In your very first adventure, the wimpy enemies you kill will either drop items or 'cards.' The former are limited to equippable fare (weapons, armor, shields, rings), and like in most RPGs, these primarily tweak your battling stats. Whenever the hero walks into a foe, a larger 'battle' window opens up with higher-res versions of each hero and monster, and everyone auto-slashes each other until one side is dead. (Upon every death, the world's amnesia haze consumes you, and you start over in another blacked-out world.) Your hero's movement tracks along a loop (not a round one, mind you, but made of chunky '80s-computing right angles), with the hero and enemies appearing as tiny icons. In gameplay terms, this means you can walk away from Loop Hero after its opening plot sequence and watch your hero auto-walk and auto-battle until they die. In a daze, your hero sees a single road ahead and marches forward to jog their memory, unaware that it's a loop-but also uncovering more monsters, landmarks, and increasingly powerful weapons with every step on the path. The game opens with your hero-and nearly everyone else-waking from an amnesia-like blackout. Who's the real hero in a world cast in darkness, after all? We're particular fans of games that turn the tables on the hero's so-called morality. The results won't be everyone's cup of barely interactive tea, but if you like the idea of a 'second monitor' game with tasteful dashes of tower defense and deckbuilding, you should seriously consider running Loop Hero in the background of your nerdy life. Pretty quickly, I discovered a fascinating twist on the 'idle' genre-thanks to how it gives players significant choices, secrets, upgrades, and even a compelling narrative. Yet as boring as that might sound, I cannot stop playing this game.Īfter nearly writing off this Devolver Digital game as another uninspired, lo-fi indie game, I decided-admittedly, upon a colleague's prodding-to give Loop Hero a spin. In a figurative sense, this game reimagines Camelot as a hamster wheel, where knights like Sir Galahad have become tiny, pixellated cogs. If you thought the menu-driven combat of pioneering JRPGs was too 'hands-on,' you ain't seen nothin'. The reason lies in the game's key design principle: in more respects than any other RPG we've seen, Loop Hero wrests direct control away from the player. Loop Hero was made to work within the processing confines of an '80s PC, as opposed to immediately capturing your imagination at a single glance. The game includes some aesthetic exceptions, particularly a few higher-res illustrations, but the point stands. But this dark RPG doubles down on simplicity, thanks to itty-bitty sprites, limited animations, and a menu-swapping interface that combine to scream the word 'boring.' That's not a remark on its 360p resolution or 8-bit color depth we've seen plenty of games work within such confines while looking beautiful and fluid. Links: Steam | GOG | Official websiteI cannot think of a single YouTube trailer that would do the addictive, compelling new video game Loop Hero an iota of justice.

Price: $14.99 (with a launch-week discount) ESRB Rating: Unrated (We'd say 'E-10 for ages 10 and up')

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