Loop Hero Review (Clash)
After a couple years of seeing the game on my store page, I finally took the leap on Loop Hero—and I'm glad I did.
Loop Hero is a weirdly addictive, grindy roguelite that on the surface doesn't look like it has much going for it. You literally run around in circles! Then enemies drop you the same items and the same cards that you've eventually seen a hundred times. You play those cards on the unoccupied map around the titular loop and the hero grows stronger. Rinse and repeat.
But the devil is in the details. Where you place your cards, which items you equip, how you build your deck and the meta game of upgrades are the accessory to the grind that will (hopefully) keep you hooked until you beat the game. Many players will probably hit a slump early on and question what's the point of Loop Hero. Where is the fun in killing some slimes and vampires and then dying to the boss over and over? But before you quit, focus on upgrading your camp and you'll quickly start to see the tides turn. Look to the various buildings you can erect and examine the needed resources, equipping your deck with the right cards that will get you those resources. After a few buildings and a couple well placed upgrades you'll start to make progress. There's always something new to unlock.
Loop Hero also has the right kind of simple gameplay so you can boot it up if you just want something extra to do while watching a stream, listening to a podcast or something like that. The save system allows you to quit at any time during the expedition too.
Running around in circles gets even better when it's accompanied by excellent chiptune metal music. I want to buy the soundtrack separately just so I can keep listening to it now that I've finished the game. Many of the tracks made me bob my head or even dance in my seat. I was also pleasantly surprised by how well the retro pixel graphics fit. I'm not usually big on pixel graphics personally, but Loop Hero is another game on the growing list that's changing my mind about them. They look nice!
I'd say the only negative in the game was probably the writing. The story that sets up how the game works is interesting, but whoever wrote the dialogue is clearly not that experienced. It's clunky and lacks creativity, which is disappointing when the character concepts themselves are so unique on paper. I mean, you have such colorful characters as a pirate chef, a quippy goddess in human disguise and a celestial hunter with BLACK HOLES as his hounds at display. The dialogue just doesn't live up to those concepts.
Overall I'd recommend Loop Hero —with the caveat that it can feel grindy at times and you likely have to be decently into roguelites to get full enjoyment out of it. As a whole it was unique and interesting enough for me to want to see and unlock everything.