Loop Hero, the game that practically plays itself. This auto-battler is the perfect game to play alongside a movie or television show. Your hero automatically goes on an expedition, walks around in circles, battles enemies, collects loot, and forms the landscape as he goes. It’s up to the player to manage our hero’s inventory and place some tiles on the road he follows to gain his memories back. It’s a game where you can easily sink 30 hours into, at least that’s what happened to me!
The setup is quite simple… Our hero lost his memories and by going on an expedition within the depths of his mind, your hero will walk countless kilometers, will battle everything in his path, and change the landscape to confront the entity that clouds his mind. There’s a continuous day cycle that influences the monster spawns and our hero’s track. Your hero will collect many cards that build your landscaping deck. This deck can be used to spawn environments or natural utilities that can boost these environments and even the enemy creatures. Now, why would you do that? Making the game harder to play? It’s because of the fact that our hero needs special supplies that’ll make him stronger but only the most difficult bosses drop these items. These items can also be used to upgrade your camp which will allow you to craft different helpful items, unlock new special deck cards, and even new classes for your hero. It’s an addicting process, to say the least… and boy did I like it!
“Building your hero’s arsenal along the way is key to overcome all of these obstacles in your way.”
The game will be very addicting to our looter-game fanboys as the world is built around the concept: the more enemies you face along the way, the higher the quality of your dropped items will be and the better loot you’ll receive after defeating an enemy. So it’s against our nature but you’ll have to overpopulate our hero’s journey with hundreds of enemies and obstacles to make your hero shine! Placing environments and enemies along the way, will also awake the chapter’s boss from its sleep step-by-step. The moment the boss reveals itself, you can track it down, kill it, and regain another part of your hero’s memory.
Building your hero’s arsenal along the way is key to overcome all of these obstacles in your way. Different weapons, trinkets, equipment will fall from the enemy’s clutched hands and will over you improvements along the way. These items can boost your evasion, strength, HP, life-sucking capabilities, and crowd control. It’s up to you to focus on the items that best suits the path you’ve helped to create. Evasion is strong against goblins who heighten their attack speed after a buddy has been downed by our hero. Magic damage can give you the edge you need to overcome magical creatures. Defense items will help in the long game. As you can probably tell, there’s a bit of tactic within this game as well.
“Shaping the world around our hero will strengthen our hero’s durability.”
When I talk about tactics, it’s all part of our own mental game. We have the ability to shape the world our hero needs to save but in order for the world to be saved, our hero needs to be prepared for what’s to come. There are 2 building aspects: shape the road ahead and shape the world around our hero. Shaping the world around our hero will strengthen our hero’s durability. You can place rocks and mountains that build up our hero’s total HP gauge and meadows can be placed to give our hero a fresh start of HP after one loop has been completed. A loop starts at the camp and ends with the camp. This feature is like the Monopoly game, pass by the starting point and you’ll receive a bonus to continue your journey. Well, these meadows will replenish a couple of HP-points but this total is influenced by the number of meadows you have. Shaping the world around our hero will also give your hero a decent amount of supplies.
All of these cards influence each other as some may give you bonuses, others will make the journey harder. For example, a village can heal you, give you a quest to kill a monster, and lets you eventually gain awesome rewards but placing a vampire mansion next to the village, will damn your village. Damning a village will reap its bonuses and make it a place filled with ghoul enemies. This village will even evolve over time into a super village that’ll give your vampire double the health. In other words, experiment with what your hero can manage and for the rest, try to keep it within your limits.
“In the end, Loop Hero places the player in a difficult position.”
Most of the time, it’s up to the player to shape the world as he/ she sees fit, however, some tiles will react with each other and spawn different tiles that’ll definitely keep your hero on his toes. Some tiles will spawn a goblin camp which offers some challenge to your hero but this challenge isn’t always wanted. There are also cards that can cleanse a tile from buildings and even enemies but there are just a few into your deck, so make sure the obliteration card is worth it.
In the end, Loop Hero places the player in a difficult position. As a player, you can shape the world but this new world can be a dangerous hazard if the loot gods aren’t favorable. After some time, you’ll definitely see the combination between different tiles and when placed well, can definitely help your hero along the way. However, these tiles have their own build-in clock system and will sometimes spawn more enemies than you’re able to conquer. It’s up to the player to decide whether to keep your hero fighting or retreat in advance. Eventually, you’ll want to retreat in advance because you’ll keep 60 percent of your gathered items. Don’t worry, if you fall, you” ll respawn within your city with 30 percent of your gathered items. It’s definitely something but you’ll want to gather as many supplies as you can since these items will help your city evolve over time.
“Loop Hero wasn’t the game I expected.”
Tiles come in the form of playing cards that are placed within your deck. Eventually, building your world as you see it, might not follow the vision that you had but that’s because of the randomness the deck shuffles. Each defeated opponent drops a certain amount of cards but this is very random. However, you are able to switch out cards within your deck to build the deck a bit more to your liking. With each upgrade, different tiles will become available that’ll help you with the build of a decent combo deck that’ll almost work in your favorite.
Enemies are also a big part of Loop Hero’s system. Different enemies drop different items. Some weaker enemies will even drop better items than stronger enemies. It’s up to the player to understand these different enemy types and experiment with whatever outcome suits you best. Spawning enough enemies and of course defeating them will ultimately help your progress towards the end boss.
Conclusion:
Loop Hero wasn’t the game I expected even though you’re barely doing anything that could change the outcome of your hero’s journey, it still requires your full attention. I can almost say that the game’s addicting. You get the feeling you can change the outcome but the game just changes along the way which gives you no idea about what outcome it might have and you’re constantly thinking about maybe making a difference. It got me hooked instantly. If you’re thinking about something more laidback but challenging, this game could be it.