Loot River – Review
Occasionally, an indie game comes along with an ingenious idea derived from the mashup of two or more well-known games. Hand-drawn pixel art or a compelling atmosphere are two of the most common reasons people fall in love with these games. Loot River has a lot going for it, but certain aspects of the gameplay and the way everything comes together prevent it from being as good as it could be.
Straka.studio and SUPERHOT PRESENTS, the indie fund behind Loot River, developed and published the action roguelike that combines heavy Dark Souls combat with Tetris-like spatial block shifting.
Roguelikes, with their emphasis on action and adventure, are the perfect fit for this genre mix. Because it’s procedural, each run is unique, necessitating the development of a fresh strategy for each section.
To keep things interesting, even if you’re on your fifth or eighth run, there are branching paths and different puzzle blocks in the early biomes that make getting to the end a puzzle in and of itself.
Rather than a strong point, the story of the game serves as an intriguing setup for what you’re doing. Your character is resurrected into a world in a state of limbo that can only be broken if you defeat the threat that is holding it all together. However, the tricky part is that you have no way out of alternate dimensions, which require the same treatment. So, the hunt has begun.
You’ll fight your way through mazes filled with monsters and gain random items, as is customary in roguelikes. If you die, you’ll have to start over from the beginning. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able to unlock a variety of powerful weapons, potent spells, and headgear that allow for a variety of play styles.
As you defeat The Legion, a horde of beasts from alternate realities trapped in purgatory limbo, and deliver those resources to your nomadic companions in the hub area dubbed The Sanctuary, you’ll accumulate Knowledge in various zones.
NPCs in this game will follow you to your safe haven, just like in Dark Souls. Then there’s the fact that they’ll have services open up that range from providing you with a ghoulish mask to scaring away mobs with a magical shield.
For example, an alchemist named SOAP will often request the sacrifice of some health potions, and you will be restricted in how many recoveries per zone you can make as a result. He will, however, give you twice as many coins when you return to The Sanctuary after a run. In addition, you can give gold to the inn’s resident bard, Finnegan. You’ll get a cool item as a thank you for your generosity, and he’ll benefit from it.
Everyone else is a shopkeeper or works with artefacts, which are items that increase the number of enemies or alter the properties of monsters in different biomes once the game is over.
Otherwise, the NPCs aren’t in the best position. They will, however, respond to your progress by either praising you or reminding you that you’ve only made baby steps, depending on how much progress you’ve made.
While you can piece together the events that led to the loop you’re in using the morbid lore you learn from these encounters, the game’s core mechanic is dungeon crawling, so these side quests are largely irrelevant.
Straka.studio did a fantastic job designing Loot River’s labyrinths around the viability of its Tetris blocks, to mention just a few examples. Fire traps can set your Tetris block on fire in the first biome, for example. You will encounter more dangerous monsters if you use them in combination with other items in the area.
For example, some biomes have laser beams on top of their blocks, while others have staircases that lead to lower-leveled blocks. Roguelikes are known for increasing difficulty while also introducing new features, and this one accomplishes both feats in spades.
As a result, you’ll frequently take a moment to think about how to put together blocks, whether or not to go any further to open a treasure box, or how best to approach a large group of enemies. Loot River’s most enjoyable feature is that it allows you to build a winning strategy by placing blocks in the right places that make sense to you, just like Tetris.
No doubt Loot River’s real-time puzzle-solving features are a welcome addition to the roguelike genre. In spite of these flaws, re-running the game is an absolute nightmare in the early stages, as the game takes a few significant steps back in features.
In an attempt to mimic Dark Souls, Loot River places you in a Tetris-like situation where dodging and charging attacks are nearly impossible.
You may find yourself in a situation where you are surrounded by hard-hitting mobs with nowhere to flee. Against a large group, you have the option to use a charged attack to wipe them out. However, the enemies are always moving too fast for this option. When a pack is swarming around you, parrying, while effective once you master it, is useless.
Loot River’s boss fights actually work with the combat style of Dark Souls. Even so, I’ll admit that the hitbox for the first boss has a few wonky moments that could become the reason for future deaths of players with short or otherwise subpar weapons.
However, because Loot River is a procedurally generated roguelike, combat issues exacerbate themselves when moving through zones. If you’re unlucky with enemy spawns, a new run could put you in the grave early. Moreover, there’s no way to improve your performance by modifying your tools.
The opening items you have until you reach a certain point in the game can be seriously hampered if you lose Knowledge after dying. Even if you manage to get past that point and unlock some cool weapons or a cool headpiece, you’ll still start with the standard setup for a new run and randomly earn those items rather than being able to select a viable kit you like.
It’s odd that Loot River doesn’t give players more control over their loadout options instead of relying heavily on chance, given that it’s an indefinite loop with a diverse array of abilities and equipment.
Only three arbitrary charms, such as a small parry heal or the ability to knock an enemy back after three weapon attacks, can be selected manually in the game. Re-running an entire campaign may be fun, but the randomness of what you get and what you can do prevents experimentation at the beginning of the game.
Despite its flaws, Loot River is still a worthwhile game to play. It’s so satisfying to flick Tetris blocks through an amazingly fluid river. Even though the combat is a pain, the weapons and spells are a blast to use when they do their job. In order to compete with the genre’s heavy hitters, Loot River needs a clear roadmap of improvements and new content. Even so, if it continues to be implemented in the current form, it will remain a solid entry but will miss out on the opportunity to improve on its inspirations.
