Out of the frying pan, into the dungeon.
From Marvellous and XSeed Video games, Silent Hope is a dungeon-crawling Motion-RPG set on the earth of Rune Manufacturing unit and Story of Seasons. With the comfortable groves of Mineral City behind me, I excitedly commerce my pitchfork for… one other pitchfork?
In a land robbed of its voice, you play as one in all seven silent heroes, guided by a Princess encased in a crystalline tear. Your aim is to enterprise into an ever-changing Abyss of monsters and darkness, discover the King who dwells inside, and free the realm from its curse of silence. To do that, you’ll want the assistance of your brothers and sisters in arms, in addition to sufficient meals to fill a banquet corridor and recipes to fill an encyclopaedia.
From the outset, you will have quite a lot of courses to select from: Wanderer, Archer, Warrior, Caster, Rogue, Farmer, and Fighter. Every has a fundamental assault with the A button, a dash-type motion skill mapped to the R button, two therapeutic potions mapped to L (that are refilled with every new run of a dungeon), and three skills that may be mapped to B, Y, and X. There’s no must really feel caught along with your preliminary alternative, as you may swap freely between courses to search out what’s best for you. I personally began with the Farmer, armed with a pitchfork and toxic butterflies, to expertise what that playstyle was like, earlier than switching between Warrior, Fighter and Rogue for one thing somewhat extra acquainted.
Dungeons play out from an isometric view, with their structure newly generated every time you enter. Some flooring have boundaries that require clearing earlier than continuing to the subsequent stage under; others characteristic a small enclosed area with waves of foes needing to be dispatched (a Monster Rush). A quantity on the underside proper denotes what flooring you’re on and what number of there are in whole for that phase of the Abyss. You’ll additionally discover a couple of icons showing on sure flooring; these point out sorts of monster encounters or the place you’ll discover a crystal to return to camp or swap your character. However crucial of all is the icon that appears like a campfire. Campfires symbolize checkpoints that permit you to begin deeper within the dungeon do you have to wish to return to camp or fall on the hand of a ravenous sheep or a sonic boom-slinging ninja weasel.
In the event you do perish in battle, you’ll drop a number of the loot you collected and be ejected from the dungeon, returning to camp. Right here is the place you may enhance your gear, have supplies ready, and prepare dinner meals. Loot drops for weapons and equipment work very similar to recipes. You continue to want to collect the required elements to craft the drops you discover. For that, you will have the atelier to supply supplies, the workshop to deal with wooden, and the blacksmith to forge the gear when all of the supplies are gathered. Along with enhancing your gear over time, you’ll additionally must create meals to offer non permanent bonuses that may make an enormous distinction in your playstyle. Cooking sure dishes gives you elevated well being, defence, power, or important likelihood, to call a couple of, alongside standing and elemental resistances that grow to be extra helpful as you plunge deeper into the Abyss and problem will increase. To organize these dishes, you will have a small farm to reap merchandise out of your cows and chickens, and a area to plant wheat and different vegatables and fruits. These all get delivered to the kitchen, and very similar to the blacksmith, if a recipe is fulfilled, you may craft as a lot of a meals product as your stock permits.
The crafting aspect of Silent Hope has some fascinating ideas however can be pretty fundamental. On the constructive aspect, though it’s not express precisely how, manufacturing time for supplies is tied to time spent in dungeons via each slaying monsters or harvesting seeds from crops within the deep. What it means is that crafting materials manufacturing takes a backseat to the motion fight and is much extra passive than one may anticipate. The draw back is that these accustomed to the sequence’ ties could also be disenchanted with the crafting techniques being provided as there’s basically no gameplay concerned, and all crafting is diminished to some menus.
Fortunately, the ever-addictive loop of discovering higher and higher gear is simply as attractive right here. For starters, you could find particular mementos (gear recipes) that want appraising from the Princess. Gear ranges from class-specific weapons to earrings and necklaces, in addition to Runestones. Runestones work very similar to gems in Diablo, the place they are often positioned into weapons and equipment with the requisite empty slot to socket them into. Each piece of drugs has a rarity from frequent and uncommon to tremendous uncommon and legendary, in addition to an related rank. Early gadgets will likely be rank 1 and are rapidly eclipsed in energy by gadgets which might be rank 2, no matter their rarity. It doesn’t matter what class you play as, you’ll discover recipes for weapons from another class, so that you may choose up a superlative bow whereas enjoying as Caster and select to change over to Archer to benefit from your new toy.
Particular character development outdoors of drugs is thru normal stage ups. With each stage you will have a inexperienced gem to spend on powering skills as much as a most stage of 5 every. When your class reaches stage 15 you’ll unlock a sophisticated class in your character, these give entry to a wholly new set of skills and you’ve got the choice to combine and match with the earlier courses expertise for a considerable amount of customizability. And don’t fear about committing closely as you will have the choice to re-spec your expertise any time at base camp for a small price of runes (the sport’s foreign money). My most levelled character being the Ranger, the superior class of the Farmer, they grew to become one thing of a caster/melee hybrid. I used to be capable of summon birds who adopted me like feathered magic missiles. Plenty of enjoyable and has me curious as to different superior courses I didn’t get to expertise.
Silent Hope does job at placing a steadiness in its problem, and a number of it’s primarily based on the participant. Sticking with one class will imply you will have fewer levelled characters to swap to as you go deeper into dungeons, necessitating a return to camp when your hero is low on well being. You will discover corrupted Princess statues on virtually each flooring, and these gives you a selected trial corresponding to “Kill 5 elite monsters earlier than transferring to the subsequent stage” or “Clear the Monster Rush in below 60 seconds,” to call a couple of. Additionally, you will discover particular doorways that result in zones teeming with elite monsters and the promise of loot behind them. These are completely optionally available however do an incredible job at dangling the attract of extra energy ought to you will have the talent to finish them. Talking of challenges, Silent Hope has a built-in achievement/mission system that’s consistently watching your progress: hit sure milestones and also you’ll unlock a small reward. One thing to notice is that via these passively earned rewards, you’ll unlock a rank 2 legendary weapon for many courses permitting you to experiment with different characters even in case you don’t get the required loot drop.
As you progress deeper into the Abyss, you’ll discover glowing circles of sunshine on the bottom. The Princess is reminded of occasions as you uncover acquainted areas to her, and standing in these circles can have her proceed the story of how the dominion fell. Clearing a stage will reveal a stone pill that has the written insights of the King as every little thing round him plunged into chaos. It’s not a really advanced story however having each views operating concurrently was an entertaining, if mild, storytelling expertise.
It’s price commending how effectively Silent Hope runs on the Change. It’s buttery clean docked and in Handheld Mode. The Chibi aesthetic clearly lends itself effectively to stable efficiency, however there will be moments with dozens of enemies on display screen, and but the sport maintains a gradual framerate. On the audio aspect, whereas there’s no background music that actually stands out, the soundtrack suits the theme and was pleasing to hearken to. One thing barely extra grating was the frequency of the Princess’s audio traces at base camp. They’re cute and do supply some fascinating world and character constructing however there’s not sufficient distinctive traces of dialogue to match the frequency with which they’re performed, so it’s possible you’ll be tempted to cut back the voice audio in settings early in your playthrough.
Silent Hope gives an exquisite if considerably rudimentary ARPG expertise, however there’s loads of room to enhance if it ever will get a sequel. Tilesets, although random, start trying very acquainted after you have been via a couple of dozen flooring, and the phases have totally different themes however play virtually the very same. Whereas stage hazards try to combine up the gameplay, they simply do not do sufficient so as to add the variability I had hoped for; the identical will be mentioned of enemies, lots of whom are principally palette swaps. Bosses are the spotlight, each cinematically and from a fight perspective; I simply want there have been extra of them. With hours of further content material post-credits due to an unlockable laborious mode, very similar to its farming-focused cousins, Silent Hope finds its place in being video gaming consolation meals that you could simply dive into at any time, and I’m undoubtedly going again for seconds.