so why not now?

Two weeks have passed, and I’ve put dozens of hours into the game. I’ve been recovering from a soccer-based injury, so that’s part of my excuse. The other part is that the game is so great I couldn’t help myself.

For those unfamiliar with ROTMG, it’s a massive multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game (RPG). It’s also a bullet hell game, and there’s permadeath. It’s perfect for those looking for a game with high highs, and low lows. If you can’t dodge, you die, and if you die, you lose everything. Over the years the difficulty has increased exponentially, and some of the end-game boss fights are exhilarating.

Born Again follows the ROTMG format, but it has its own unique systems and ways to play. Instead of a blanket permadeath mode for every character, there are multiple modes to play.

different ways to play

You can try the Thread of Discovery, which caps your level progression at 16/20, and limits the amount of “fame” or honor that you get from killing monsters to 1,000. You’re also locked out of using the best items in the game. In exchange for those drawbacks, you can die as much as you’d like and you’ll never lose your character or items. It’s a great choice for those looking to live up to its namesake and discover what the game has to offer.

Thread of Fate is the most similar to the ROTMG experience. There’s no level restriction, honor restriction, or item restriction. You can trade with other players freely, and when you die, you die.

Thread of Doom is a built-in new-player experience (NPE) mode. You can’t pick up items from other players, or trade with them. You also can’t take items from your vault to give yourself a head start. Everything you want that character to have, you’ll need to earn by looting it yourself.

I didn’t spend too much time with the Thread of Discovery, since I wanted to play with some stakes. It didn’t take too long for me to fill my graveyard page…

Born Again has an addicting play pattern of killing certain enemies in a zone to spawn a boss, killing the boss, and quickly running across the map to participate with other players killing some other boss.

It reminds me a lot of event hunting in ROTMG. There’s always something popping up, and if you take too long to get to the event monster, it’s dead and you’ve missed out on loot. Thankfully, it doesn’t take too much time for the bosses to be summonable again.

Get rewarded for carrying a fight

My favorite thing about Born Again is the loot allocation. Instead of ROTMG, where you have to deal a small percentage of damage to get guaranteed loot, you’ve got to work a little harder. Each boss has a meter under their health bar that ranges from 0%-135%. Doing damage fills that meter up, and once you’ve done a significant portion of damage, you’ll hit 100%, and be guaranteed loot.

If the boss dies before you hit 100%, there’s a chance you’ll get nothing. I’m not sure if the percentage chance you’ll get something is based on how much percent you’ve achieved below 100, but it seems that way.

The small community still playing the game is usually willing to hold back their damage so that you’ll be able to reach the 100% threshold. Sometimes they’ll pose a question: “100?” And they’re looking to make sure you get loot.

Killing a low-level boss monster for rare DPS shoes.

As you can imagine, there are flaws to this looting system, just like in ROTMG. Someone can get their 100% threshold, and just stop participating in the boss fight. They can wait for everyone else to kill the boss, and then go grab their loot. This is unideal in the late game bosses like Valeria, Cicero, and Hammurabi.

However, those willing to go past the 100% threshold are rewarded. For each percent over 100, and up to 135, you’ll receive an increased loot chance. Meaning if you hit 135%, you’ll get a 35% increase to your chances of getting some sweet loot in addition to the guaranteed stuff.

Once I got skilled enough at the game, I found myself hoping there would be leechers so I had more time to increase my chances at getting the loot that I want. It’s a really nice twist on looting. I’ve never played a game before that works like this.

Progression in a new way

Another thing that separates Born Again from ROTMG is the path system that it has.

I think this is the best DPS build for Shinobi, but I’m no expert. You could swap out those first two green gems for blue I suppose.

Instead of grinding monsters and bosses for stat potions, and just drinking those stat potions, you’re grinding monsters for crystals. Like stat potions, the crystals each represent a different stat, but how you use the crystals is entirely up to you. There are a few different paths you can take for each class in the game. These different paths give each character a few different distinct playstyles and benefits.

For instance, in the Shinobi path at the top right you can see five blue crystals heading towards an image of a pair of tabi. I chose that route to get -20% cooldown on my tabi, which is a dodging mechanic in the game. By doing that, I’ve locked myself out of the path to the bottom right of the tabi, which would give me -25% to slow, dazed, and root effects. Since the Shinobi is more of a DPS class than a tanking one, I’ll take that trade any day. But for those looking for a more durable Shinobi, that option is there.

multiple different abilities to use

Since I mentioned the tabi ability, I’ll mention the others. Each character gets access to three different abilities. A weapon ability, a utility ability, and a movement ability.

Each class has its own unique weapon, and set of interesting weapon abilities. My favorite weapon abilities belong to the Samurai, which come in the form of invincible dashes that deal damage. Similar to the Kensei in ROTMG, you can use your movement and invulnerability to deal damage in scenarios that no other class can.

There are many different utility abilities, but they’re separated into four different categories that are shared with a few different classes. This confused me at first, but I kind of like it now. For example, Shinobi is a class that wields kunai, and Nomad is a class that uses bows. However, they both have access to all of the support utility abilities. Imagine if a Necromancer in ROTMG could also equip a Wizard spell. As you can imagine, this can lead to some pretty strong builds.

And then there are the movement abilities, which, depending on your class, allow you to dash through things with invulnerability, or jump over things. I’m a big fan of the jump, which lets you hop over ledges and walls, but the distance you create with the jump is much shorter than the dash.

I love having multiple abilities to use at any given time. It’s fun pressing buttons, and there are a lot more to press in this game than there are in ROTMG.

even more ways to customize your journey

Born Again also has an interesting “Blessing” system.

This is my favorite place on the map to get blessings, since it’s very close to a fast travel point.

As you kill monsters, you’ll get experience. But you’ll also get essence (and honor, which functions like fame from ROTMG). At altars around the map, you can use essence to purchase blessings, which dramatically change the way your character plays. You can accrue up to eight blessings, and each one will make your character much stronger.

For DPS, you’ll want to choose things like Blessing of the Dragon, which gives you 5% critical strike chance, and an effect that shoots out two fireballs when you crit. There’s also Blessing of the Mantis, which grants 5% true damage chance, and an effect that shoots out an extra basic attack when you deal true damage.

To make yourself a little tankier, you could get Blessing of the Panda, which shields you for 80 damage when you fall below 50% health. Or Blessing of the Crab, which gives you a 50 damage shield if you avoid damage for six seconds.

There’s a really great mixture of options to choose from, and a lot of it can come down to preference. Sometimes it’s not about DPS or tankiness. Sometimes you just want to steamroll through low-level content. To do that, I’d recommend choosing these three blessings:

Blessing of the Fox: increased attack speed after killing an enemy
Blessing of the Snake: speed boost, and stealth after killing an enemy
Bless of the Bull: when you’re speed boosted, deal a 50 damage area of effect (AoE) three times—it knocks up and stuns enemies

Every time you kill something, you’re going to get a speed boost, go invisible, get an attack speed increase, and deal AoE damage that knocks up and stuns everything around you. This build will make you feel like a god on a melee class.

I’ve played with a lot of different builds, but I think the following combination is my favorite. It seems to work for just about every class to grant some survivability, DPS, and movement.

Blessing of the Hippo: heal 30 health every four seconds, after avoiding damage for eight seconds
Blessing of the Dragon: +5% critical strike chance, fire two 70 true damage fireballs on crit (one second cooldown)
Blessing of the Mantis: +5% true damage chance, fire an extra basic attack when true damage procs
Blessing of the Monkey: gain +1 charge to your boots, at the cost of an additional 20% cooldown
Blessing of the Fox: gain attack speed on enemy kill
Blessing of the Rabbit: increased movement speed after boot usage
Blessing of the Crab: gain a 50 damage shield after avoiding damage for six seconds
Blessing of the Panda: get an 80 damage shield when you fall below 50% health

I’ve been thinking about cutting Blessing of the Fox for something that’ll grant more survivability, because it doesn’t really do anything in the end-game boss arenas where there aren’t little minions to kill for a short attack boost. But I’m torn. It blanking in a boss fight is a small cost to pay for it granting a massive DPS boost while farming monsters in the overworld.

my latest obsession

Overall, the ways to play Born Again, its loot system, Blessing system, and path system, combine to make it a breath of fresh air in the MMORPG bullet hell ecosystem.

The fact that Born Again is cross-platform on PC and mobile sets it apart from the rest. (I know Darza’s Dominion is also cross-platform, but I think Born Again is in a class of its own.)

I love starting my mornings by playing Born Again on my iPad. On mobile, I typically play the Bastion, which is the tankiest class in the game. Since Born Again is a little less precise to play on mobile, I favor melee classes on my iPad. They’re a lot more durable. I’ve built my Bastion be near-invulnerable, which lets me play half-awake in the mornings without worry.

Then later in the day, when I’ve got a brain and I’m looking for more precision, I’ll swap to PC and play a glass cannon character like Shinobi.

Being able to hop from one platform to the other so seamlessly is a great boon for the game. It’s playable literally anywhere, any time, as long as you have an internet connection.

Another highlight of Born Again is its community. Although it’s very small, it’s strongly passionate, and helpful.

I’ve had all my questions answered in the general chat of the game. Sometimes there are people chilling in the “Nexus” of the game by the bank, and they’re willing to help out. I’ve received items and crystals that I haven’t even asked for. The existing players are so generous and willing to help others so they, in turn, keep the game alive.

There are four servers to support connections around the world, but I mostly spend time in the US, and Europe servers. There are mostly English speakers there, but there’s a fair amount of Spanish speakers as well. I’ve been using Google Translate to communicate with them, which has been a lot of fun.

There are two Discord servers to join. One serves as the general server, and the other as an informational server. For the general server, join https://discord.gg/jbQ2jvs9p. This is where the majority of the community gathers. If you’re looking for detailed information about the game, since the wikis are outdated/lacking, then check out the informational Discord here: https://discord.gg/kc6Ew4z3Y.

I’ve really enjoyed the last two weeks I’ve spent playing the game. Learning new boss shot patterns, figuring out best-in-slot items for each class, and interacting with the small, but kind community have made trying this game a memorable experience.

I’m not sure that I’ll get 14 years out of the game like I have with ROTMG, but I’ll be enjoying the time with it that I have. There are still a few goals I have that are currently motivating the grind.

I’d like to solo Hammurabi and Cicero (I’ve already taken down Valeria alone).

I’d also like to get a Thread of Doom character to endgame, specifically a Nomad since that’s currently my favorite class.

If you see me (JSUN) in-game, say hi—I’d love to tackle some content with you!

Shout out to Juzo, Dani, Owk, Sadness, and especially JaredLoki for being so welcoming and helping me get my feet under me in this game. Y’all are the GOATs.