An indirect control game in which the main character does everything himself, and the player tries on the role of his nanny and level designer.
Similar in spirit
But, as is often the case with indie games, the first impression just needs to be experienced. Judging is not by the clothes: Loop Hero takes on a unique gameplay with indirect control, where the player acts as a fantasy knight’s nurse and level designer in one person.
Nanny for the hero
Loop Hero turns genre clichés upside down. There is no need to destroy the plans of a powerful villain to conquer the world: everything is already gone, the Lich erased space and time itself. Our nameless hero miraculously survived, abandoned on an island of matter among the endless emptiness His memory is erased, like everything around him, but as soon as he remembers at least something – wheat fields or a grove where rat wolves lived – the memory materializes, returning fragments from oblivion of the old world. Not wanting to disappear into timelessness, the hero goes on a journey, intending to regain his memory and reverse the apocalypse.
“Indirect control” sounds like something incredibly awkward and difficult to master. In fact, you get involved instantly, Loop Hero plays intuitively. What can be difficult when a character does everything himself? Well, almost everything. The hero does not know how to change clothes on his own, and therefore the player changes his outfit: we choose armor, swords and jewelry with the best characteristics from the loot dropped from the enemies and we dress the ward in time. Otherwise, he is an absolutely independent guy. He himself winds circles from campfire to campfire along a narrow path laid by procedural generation among emptiness and darkness, fights monsters himself and even drinks healing potions completely without anyone’s help.
The game parodies the conventions of typical RPGs in a hilarious way. In the village, the hero will be treated and given a mini-quest: to kill some especially dangerous monster in the neighborhood. Classic
So the whole gameplay comes down to spying on the character’s wardrobe? Not at all. Most of the time the player will “remember the world” – that is, rebuild it. After each battle, a piece of memory returns to the hero, and you get location cards at your disposal: “Grove”, “Rock”, “Village”, “Vampire Mansion”, etc. And with their help, you can erect corresponding locations on the path of the character (or nearby).
When deciding what to return from oblivion in the first place, one should be guided not by a sense of beauty, but by dry pragmatism. Each of the locations has its own effects and parameters of impact on the hero. For example, the light of the lanterns scares away monsters, and the rocks and mountains increase the maximum health. Why? Because their “majestic appearance gives strength.” Sounds a little crazy, but these are the rules of the self-ironic universe of Loop Hero. Descriptions, texts of dialogues and tips are filled with light and light-hearted humor. The game does not hesitate to sneer at the game conventions, punching a small gap in the fourth wall. It is unlikely that you will succeed in laughing with jokes, but you will smile consistently. It’s even somehow annoying that there are very few dialogues in the game.
After defeating each of the bosses, the world changes slightly, it becomes more aggressive, and the enemies have new abilities. So, the bandits begin to steal equipment from the hero right during the battle. Even boots – and they pull off
You can create not only friendly territories, but also hostile ones. The game allows you to weave a spider cocoon or dig a graveyard in the path of the hero, forcing him to fight with spiders and the dead. Why make life difficult for your character? To get hold of new resources and ammunition, opponents will almost certainly drop something valuable. Some locations, when placed nearby, can interact and influence each other: if you put a vampire mansion near the village, then the undead will turn all its inhabitants into an army of ghouls. It will become very dangerous to pass through the village, but the loot from the location will become much more attractive. And it is worth several times to correct the brains of the unbelted feudal lord, as the vampire learns to be a good master and turns the village into “Count’s lands” with a high quality of life. Happy peasants, accepting a traveler, will heal him much better than in an ordinary village, and give out especially lucrative tasks. Such subtleties add depth to the gameplay and motivate to experiment, and not to collect the world every time according to the same scheme.
At the same time, it is absolutely reckless not to build up the map with territories. If you exceed the building limit, then the boss of the chapter will appear – to find out who, in his cozy nothingness, litters with matter. If you come across it too early, winding no more than a dozen circles, it will go to bed with a few strokes. And if you take your time and prepare for the battle properly, the situation can turn out exactly the opposite – the villain will collapse after five cuffs.
Not everything is going smoothly with the hero’s tactics: sometimes, instead of a vampire endowing his allies with the gift of vampirism, the character first tries to lay down his subordinates. Because of this, hurtful defeats happen.
But this does not mean that while the hero is measuring numbers with enemies, you will yawn with boredom. Loop Hero manages to engage and create tense moments like action-RPGs. As with most roguelikes, a lot depends on randomness – in this case, the layout of the cards that the enemies drop. When the necessary card does not come, the atmosphere heats up, you want to spur the process, and you start making mistakes.
More on review
For example, you “remember” ahead of time “Bloody Grove”. She devours rat wolves and spawns meat golems – dangerous creatures, from which, as well as from anything dangerous, the most valuable equipment falls. While the golems are growing, you peacefully plant mountains to improve your health and equip the treasury … But according to the law of meanness, when the golems mature, there will be more than enough enemies on the map. The surplus of mountains will backfire with the appearance of goblins and harpies, a fully completed treasury will give rise to gargoyles, and all this army will certainly gather not far from the bloody grove, where the once-desired golem with a detachment of rat-catchers awaits. In an instant, a calm and measured game completely changes the pace: the health bar is rapidly decreasing, and you constantly pause battles in an attempt to calculate whether the hero will make it to the fire or it is better not to risk it and run right in the middle of the path.
Master in the wrong hands
Here Loop Hero does not really force you to strain your convolutions: all buildings are useful in one way or another, and you can run after resources even to the point of being blue in the face. Alien invasion is not threatening, the apocalypse has already happened – there is nowhere to rush. However, the development of the base should not be underestimated either. So, having built a gymnasium, you can teach the hero … Learn. During the campaigns, the knight will gain experience and acquire skills that greatly increase his chances of survival, but each sortie will have to increase the level anew. The costs of amnesia and the roguelike genre, where is it without them.
All three available classes: warrior, rogue, necromancer
And after a brothel and a crypt appear in the camp, you will be able to change the character class. In addition to the warrior, the rogue and the necromancer will be at their disposal; playing for each of them is a separate story. The rogue strikes with two hands at once, kills quickly, but hardly comes to his senses after wounds – this class was deprived of objects with regeneration, and innate vampirism only partially compensates for their absence. However, his main feature is different: he collects the loot dropped from the enemies in a special bag and exchanges it for equipment once per circle, by the fire. It would seem a trifle, but it greatly affects the gameplay, because there is no need to constantly monitor new clothes. Having correctly built the map and assembled a successful build, you can easily let go of the game on its own for ten minutes. This can be prevented by bandits who steal equipment from the hero, but they also have a command – we use the “Oblivion” card at the bandit camp, and the robbers will no longer bother.
The necromancer differs more from the warrior visually than the gameplay. If a warrior stupidly sweeps opponents with a sword, then the necromancer summons skeletons – and they already sweep opponents with swords. If a warrior picks up more powerful armor and weapons with more damage from enemies, then the necromancer collects amulets that give magical health (energy armor is more powerful) and grimoires with spells to summon the dead (with more damage). If we control the battle directly, the gameplay would be radically different, and so – just an illusion of a different gameplay, albeit excellent. If you want not only external changes, but also gameplay changes, it is better to change the class to rogue.
In Loop Hero, not everything looks like a dump of pixels – only the map creates such an impression. During dialogues and cutscenes, we are shown beautifully drawn characters, ordinary monsters and bosses: special attention was paid to their design
Now, when many games are made on the principle of “everything for everyone”, and the developers (with rare exceptions) lump together a huge number of mechanics, not having worked 100%, games dedicated to a single key idea are worth their weight in gold. In Loop Hero, this idea – managing the hero without directly influencing his actions – determines everything, the maximum is squeezed out of it. For the sake of gameplay, you can forgive the game for all the shortcomings, which are not so many. And if you are crazy about any pixel art, then you will have nothing to forgive.
Pleased
- the feeling that you are playing something really unique;
- indirect control turned out to be no less convenient than usual;
- tense moments are not worse than in an action-RPG;
- excellent 8-bit soundtrack;
- strange but charming humor in the spirit of Taiki Waititi comedies.
Upset
- pixel art can do more;
- the hero does not always correctly choose the first target for the attack;
- changing equipment does not affect the appearance of the character on the battle screen.
How we played
In what: the key is provided by the publisher.
On what: PC.
How many: about 40 hours.
Achievement of the edition
“Not a hero”
Build up the entire map with villages, exterminate all the bandits and stay in timelessness forever, forgetting about saving the world. And so it will do!
About localization
The original language is Russian. The authors manage to combine a light syllable with scientific terminology in the framework of fantasy, which in itself is worthy of respect.
Verdict
The Four Quarters experiment succeeded. It turned out to be extremely exciting to play the role of either a nanny or a god, placing the hero of trials and monsters on the way. If you can stomach the graphics, trying to save the world in such a non-standard way is definitely worth it.
