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I have some complicated feelings about Loop Hero. I remember is as one of the big games culture phenoms under the height of COVID (along with Among Us), and it is an enjoyable upgrade treadmill that is fun as long as its systems are playing nicely together. Sometimes they aren't, as there are a ton of disparate things at play in the game, but the fact that any of it works is rather impressive, and even moreso seeing it tied so well together by its surprisingly cool art and worldbuilding. On iOS, you'd think it's kind of the perfect game to dink around with, and it is fully capable of sucking you in, but I'm not sure it has aged all that well since its initial release.

Loot loop

In the event that you haven't played Loop Hero, some explanation for how it works is required. This game borrows from a lot of other places, but as far as I know there aren't really games like it. You play as a hero who is trying to build up some semblance of civilization at the end of the world, and you do this by going on adventures where your character automatically moves around a track to fight monsters, secure supplies, level up, and find gear that will help you fight even more powerful monsters.

Your role as the player controlling this revolves somewhat around switching up gear to make your hero as strong as possible, but the main focus is actually on building up the land features on and around the track (via cards) to try and make things as hard as possible while still being able to survive so you can score the most chances at getting powerful loot to take down and end boss for big resource rewards and some story payoff.

Repeating randomness

As you advance in Loop Hero, you build up a village in between runs and the structures you build grant bonuses, add new cards to play with, and even unlock additional classes with their own gear and special combat abilities. The core of what you do in each subsequent run remains largely the same, though: kill, loot, die/retreat, repeat.

There are times where this formula is totally engrossing. It can be incredibly satisfying to happen upon a build that lets your hero go the distance to fell a boss or find special items like trophies to tip your battlefield builds in certain directions. There are plenty of other times, though, where things like this simply do not come together, and either you die or you retreat just to venture out again and see if things shake out better next time. As a game that you could basically let idle in the background of your PC while you do other things, this is mostly fine, but in other formats, not so much.

Meager on mobile

Speaking of format, this mobile version of Loop Hero is serviceable, though some of its ideas to make it more mobile-friendly are a bit odd. Perhaps the nicest thing about this port is that Loop Hero has flawless iCloud sync, allowing you to continue progress between devices, or even tie up a device to allow for some idle play if you so choose.

Beyond that, Loop Hero has added some options to try and make its smallish visuals a bit more readable, but it's all via an awkward magifying feature that didn't quite feel right in all of the configurations offered. Luckily, I found it easy enough to see and read everything on screen when playing on my iPad, though on my phone it was a little more difficult, to the point that I considered turning on high-resolution fonts on the game. I didn't, though, because it kind of ruins the aesthetic of Loop Hero, which I may have only mentioned in the intro but it's cool as hell and goes a long way to make its idle/looping gameplay more appealing.

The bottom line

Loop Hero hasn't suddenly turned into a different game in the years since its release, but you can also see why there haven't been any splashy games like it since. At times, the game feels like lightning in a bottle. At others, it gives the feel of countless other games that are just random systems slurries. When you could play it somewhat idly (and when folks had a lot more idle time), I imagine it felt more magical than it does now playing on a device where you have to face its imperfections head on.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270082/

Even though I don't love the term I'm about to use all that much, Strange Horticulture is most easily described as a “cozy game,” albeit with some eldritch horror vibes. You play as the proprietor of a rare plant store, and much of your inventory has special properties that your clientele seeks out to achieve their own ends. But Strange Horticulture declines to simply be a management game about collecting and identifying plants, which adds to its allure and makes it a compelling experience.

Sifting through secrets

The structure of Strange Horticulture is fairly predictable. Each day, a procession of clients enter your store and you learn about their lives and what they are seeking and use that to try and provide a plant that will aid them. With a setup like this, you might expect a game where you're balancing expenses, buying upgrades, etc. to grow your business, but none of that is in this game.

Instead, you go on foraging adventures directed by cryptic clues, page through manuscripts to identify your inventory, and brew elixirs based on half-remembered recipes, among other things, all in an effort to advance and direct a story caught up in ancient rituals and otherworldly evil. This all takes place within the confines of your shop and your interactions are tied to shuffling through papers on your desk as rain patters against the window and the shop cat rests on your counter.

Patient puzzling

Though it's not entirely clear when the game starts, all of your interactions in Strange Horticulture are connected and lead to a larger overall story. To advance some parts of this story in specific ways, you may need to have successfully used clues to gather the right plants when the time comes or have opted to give people plants they may not have actually been asking for. At times, the excercise of solving these clues can be tedious and involve some amount of trial and error, but thankfully none of it is so obtuse that you won't be able to recognize that something needs to be done.

It's also an incredibly smart move by the developers of the game to make its clue-solving and foraging gameplay untethered from the days that the game is broken up into. On any given day in the shop, you can opt to explore the map to look for plants as many times as you want, with the only barrier being a sort of travel meter that takes time to refill and can be replenished more quickly by serving customers or watering your plants.

Digging up dirt

Strange Horticulture has multiple endings and–upon reaching one of them–has some more game to offer around identifying plants that went unidentified in your playthrough. It's a nice addition, especially since additional new playthroughs will likely remove a lot of mystery around the plants and clue-solving, but removed from the context of the larger story it isn't nearly as satisfying.

The only real sore spot of Strange Horticulture is some of its user interface. I appreciate the game's commitment to having players organize actual pieces of paper, but in doing so you can come across readability issues that work much better in theory than in practice. For instance, there's a zoom feature that is very flexible and lets you read even the smallest text rather easily, but it doesn't always play that nice when certain objects are stacked on top of each other or if it doesn't get fully zoomed out.

The bottom line

There are a lot of novel and extremely clever ideas in Strange Horticulture, but by the time I finished with the game I was truly tired of its gameplay. I'm sure the issues with the game's UI had a lot to do with this, but even when things are working as they should, there's just a lot of procedural referencing and looking up that can get sloggy after a while. I'm sure another game like this could come around and find some success, but I don't think I'd be ready to play a game like Strange Horticulture again for a good long time.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270089/