Heroes of Loot

Developer: Orangepixel | Publisher: Orangepixel | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Action / Adventure / RPG | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

While we will always have a soft spot for in-depth role playing games with complex characters and tons of customization, sometimes it is nice to just sit back and kill everything in sight. Thankfully, Orangepixel has got just the thing for such occasions and it is called Heroes of Loot. As far as I can tell the four heroes in this game doesn’t have any noble goals or ambitions to save the world and instead go around causing a ruckus in dungeons purely for the loot.

Although it can be classified as a dungeon crawler, the real-time action and frantic pace of the game makes it more of a twin-stick shooter. You get to choose between an elf, warrior, wizard or Valkyrie and then wade into dungeons infested with monsters where your only goal is to decimate the enemy hordes. Of course, there is also plenty of loot to grab and you’ll find the occasional shop where you can spend your hard earned cash. If you are feeling guilty about all the looting, don’t worry as you also get to free some hapless people who were imprisoned by the monsters. The closest thing you’ll find to traditional “quests” would be the optional time based challenges. These involve killing a certain amount of specific monsters, collecting the required amount of loot or rescuing a set amount of prisoners and must be done before the timer runs out in order to receive a reward.

The dungeons in Heroes of Loot are randomly generated, so each time you play you’ll be facing a new layout. Interestingly enough, the dungeons also become harder the more you play as new enemies and traps start to appear. The game features perma-death, so if your character buys the farm you’ll have to start over from scratch. Later on you’ll encounter items that are retained even if you die, but mostly your goal is to survive for as long as possible and see what dungeon floor you can reach before your character inevitably succumbs.

Anyone who enjoyed ‘80s coin-up titles, such as Gauntlet, Smash-TV and Robotron will appreciate the easy to pick up and play, but hard to master style of Heroes of Loot. The fast pace of the game means you can immediately jump in and start blasting and you never have to waste any time sifting through your inventory or allocating stats. Characters still earn experience points and level up, but it just improves their health and firepower. The dungeon floors aren’t very big, so the odds of getting lost are quite slim. It’s still worth exploring every nook and cranny though, as you’ll find secret rooms that are packed with loot.

To reach the next floor of each dungeon you simply have to kill everything in sight until you get a key and then race to the exit. Aside from all the loot you’ll also find potions to restore your health and runes that can assist you in combat for a short amount of time. For example, a fire rune allows you to torch enemies with rings of flame while a lightening rune will zap nearby foes. Although running around killing things can become repetitive, it is also very addictive and trying to beat your previous record is always a rush. To make things even more interesting the game also features a co-op mode, but it is local only, so your friend will have to be in the same room. The upside is that you can punch them if they hog all the valuable loot!

Heroes of Loot was originally a mobile title, but this PC version is still a lot of fun and looks quite decent. The game employs some nice pixel art for the visuals and I have to say that I really love the character as well as enemy designs. Your foes might look more adorable than menacing, but don’t underestimate them as after playing a few times the challenge increases considerably. The graphics are bright and colorful, but things can get a little chaotic when you are battling rooms filled to the brim with enemies. Enemy projectiles are also rather small, which make them tricky to dodge, especially while trying to avoid the myriad of enemies and traps all over the place. Although there isn’t really a story, you’ll discover a few funny scenes between levels where the party encounters new enemies or make comments about what is happening.

Overall the audio is pretty decent, with some nice tracks, but the sound effects sounded a little underwhelming to me. The music also sounded a little too mellow considering all the action happening on-screen, but at least it never becomes annoying. Considering the mobile roots of the game, the controls are responsive enough and I had no issues using a controller. The mouse also works fine, but take care as the right-mouse button functions as the “back” and “exit” keys, so you can accidentally leave the game completely with just a few accidental clicks! Luckily the game saves automatically, so it’s more of a minor nuisance than anything else until you learn not to spam the right-mouse button in an attempt to cast a spell or something when you get swarmed.

Heroes of Loot is definitely a lot of fun, especially with a friend and anyone who hasn’t already played it to death on mobile devices should give it a shot on PC. It can be played in short bursts or if you are really skilled you can go for marathon sessions in order to secure your spot on the leaderboards. The way that the dungeons slowly increases in challenge is good for the replay value and you can also unlock a fifth character class if you make it past the 30^th floor. If you are in the mood for dungeon crawling, but want something fast paced where you don’t have to check your inventory every ten seconds you can do far worse than Heroes of Loot.