It hurts to write this review. I wanted to love so much about Loop Hero, but there just isn’t enough here for me to love. This game has such phenomenal systems and groundwork, and some exceptionally good writing for the genre. But the experience is shallow and grind heavy, and there isn’t enough meat to the game to really let its system flourish.
What is there though works so well. The art is gorgeous, the music is fantastic, the gameplay systems are great, the writing is great, the dialogue is great. There just isn’t enough here in this experience, it left me wanting more from it.
The first major pain point of Loot Hero is the card library. There are 32 usable cards in loop hero. Now these cards have unique interactions and can create tiles outside of just the directly usable cards but this game could use more deckbuilding diversity. Have more interesting and meaningful constructed choices, the foundations here are stellar, there aren’t any cards that feel out of place or lack interactions there just isn’t enough.
The second major pain point is that Rogue and Necromancer almost non-functional as characters without forests or dunes, and forests are one of the last unlocks you get in the game. You need to complete 2-3 dozen successful loops to progress to the point of unlocking forests and rivers. The progression here for these characters is painful because of it, and it hurts the diversity of build paths in the early game. Most players being limited to Warrior until they unlocked forest, or playing the noticeably weaker classes to experiment with them.
The third major pain point of this game is that the grind is immense for the amount of content you unlock. Progressing parts of the town feels like such an unbelievable chore, especially early, and caused me to drop the game on my initial playthrough. You will have to do several successful runs in a row before you get a new card or tool to play with. Which creates a bit of frustration, but I understand this decision because there isn’t a lot being locked away.
The thing that wound up frustrating me the most about Loop Hero was its story and writing, because whats in the game is absolutely phenomenal. The main story is fantastic, the antagonists are all incredibly well written and well designed, and the dialogue is a treat. Its fantastic, one of the few games in this genre where I savored every single line. There just needs to be more, I want more dialogue. I want another conclusory line between The Harpy and The Hero, I want to know what the cleric thinks after fighting Alpha and Omega, I want more batshit stuff from The Hunter. Every piece of lore and dialogue had me wanting more, and the game was not the same to me when the story was over and I had exhausted the games dialogue.
Apparently there is a major free content update coming soon, I am so unbelievably excited for it. I will most definitely change my score when it delivers but playing Loop Hero again has me feeling like I am in purgatory.
What is there though works so well. The art is gorgeous, the music is fantastic, the gameplay systems are great, the writing is great, the dialogue is great. There just isn’t enough here in this experience, it left me wanting more from it.
The first major pain point of Loot Hero is the card library. There are 32 usable cards in loop hero. Now these cards have unique interactions and can create tiles outside of just the directly usable cards but this game could use more deckbuilding diversity. Have more interesting and meaningful constructed choices, the foundations here are stellar, there aren’t any cards that feel out of place or lack interactions there just isn’t enough.
The second major pain point is that Rogue and Necromancer almost non-functional as characters without forests or dunes, and forests are one of the last unlocks you get in the game. You need to complete 2-3 dozen successful loops to progress to the point of unlocking forests and rivers. The progression here for these characters is painful because of it, and it hurts the diversity of build paths in the early game. Most players being limited to Warrior until they unlocked forest, or playing the noticeably weaker classes to experiment with them.
The third major pain point of this game is that the grind is immense for the amount of content you unlock. Progressing parts of the town feels like such an unbelievable chore, especially early, and caused me to drop the game on my initial playthrough. You will have to do several successful runs in a row before you get a new card or tool to play with. Which creates a bit of frustration, but I understand this decision because there isn’t a lot being locked away.
The thing that wound up frustrating me the most about Loop Hero was its story and writing, because whats in the game is absolutely phenomenal. The main story is fantastic, the antagonists are all incredibly well written and well designed, and the dialogue is a treat. Its fantastic, one of the few games in this genre where I savored every single line. There just needs to be more, I want more dialogue. I want another conclusory line between The Harpy and The Hero, I want to know what the cleric thinks after fighting Alpha and Omega, I want more batshit stuff from The Hunter. Every piece of lore and dialogue had me wanting more, and the game was not the same to me when the story was over and I had exhausted the games dialogue.
Apparently there is a major free content update coming soon, I am so unbelievably excited for it. I will most definitely change my score when it delivers but playing Loop Hero again has me feeling like I am in purgatory.