Hear me out here, I am not that much of a fan when it comes to the retro pixel graphics that every 2D indie game uses. I’m also not much of a fan when it comes to Medieval settings, magic, fantasy or card games. I’m also a bit done with a majority of the Rogue-like/lite genre too. This is Loop Hero, a 2D pixel graphic, Medieval fantasy with magic, Rogue-lite card game, and I quite like it.

Set against the backdrop of a dying world that you keep looping in an attempt to remember what is going on, it is a bit like Dark Souls meets the Outer Wilds. Your goal is similar too: Piece together the story of the dying world. For the love of all things holy, I have sexual fantasies of these types of games, often with the idea that Dark Souls and I would run away together. We never do, but I do hold it aloft after saying “No one puts Dark Souls in the corner.”

Ok, joking aside, the setting gives a great cognitive reason for the Rogue-lite aspects, both informing gameplay and your inevitable deaths. Looping a circuit the game will randomly generate, you’ll start setting out the world “as you remember it.” This is where you might be questioning how it is that it can randomly generate something you are supposed to remember, while you always return to the same camp? I’d put that down to the more magic elements. The first chapter’s boss is set up in the tutorial, and is the one causing all this confusion.

Once you start looping, you’ll be picking up pieces of armor, weapons, rings, and resources, all through battling and crossing sections repeatedly. Each battle also gives out some cards for you to place, each placement is a new memory and thing within the world to change the gameplay a little more. For example, rocks and mountains will give you some health, as will meadows. However, Vampire mansions, Spider coves, cemeteries, and more will pump out monsters (three guesses what each does). There is a constantly ticking clock that chimes at the reset of a new day, for which monsters appear.

A short loop will mean you’ll face hard enemies, as each loop increases the difficulty (I believe), but longer loops will mean you’ll face more enemies on each square later on. However, as random as that might sound, it all comes down to your placement on the loop, the equipment you select and throw away, or even all those rocky mountains and other cards you’ve placed. Each card interacts with nearby ones differently, such as a collection of 3 by 3 rocks and mountains creating mountain peaks, ultimately giving you a total health boost. Lighting the loop with torches slows spawn rates.

Though I could talk about the further gameplay for hours, I think we need to talk about the character art, which is something I don’t normally do. Everyone knows the typical shapes of humans in video games, all very life-like with 3D games, generally humanoid with 2D, and pixel art games often look like someone took the wrong turn at a Minecraft Creeper convention. Not every game tries to make their character’s art-style the thing that would be described as “beautiful.” Instead, very often development spends time being a little creepy by having women with their breasts pushed up in tiny crop tops. There is none of that here.

I think one of the best examples of the gorgeous character design is Yota, a woman you find back at your camp that, like everyone, has a memory that’s a bit foggy. I think the reason I like her design so much is how she looks like a book illustration rather than a retro game character. Another notable example of this beautiful design decision is the first interaction with the Vampire, especially when he tries to hide all his teeth (all the more to chew you with, my dear). Sure, if you look at the map overview, or any other part of the art, you’ll think it was ripped right out of a 90s adventure game.

I’ve always been put off by 90s adventure games, mostly because of how laborious it is to read every detail explained to the nth degree. This is where I get my “I love you!” on, as Loop Hero does what is so simple but 99.99999% of pixel graphic games simply don’t do: Dyslexic-friendly fonts. It seems so simple to implement, and as a Dyslexic who is often put off with games like this where so much reading is included, it solved that problem with one-click. One-click and I can read everything because it isn’t oddly stylized or in such a small font that it makes it hard to read. I love that, I genuinely do.

I am not one for the auto-battler genre, games with such a focus on working the numbers, or the aforementioned indifference to Rogue-like/lites at this point, among others. As a result it surprises me that I enjoy Loop Hero so much. When I first saw it, I had an idea that I might like it, but that was a far-fetched idea of a possibility. Possibly being hyperbolic, I think it will be an indie standout towards the end of the year for being so retro while also being refreshing. Four Quarter’s Rogue-lite adventure feels like a single-player version of any dark fantasy version of board games where you build the world around you. Just with a DM that really doesn’t like you all that much.

A PC copy of Loop Hero was provided by Devolver Digital for the purposes of this review.

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Loop Hero

$14.99

8.9

Score

8.9/10

Pros

• Dyslexia-friendly font options.
• For an auto-battler, everything is your fault.
• Brilliant character art direction.

Cons

• Loot drops can feel like they've stagnated.