VIDEO GAME: Loop Hero (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Loop HeroYear: 2021Rating: TTime Played: 2,842 minutes / 47.37 hours While it seems like every third game these days is a Roguelike, I have occasionally come across a few like Loop Hero, which successfully makes the iterative gameplay loop fun. As a metanarrative on the larger Role Playing Game structure, Loop Hero is strangely fun for a game that automatically fights every battle for you. After all, everyone knows the best part of an RPG is finding better gear and trying to determine which one provides better stats for their character. This is Loop Hero in a nutshell. Perhaps it's the combination of Roguelike, Deck Builder, and RPG genres that makes this game stand out. With each round, the player character walks around a randomly generated path. By playing cards obtained through battle, the landscape can change to help (or hinder) the hero. If the hero can survive long enough, a challenging boss appears. It's sometimes a gamble to obtain more materials...
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VIDEO GAME: Deepest Sword (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Deepest Sword Year: 2021 Rating: E Time Played: 41 minutes / 0.68 hours There are plenty of reasons I like Deepest Sword. It’s a simple gameplay gimmick with wide-ranging applications. It’s a quick play-through that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Most of all, it has a cute pixel art aesthetic and amusing dialogue for the dragon at the end of each level. There was a lot of love and care put into a game like this, and it shows. It almost feels nostalgic for the little freeware games I used to play growing up and I can half imagine it sitting on some floppy disk in my parents’ basement. As a physics-based puzzle game, the challenge scales with the size of your weapon. Each level increases the length—and by proxy the weight—of the sword. After the first few levels, I was hooked. While it uses basically the same layout for each level, the limitations of my sword forced me into different paths that led to the...
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VIDEO GAME: Fez (2012)

by benmweilertNo Comments
FezYear: 2012Rating: ETime Played: 312 minutes / 5.20 hours When it comes to indie games, I appreciate how much can be done with minimal graphics. These pixel-based games have a charm that’s difficult to get right but really shines when they’re successful. Fez is such a game. As a puzzle platformer, the genre isn’t original. However, pivoting in 2-D planes to create a 3-D game is an ingenious way to expand the gameplay. Of course, this also makes it a little difficult to keep track of where you are and where you’re going. But with such relaxing visuals and sound design, spending extra time in this game isn’t a bad thing. There are limitations to the pixelated style that make navigating the half-dozen worlds difficult to memorize. Sure, there are gimmicks in each world that define how you move around it, but knowing where to go to solve a larger puzzle within the game can be challenging. That there are so many...
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VIDEO GAME: Axiom Verge (2015)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Axiom Verge Year: 2015 Rating: E10+ Time Played: 843 minutes / 14.05 hours As I play more and more video games, I'm finding that I enjoy Metroidvanias. Something about exploring and upgrading a character to unlock more parts of a map (for more exploration) feels satisfying to me. Axiom Verge adheres to many of the tropes that make a Metroidvania great, including mimicking the pixelated 16-bit style of one of the genre's founders, Super Metroid. The fact that a single person created the entirety of this game is astounding, even if its edges show in a few spots. Even though I enjoy playing through a Metroidvania like Axiom Verge, I also found myself struggling to beat the final boss of the game. Much like how I had to take a break before finishing off Hollow Knight, I found myself just barely able to keep up with Axiom Verge's final boss. It turns out I had missed picking up one of the game's best weapons because...
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VIDEO GAME: Hyper Light Drifter (2016)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Hyper Light Drifter Year: 2016 Rating: T Time Played: 524 minutes / 8.73 hours As a gamer who grew up on the pixel art graphics of the 8- and 16- bit eras, I can appreciate when a game comes along to try and replicate that aesthetic. Granted, it can be challenging to pull off correctly while also adapting modern gameplay elements. However, there are definitely games that have successfully created an homage to these earlier times (like Shovel Knight). Then there are games that expand upon their predecessors to create something that the original gaming systems couldn't possibly handle. Hyper Light Drifter is beautiful in its aesthetic while never sacrificing its vision or its challenge. Early video games had the flaw of being difficult for the sake of drawing out how long you played them. As a result, some were unfairly hard—to the point where I never wanted to get good enough to beat them. Hyper Light Drifter certainly had a bit of a learning...
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