Sadly, as far as I could tell, the only way to figure out successful item layering is through continuous trial and error.įortunately, I was so shamelessly hooked by the gameplay of Loop Hero that it provided me plenty of opportunities for experimentation. Now if only they had a more comprehensive overview of each item and how they can be combined to maximize benefits. Later chapters continue to build on this inherent complexity, while still somehow managing to keep the action approachable. Despite having a very limited presentation layer, there are numerous complex systems residing just below the surface. If you couldn’t tell, I have a very strong affection for Loop Hero’s gameplay, well, loop.

There’s even a secondary modifier that adds additional health for all rock-type tiles, placed directly adjacent to any mountain ranges. These tiles can be mixed in any combination of 3×3 grid to create a mountain range, which simultaneously boosts health by a whopping 125 hit points. There are even items that don’t have any tangible downside, like the mountains and rocks. There are also forests, which include the trade-off of spawning rabid wildlife, but yield additional resources with every pass. Other tiles available early on in the campaign include cemeteries, which spawn additional skeletons. But on the bright side, with more enemies present on the map, at least there are increased opportunities for lucrative drops. Plus, just to add a little insult to injury, mosquitos will also spawn in swamps every three days. When performing healing actions while still in the swamp (armor regeneration included), health will actually be deducted as opposed to improved. Some of the new characteristics that come into play can cause a tectonic shift in tactics. This constant drive to improve your abilities is why it’s so critical to continuously keep pushing forward.įor example, if you were to lay down a swamp tile, suddenly that location is transformed into marshland. For every trip around the horn, competitors will also grow progressively more difficult to dispatch. After the umpteenth time being aggressively shooed away with a sharp weapon, foes will eventually morph into either stronger versions of themselves or whole new creatures entirely. Rest assured that, despite lacking direct player involvement due to the AI’s consistently predictable behaviors, you never feel completely out of the driver’s seat.Įnemies can take a wide variety of different forms, further evolving during each chapter. Throughout my time with the campaign, there were only a handful of junctures where adversaries were attacked in what I deemed to be an illogical order. Luckily, the AI guidance seems more than capable of keeping the action fair and balanced. Depending upon the stats of your character, the items you’ve equipped, and the tiles that are deployed on the map, brawls are completely self-sufficient. Let’s just say that when a game can be classified as either a deck builder, strategy, or rogue-lite, there’s quite a bit of variation possible.Įach skirmish plays out with you as a glorified spectator. Aside from that, virtually all other aspects of the gameplay will vary, depending upon the strategies being utilized during the most recent trek. The one thing you can depend on is that there will be a procedurally generated path to follow upon starting each chapter. In fact, Loop Hero has more in common with the occult than anything divine.

All that remains is a path that has been etched into the ground, providing players with the game’s one definitive piece of guidance: follow the path.īefore you ask, no, this isn’t some crazy religious cult. It turns out that The Lich has decided to deprive humanity of everything that they hold dear, resulting in a scorched husk of a planet as far as the eye can see. The main protagonist suffers from a strong case of amnesia, and the earth itself was nuked back to the stone age with very few identifying characteristics remaining. The world of Loop Hero is an admittedly weird place to exist.

Loop hero swamp