To be clear, Backpack Hero isn’t the primary try to make a recreation out of loot packing. The Save Room video games, for instance, flip Resident Evil 4’s stock system right into a standalone puzzler. What, Backpack Hero does, as an alternative, is interpret this idea as a full-fledged, deckbuilding roguelite. The result’s surprisingly participating, even when among the recreation’s supplementary techniques don’t fairly stick the touchdown.

Backpack Hero (PC [Reviewed], Swap)
Developer: Jaspel
Writer: Completely different Tales, IndieArk
Launched: November 14, 2023
MSRP: $19.99

Granted, calling Backpack Hero a deckbuilder is barely deceptive. Right here, objects you discover alongside the way in which are your deck, and your taking part in mat is the very backpack you’re lugging round. As you crawl by way of the sport’s dungeons and have interaction in turn-based fight, the uppermost portion of the interface at all times reveals your stock. You assault, forged spells, and customarily work together with the dungeon by activating objects: swords, shields, gems, potions, and so forth.

The catch is that almost all objects require very particular placement and rotation in your stock. Higher but, a lot of them have to be organized in a means relative to sure different objects for them to work correctly. And, because you’re getting new stuff principally on a regular basis, Backpack Hero retains you in your toes by forcing you to reinvent your stock between encounters and loot drops.

Roguelikes and roguelites typically pressure gamers to modify up methods as they play, however Backpack Hero takes issues a step additional with its sheer number of merchandise results. Solely hardly ever is a sword simply a sword. As an alternative, it might solely work if saved diagonally, or closely incentivize lugging some cursed auxiliary objects round. Is it price carrying round, then? That’s a alternative you’ll should make typically in Backpack Hero. Buying a brand new piece of loot calls for you severely think about your merchandise administration. It’s engrossing and satisfying. 

For instance, look no additional than how Backpack Hero handles armor. Helmets are shoved within the topmost rows of your pack to be efficient, whereas boots ought to go on the backside. Add additional complexities, akin to diagonal buff utility and adjacency bonuses, and also you’ve bought a heck of a puzzle in your hand with each new encounter. 

In the meantime, sure magical objects may solely work if there aren’t any objects instantly adjoining. Others is perhaps lighter than air and routinely float to the highest of your bag. Since there aren’t any merchandise slots to be involved about, your effectivity in fight boils down to private ingenuity and inventiveness. Look, if you wish to refill your backpack with three completely different fits of armor, that’s a alternative Backpack Hero permits. You do you. 

On this sense, Backpack Hero is elegant. Each run is its personal puzzle, with sufficient items in play to encourage optimization by yourself phrases. Synergy is the phrase of the day right here, and discovering the optimum merchandise placements, rotations, and correlations is a delight. Not solely do you get to embody the proverbial loot goblin, however you additionally get to really feel sensible about it!

As with many different indie darlings, nonetheless, Backpack Hero has its personal tackle an unlimited, all-encompassing meta development system. To maintain you busy between dungeon runs, you’ll handle a complete downtrodden city: Haversack Hill. Outlets, colleges, libraries, homes… It’s all paying homage to the outdated PlayStation traditional Darkish Cloud.

Sadly, interacting with Haversack Hill’s denizens kills the brisk, satisfying tempo of the core itemized dungeon crawling. One second, you’ll be micromanaging your backpack to crowd management a complete gauntlet’s price of enemies. Then, seconds later, you’re in search of roaming NPCs in Haversack Hill to inform them you’ve bought that candy stack of bricks they’ve been in search of. This disparity may work within the recreation’s favor to steadiness out tense fight encounters, definitely, however enhancements to Haversack Hill had been too boring for this to work.

The central narrative isn’t notably good, and there aren’t any fascinating characters or functionalities to fiddle round with in the course of the townscape parts. Haversack Hill simply doesn’t add a lot worth to Backpack Hero’s already sturdy dungeon gameplay—  it’s extra mundane busywork. As an alternative of wanting ahead to upgrades and unlocks you’d usually see in related roguelikes, I simply wished to get again to dungeon crawling as quickly as doable.

Haversack Hill does, inadvertently, provide one shiny spot. The city itself is pure drudgery, however accumulating sources for its development is far more fascinating. To ascertain new companies and invite extra NPCs, you gather distinctive sources within the dungeon. Naturally, gathering these is a balancing act in and of itself. The one technique to lug round bricks, wooden beams, and different constructing supplies is to sacrifice room in your stock which, in impact, means leaving optimum fight efficiency on the desk.

I actually loved the danger vs reward tradeoff of this method, because it provides extra puzzle parts to an already intricate dungeon crawler. Had Backpack Hero centered the township elements to their absolute fundamentals, even perhaps lowering it right down to a smooth UI, I may see myself taking part in it for hours on finish. As is, although, I couldn’t abdomen multiple spherical of city administration per session.

That stated, Backpack Hero comes with a devoted Fast Sport mode. Right here, you’re free to decide on whichever character you need, all of them pre-unlocked to your taking part in pleasure. I really discovered this to be one of the simplest ways to play the sport: unrestrained from any townscape homework. Simply you, your ingenuity, and a just about infinite pool of delightfully bizarre magical objects to select from.

The plain draw back, although, is that you simply’re dropping the principle story mode’s sense of development. By build up Haversack Hill, extra areas of the dungeon open up, unlocking new goodies and passive bonuses in flip. It’s good to skip the city segments by way of  Fast Sport mode, however you’ll, in flip, sacrifice the intrigue of accumulating sources and studying merchandise synergies by way of the drip feed of unlocks. I nonetheless most popular taking part in by way of Fast Sport on the finish of the day, I simply want I may take pleasure in the perfect of each worlds.

In the end, Backpack Hero particularly helps you to side-step its greatest fault  — it’s a considerate step that will get my praises. I’d go as far as to say the core gameplay is greater than compelling sufficient to overlook no matter different perceived issues there could also be. It’s delightfully infectious, calling me again for a similar causes the legendary Slay the Spire did. 

Regardless of floundering a bit with meta-progression mechanics, Backpack Hero remains to be a completely entertaining deckbuilding roguelike. Its use of merchandise administration as a central recreation mechanic is wildly ingenious, and I constantly wished to reenter the dungeon simply to discover new merchandise synergies. I do want the city sections didn’t drag the tempo of the principle marketing campaign as a lot as they did. However even for those who strictly use the Fast Sport mode, Backpack Hero remains to be a worthwhile enterprise.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}