This Harpy is too hungry to help you save the world. “I don't know how long I will be able to keep my head straight!” “Save yourself while you still can,” the first Vampire you meet says. The Hero remembers this and asks for help restoring the world, yet these monstrous beings and their kind suffer torment in this hellscape. Vampires even governed and protected humans. Like the Vampires you encounter, the Harpies are intelligent humanoids that seemed to coexist peacefully with mankind before the end of the world. But every two days (or loops), they also generate a dangerous Harpy. Alone, Rocks and Mountains each give you a modest percentage boost to your HP, but if you build a 3x3 grid mixing the two, then they transform into a Mountain Peak that grants a whopping +120 HP and +5 HP for any additional adjacent Rocks or Mountains you place. The game doesn’t spell it out for you, but where you place specific cards on the grid can also generate some drastic tile combo effects, which is essential to mastering the game’s zenlike flow. The rarity of your gear spikes randomly, and you’ll eventually encounter unique features like Vampirism (your damage output heals you) or Regen (a consistent heal over time), so build construction becomes essential. The escalating intensity is a thrill, especially because Loop Hero increases in complexity the longer you stay on an active run. Though you can pause the game to play cards or equip items, everything keeps going around and around. Or there’s the “Village,” which heals your warrior and doles out quests. Devolver DigitalĪmong the 34 different cards are things like “Vampire Mansion,” which adds Vampires to nearby battles. “Manifestations of the mind made tangible and physical,” the lore reads, “these Cards are Pieces and Fragmented Memories of the Old World before it was destroyed by The Lich.” And each comes with a specific effect. With every victory comes a random assortment of equipable gear and Landscape cards you can play to remember and rebuild the world bit by bit. While you’re out in the field your hero automatically encounters and fights enemies. From there, you can retreat to a base that you can expand with collected resources, eventually creating a flourishing little village with NPCs and even more playable characters. Your amnesiac hero emerges from the abyss through sheer willpower and begins their endless cyclical trek through a misty road in the dark, ending a day when you get back to the campfire starting point. Couple that with some seriously cool lo-fi grimdark design aesthetics and a soundtrack that absolutely slaps, and you’ve got an enchanting little game. But the way these systems integrate and overlap is a stroke of intuitive brilliance that’s easy for gamers of all skill levels to pick up. Transcending genres, Loop Hero is an auto-battler, a procedurally generated roguelike, and a deck-builder with elements of base creation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |