![]() No card in Loop Hero comes with only benefits or only consequences. It’s definitely a system that works better as drag-and-drop, but I managed to adapt after a few runs because it’s easy to slip into a rhythm when you start playing. Unfortunately, placing cards on the map can get clunky, and if you accidentally release the shoulder button, when you go back into your hand of cards, you have to start from the far left again. You can use the touch screen when in handheld mode to select menus, and you use the shoulder buttons to access your deck and equipment. This feels like the kind of game that thrives on a PC with a mouse and keyboard, yet Loop Hero‘s Switch port is surprisingly solid. And more people should be talking about “Star Judgement” and just how hard it makes me want to dance. The ambiance creates a tension that just puts you a little bit on edge at first, but as you get used to the music, it gets intertwined with your gameplay routine. You go from ambient retro-sounding bleeps to more focused, rhythmic music with short cycles to blood-pumping boss themes, sometimes within minutes of each other. ![]() ![]() For such a small soundtrack, there’s a huge amount of variety. The game is weirdly therapeutic and also a little bit stressful at times, but Loop Hero‘s music helps keep you on track. The materials you bring back let you build new facilities that unlock new skills for your hero and new cards, which are vital to progressing through each of the four chapters. And you have to run loops over and over to get everything you need. So much has to be taken into consideration with every expedition in every loop, you gather materials that you take back to camp, and what materials you pick up depends on how many loops you do, what cards you place down, and what enemies you fight. If this sounds very simple, I don’t blame you, but Loop Hero is deceptive. Place enough cards down, and the boss of the loop appears, ready to do battle. At the end of each loop, enemies get stronger, and your map will likely get more hectic with each round trip as you place more cards down. These can be rocks, beacons of light, vampire mansions, and even wheat fields. The only thing you can do is stop and start their movement at the press of a button and “build” the world around them by laying down cards representing different fixtures. Loop Hero takes its inspiration from roguelikes, RPGs, card games, strategy games, and more to create something entirely of its own breed, but its most unusual mechanic is that it wrests control almost entirely away from you. No one remembers anything, not even knowledge, but progression helps people remember. ![]() The story isn’t the focus here, and while it’s decidedly sombre, there’s some light, surreal humour thrown in, but it just serves to emphasise the game’s core loop. The only sure thing is that the pathway is cobbled stones, it always goes in a “loop,” and you can decide how long to stay and how many risks to take on each journey. The people the hero encounters don’t remember anything, nor does the hero, so much so that every single expedition, the path is different. Throughout Loop Hero, you send your character on expeditions and gather materials for camp and to find out what’s happened to the world, which has been drowned in darkness. The dreary colour palette won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it helps immerse you in the game’s atmosphere. And the way the multiple card tiles knit together and create these densely populated maps is wonderful. Enemy sprites are vivid and animated, particularly bosses, who often radiate from the screen for their distinctive appearance. Character portraits show pixelated shading under the eyes and the pale faces of the survivors as they try to live and make do. There’s not a lot of visual variety to Loop Hero, but what is there is both sparse and intensely detailed. Playing the Switch port of Loop Hero nine months later, that same rhythmic quality is there now I’m the one placing the cards down as this small figure loops around and around this dreary and depressing world. I was mesmerised, watching this little pixelated character walk around a looping path and seeing how meticulous the player was in making their decisions.Īs silly as it sounds, watching someone else settle into a routine to play a game that’s about walking along the same path over and over helped get me back into a routine. When Loop Hero launched on PC back in March, I was struggling and couldn’t settle into a routine, so I’d pop on playthroughs of this cyclical auto-battler in the background. Whether it’s doing the same things or walking the same, familiar paths, all without thinking, it can help give your day a structure or purpose and sometimes help you focus and stop thinking about negative things. There’s something very calming about routine.
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