“Am I going to get to punch god in the face?” I asked myself as the second boss of Loop Hero gave their death speech. I was excited, not just because it seems like that might be one of the final goals in Loop Hero but also because Loop Hero offered such an enjoyable experience I couldn’t wait to play more and see where the story went. We’ve been treated to quite a few different melding of genres into Roguelikes but Loop Hero is one of the first I’ve played that attempted the alchemy required to merge Management Sim with Roguelike. Offering the experience of not directly controlling the hero but having a hand in everything else and giving every new loop a new experience. Will it blend? Oh, it absolutely blends, and it’s delicious.
Loop Hero kicks off with the world ending. Our protagonist, the Loop Hero himself, wakes up to find emptiness. Fortunately, a small group of humans comes looking for shelter and begins building a campfire. Our hero is the only one that can leave camp and fight monsters, so that’s precisely what he does. As he does, he runs into a lich that explains there’s a “Him” behind all of the actions happening in the world, and although the lich participated, he is not responsible for the actions of “him” and cannot rewind the passage of time. The story is intriguing and the bits and pieces of the story they lay out for you aren’t so spread apart that you starve. But the gameplay loop itself, pardon the pun, is so engaging that I didn’t even notice how long it had been before the last story piece had moved.
Our hero leaves the campfire and embarks on a closed loop, randomized in every expedition, that begins and ends at the campfire. The goal is to collect resources, equipment, and cards that allow you to either fight this chapter’s boss or return to the campfire with the resources you’ve collected. Equipment is randomly generated and not kept between expeditions, so if you’re having a particularly good run, it might be wise to keep it going to fight the boss. If you die though, you give up 60% of the resources you’ve collected, preventing you from building out your campfire and either getting better equipment or unlocking new classes. In order to summon the chapter’s boss, you must play the cards in your hand. As you place cards, the boss’s summon meter fills up. Once it’s full, they’ll replace your campfire tile with a boss encounter.
Before you embark on a new expedition, you’re given the opportunity to select what cards you can receive. Cards are dealt to you from various actions, including, killing monsters. As you place cards, new monsters will appear and drop new equipment or cards and later in the game, experience. Cards are turned into tiles that would change either the path of the hero or a tile in the blackness of the abyss that surrounds the loop. Mountain and rock cards increase the hero’s HP whereas meadow tiles would increase how much HP the hero regenerates every morning. Vampire House tiles would sit outside the path and add vampires to any enemy encounters that spawned along the path. These tile changes set up your hero’s run, what they’ll be encountering, and how they perform. There are also cards that allow you to alter some tiles already placed, the Blood Grove card can be placed near a Grove tile, wrapping anyone below 15% health in vines and occasionally creating flesh golems. The cards create a more dangerous path for your hero but also help them and provide new enemies to fight and receive rewards from.
Upgrades are primarily received from killing enemies and your equipment layout is based on the class you’re playing. The Warrior is allowed to equip a weapon, shield, ring, and piece of armor. The rogue on the other hand can equip two weapons, armor, and boots. Choosing a new class requires the class to be unlocked but the hero remains the same. Instead of having a new protagonist or starting over with a new class, you simply choose that class during chapter selection. The unfortunate part about these stats is that there’s no explanation as to what they do. This isn’t a problem with something like evasion that allows you to evade attacks or maximum hp which increases your maximum hp. However, the Necromancer can get a bonus percentage to their summon quality, and I don’t know what that does. This is interesting because I feel the developers over at Four Quarters did a pretty thorough job explaining most of the items, abilities, and cards in Loop Hero.
You don’t directly control the hero. The hero sets out on a path and you can pause the game by going into ‘Planning’ mode that allows you to place cards and choose new equipment, but in ‘Adventure’ mode the hero plods along his path fighting every enemy in front of him. I really enjoy this style of gameplay. Primarily, I really enjoy setting up parameters and having the protagonist go out and either destroy or die. It’s the fine-tuning aspect I enjoy and after every loop, I’ve learned something new and devised a new strategy.
At the end of every loop, you’re back in the campfire and are given the opportunity to build based on the number and type of resources you’ve brought back with you. The buildings offer various improvements to both the hero and the cards you can play. Some buildings unlock or improve cards while others will give you starting equipment or allow you to level up and receive ‘traits.’ Traits are simple buffs to make your run easier that come when you level-up. However, you can only level-up if you build the correct buildings. As you advance through the chapters you’ll see your hero becoming more powerful at the start of the run and gaining new powers throughout his loops. Your enemy levels are a direct parallel to how many loops you complete. As their levels grow, so too does the level of the equipment you receive.
I found myself continuously playing Loop Hero, employing the ‘one more run’ strategy for procrastination, promising to do something productive if I could just play through one more run. No run left a bad taste in my mouth, just a desire to play more. Every class I unlocked introduced me to a new style of play that was both engaging and continually teaching me new strategies. So determined was I to continue playing I blasted through, I believe, three of the six chapters presented in the game in roughly six hours. Tasked with creating a preview for Loop Hero, I couldn’t help myself from learning more and finding new things I wanted to talk about. We’re only about two weeks into a crappy year but I already feel better about it knowing Loop Hero is on the way. Loop Hero is scheduled to launch this year and I simply cannot wait for its release.
