we are back in the gaming realms, this time darker and more pixelated, with the review of Loop Hero. A title that has not a little intrigued us and got carried away from the first minutes
After an opening that immediately recalled the famous Stranger Things TV series , Loop Hero welcomes us with a really well-finished and pleasing pixel art with a soundtrack, all in all, also quite engaging that, in some notes, we can to remind Metallica’s Fade to Black in its heyday.
Apart from this, the pixels are really the gem that catapults us into a rather dark and mysterious medieval fantasy that, however, manages to go hand in hand with the great classics of retrogaming. It took only a quick glance to bring to mind iconic titles such as the first chapters of Zelda , Ghosts’ n Goblins , Final Fantasy , Castlevania and so on. But just talk and let’s go into the Loop Hero review .
Inside an infinite darkness
The game in question has been made available for the main online stores, as well as only for PC at the moment, thanks to the efforts of the Russian studio Four Quarters and the distribution of Devolver Digital (a very famous American name behind the saga of bullets and ignorance of Serious Sam ). Once that said, and started the game, the thing that struck us the most, replaying it several times, is the randomness of the scenarios, objects and situations, but let’s start with a bit of history.
In fact, the title tells of a world shrouded in darkness and without any memory of what was there before, only darkness, cold and uncertainty seem to keep the survivors company. Doesn’t it remind you of some passages from “ The Neverending Story ”? Back to us, it seems that the skeletal Lich King who has cast a spell of darkness and oblivion all over the earth seems to be responsible for all this . It will therefore be the task of an intrepid hero to follow his trail and, facing a path full of obstacles and dangers of all kinds, go to shed light on this mystery.
After waking up in a small camp , our hero with an unknown name tries to recover the fragments of a memory that seems to have collapsed on itself while, in the pervading shadow, mysterious figures come to life. Along his way to the truth he will also find other survivors with whom he will build a base camp and gain more and more experience to get to the bottom of the dark matter.
Rebuilding a Shattered Way – Loop Hero Review
Apart from the music and the sound effects , throughout our game, we have not heard a single word, but do not worry, Loop Hero has opted for textual lines that tell the deeds of the hero and his incredible world, element much appreciated in the review phase. Continuing with the games, and going to meet the aforementioned survivors, what surprises us most is the quality of the dialogues that you will have with them. Deep and philosophical , sometimes almost disturbing as the cemetery keeper demonstrates, but not boring or banal for this reason. Indeed, a more than welcome surprise!
From Class to Class – Loop Hero Review
First of all it is necessary to start by saying that, initially, our hero will be the classic warrior , a warrior who reminded us not a little of the good Steiner of Final Fantasy IX , but going forward you can also change the class, such as that of the bandit . The game mechanics are easy to understand starting from the title itself because, at each game, a random world will be generated for the player. Here our hero will continue to walk around it going to meet monsters, various bonuses and his camp in total autonomy. After all we are in a loop , clear right?
Between board game and videogame – Loop Hero Review
During this endless round, “ Game of the Goose ” style, we could then collect different armor, rings, weapons and clothing items that will give us additional bonuses. For example, in addition to just damage, some weapons will give you a better chance of avoiding attacks, gradually regaining health, inflicting a critical hit, and so on.
The use of such weapons and the mechanics of ” infinite circle ” must then be well calibrated with the monsters already present on the ground and with those that we could put ourselves. In fact, what harm is there to increasing the difficulty a little to win a richer loot ?
For our part, we could do all this and much more thanks to a wise use of cards . These help both to generate monsters and the world itself, many board games work like this, and will help us to recover even some life and bonuses to go and recompose the memories (10 fragments form a complete memory) and level up. our camp. Since the cards available, if in hand are too many, disintegrate, you have to quickly learn how to achieve the best combos and positioning , especially in the case of Oblivion and Lanterns .
In a similar way, the hero will also be able to obtain his weapons automatically and therefore it will be necessary to pay some attention to this “overload” as well. In fact, the inventory consists of only 12 slots and, once you equip a different item, the previous one will be lost and there will be no way to recover it except from the treasures dropped by creatures along our path of darkness .
Also remember that in combat you will not be able to place lands, a bit like Magic , and therefore calibrate the moment of Planning (pause to arrange cards and objects) and Adventure (around scourging monsters such as slimes, harpies, skeletons, spiders, vampires etc). Arrived at a certain point, the Lich King will arrive ready to stop us , but we advise you to do more and more “test runs” to get to grips with the mechanics and get the best possible combination.
A Camp in the Making – Loop Hero Review
As mentioned earlier in the review, Loop Hero will give us the opportunity to build our camp with other NPCs (such as the cemetery keeper, the cook, the blacksmith, the farmer and so on), level up buildings and leave for each loop with a few more bonuses. Since the danger of death is always around the corner, if we don’t want to lose almost everything, we can also consider the idea of a strategic retreat to return to the camp, do some upgrades and then start over. Let’s arm ourselves with patience though!
Let’s sum it up
In conclusion, we can say that the title really struck us for its singularity, degree of automatism, but above all of involvement . In fact, one game will lead to another like cherries and even our game strategies will continue to change with each “spin”. Of course, of course we may feel a certain sense of repetition and difficulty in facing the first boss, but once you have the right confidence with the mechanics, you will be ready to solve the dark mystery!
