Ingenious, innovative and devilishly addictive: Loop Hero
Difficult to do with video games today is to have an original idea, even with a title as talked about in the Indie field as Loop Hero has some ideas that many titles have tried over the years of life that has the video game, but it is certainly one of the best exponents that has today an industry such as independent games, which year after year is claiming a crown that had comfortably the big developers until recently, The game of the Russians Four Quarters and having a legendary publisher (one of my favorites) such as Devolver Digital has been put in the eye of everyone for having a base that for many may be familiar but once you enter fully becomes a different adventure, innovative and with a lot of personality in between, turning around some of the most static game models and having several mechanics that are able to surprise even for those who are not used to play this kind of games with microwave-retro graphics.
The question however remains, what is Loop Hero about, why does all the media put it as one of the best indie games of 2021? Loop Hero is about rebuilding a world from combat to combat, we are a hero that wanders through a corrupted world trying to restore peace, that could be the plot premise of the game but now the PLAYABILITY is one of the first features that change drastically in the game, to start we do not physically control a character (the hero in this case) we only see him fight and go through a path that every time we start the game is shown different and we have control with what he has equipped, From there on we can see how a simple idea reaches very ingenious depth quotas and with a lot of character, as the constant card game to which we submit our hero, we start down a dark path full of not too powerful enemies that once defeated leave us certain cards of the locations that we see and that we can place again in the world having these cards various positive or negative effects for our character.
Although the premise is basically "do not have control of your character" yes we can influence its development especially with the cards that leaves us each of their battles, so we can find better equipment, combine objects and thus have a better chance of surviving the following enemies, as we beat them go up in level and being more challenging, of course the biggest challenge is to set our world in such a way that our hero can have the best chance of surviving, The game system is so simple and at the same time it works too well as we progress, because at the end of the day this game has plenty of depth, the variety of classes of heroes that we can configure, the amount of cards and situations that we can experience makes this experience one that hooks immediately and does not let go for a long time.
Experimentation is key in each of the situations in which we put our hero, some cards work better with some type of equipment or enemies also respond differently depending on whether we have a sword or a card set beforehand, contrary to what you might think, the game never has a point of relaxation for the player, but is constantly testing us and giving us situations to solve and problems to solve, It is also a game that hides many of the mechanics it has, and I mean this in a good way, it is a game that allows you to surprise yourself with its mechanics and variety because although you have a small guide at the beginning of how everything works, the reality is that we will have to test ourselves many times to learn something of this world and how the game system works.
All this is enhanced when we add the structures, and is that in addition to fighting the monsters we can also build villages for the people we go rescuing and these in turn will give us some juicy bonuses for keeping them safe, improvements are also substantial but for that we will need a lot of resources, or what is the same give several laps around the map to defeat enemies and get those resources, but at the risk of killing us and erase all our progress (when we die we lose everything) so yes, choosing a strategy is crucial if we want to advance in the game and get at least 10 laps, another situation that arises already deep into the game are the final bosses, which are increasing the difficulty each time we go back into their battles and are for me the most difficult thing that has the whole game, varied enough to be fun every time we pass over them and so challenging that it will be normal to die at their feet and revive seeking revenge.
To sum up, I think it goes without saying that Loop Hero is what has surprised me the most so far this year, it's not a graphics powerhouse (something that made me not play it at launch) and its gameplay may sound overwhelming or like one of those Free-2-Play games that abound, but its premise, as simple as ingenious is a beacon of light for those players looking for a different experience to everything seen this year and that is also devilishly fun from start to finish.
