'Loop Hero' Is the Most Addictive Game I've Ever Not Played GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO News > Gaming
'Loop Hero' Is the Most Addictive Game I've Ever Not Played
Being stuck in a rut has rarely been this entertaining
By Thomas Hindmarch Thomas Hindmarch Writer Northwest Missouri State University Thomas Hindmarch is an expert games writer with nearly two decades' experience. His work has appeared in the UK's Official Xbox Magazine, NGamer, GeekWire.com, and more. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on March 12, 2021 01:57PM EST Fact checked by Rich Scherr Fact checked by Rich Scherr University of Maryland Baltimore County Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Gaming Mobile Phones Internet & Security Computers & Tablets Smart Life Home Theater & Entertainment Software & Apps Social Media Streaming Gaming Key Takeaways
Loop Hero is easy to pick up, but becomes an obsession shortly afterward.The difficulty curve is steep early on, but you're rewarded for even your most humiliating losses.Its English translation could've used a little more time in the oven. Devolver Digital I almost blew my deadline for this article about my experience with Loop Hero because I've spent most of the past two days playing the game. I feel like that tells you most of what you’d want to know. Loop Hero is a pixel-art genre-bender that combines elements from RPGs, roguelikes, auto-battlers, card games, and real-time strategy games. You're put in charge of a single adventurer with no weapons and a death wish, and are challenged with building up both him and the dungeon simultaneously, without making the dungeon too difficult for him to survive. It's more complicated than it sounds. You die a lot in Loop Hero, but somehow, it's rarely frustrating. Even when I'd lost an initially promising run-through in what amounted to pure bad luck, it was easy to dust myself off and just try again. And again. And then it was 3 in the morning. I have not been able to play Vicious Cycle
You start each round of Loop Hero in an empty map, with a few hostile slimes for company. You don't actually control your adventurer directly. Instead, he gets dropped into a random tile on the map and immediately starts rushing forward, fighting anything that gets in his way. Defeating enemies earns you cards, which you can play to transform parts of the map into new locations, such as forests, graveyards, mountains, or meadows. These can provide many useful active and passive effects, like health bonuses or extra resources. They also slowly end up making the map more dangerous for your adventurer by throwing more monsters onto it. You're asked to keep a lot of plates spinning in Loop Hero, between the dangers of the map, the passage of time, your adventurer's health, the state of his equipment, and a gradually introduced suite of other mechanics, such as experience points. You can pause at any time for easy micromanagement, though, so it rarely becomes too much to handle. It sounds complicated, and it is, but I'm genuinely impressed by how well Loop Hero manages to teach a user how to play it. While its translation into English isn’t perfect—the developers are from Russia, which also explains the game's pitch-black sense of humor—Loop Hero has one of the great all-time tutorials. I went from having no idea what I was in for to feeling entirely at ease with the game's systems in about five minutes. Given that this is about six games messily slapped together, that's amazing. Just One More Turn
Loop Hero is set up to respect your time. Your overall goal in any given map is to gather resources, which can be used at your home base to construct useful facilities. Even if you die, you keep 20% of what you've collected; if you retreat, you can keep 60%. In theory, that means the game's split into discrete, easily digestible chunks. You can easily bust into a map, set it up for low-impact resource farming, and make good progress in no time at all. However, I have not successfully tested this theory, as I have not been able to play Loop Hero for less than two hours at a stretch. It's in the same company as games like Slay the Spire, where it constantly tempts me to run just one more map, with a different deck of cards, under slightly different conditions, and so on. Loop Hero might not have been explicitly named after "compulsion loops," but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. It does have a few rough edges. A few of the tooltips don't make a lot of sense (like the Surveyor trait). Some of the cards have hidden interactions with one another. And in the best roguelike tradition, the difference between a successful run and a failure can come down to pure bad luck. It's the old XCOM problem, where "75% chance to dodge" actually means "get hit nine times in a row and die.” Sometimes, the computer just decides to hate you. For $15, though, this is one of the best deals so far this year. Loop Hero is addictive, challenging, and unique, with a bizarre premise, a long learning curve, and a multi-genre construction that can pull in fans from all over the hobby. It's well worth a look. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit More from Lifewire Can You Get Google Maps for iOS 6? The 8 Best PC Games of 2022 9 Best Websites for Playing Free Online Games Immortals Fenyx Rising Review: A Greek Hero In An Open World 10 Best Offline RPGs to Play in 2022 The 14 Best Free Steam Games The 8 Best Role-Playing Games for Android Rayman Legends Review: A Well-Designed 2D Platformer The Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut Review: A Compelling Turn-Based RPG Lords of Waterdeep Tips and Strategies The Most Valuable PC Games Tips for Going From Zero to Hero in Splatoon The 9 Best Split-Screen Xbox One Games The 9 Best Classic Xbox Video Games to Play Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Review: A Fun Turn-Based Tactical Role-Playing Game LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Review: An Older Game That Still Holds Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookies Settings Accept All Cookies