Eliwood8 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 Game Freak continues to branch out from its familiar Pokémon territory with a brand new RPG, Little Town Hero. Rather than catching monsters here you're fighting them, but instead of traditional battle mechanics Little Town Hero uses a unique system that relies heavily on strategy and coping with enemy attacks—as well as coping with luck of the draw. It's a quirky battle system, and one that proves plenty addictive for anyone that enjoys the challenge of crunching numbers and planning out actions thoughtfully. You play as Axe, a young boy who lives in an isolated village and dreams of being able to set out and see the world. His dreams for adventure suddenly become a reality though when a terrible monster appears in town and Axe steps up to defend his home. Soon Axe and his friends are pulled into the mystery of where the monsters are coming from, and how to stop them. As far as the writing is concerned, Game Freak doesn't stray too far from its Pokémon roots—Axe even has a rival friend who is constantly trying to prove himself against Axe in battle. The characters are cute but fairly simple as well, with plenty of saccharine messaging poured over the story. It's adorable and charming for what it is, but don't expect anything too deep. The title of the game certainly isn't a misdirect—the game takes place entirely within a small town with fairly limited opportunities to explore. You do get a chance to walk around and take on side quests, but Little Town Hero really condenses the RPG formula into a fairly narrow adventure. Not that this is entirely a bad thing—there may not be the traditional world exploration, but as a relatively short RPG Little Town Hero still has plenty of charm and depth. Even more than most RPGs, Little Town Hero is all about its battle system, mostly because it's a unique, richly strategic, and fairly complicated system that draws inspiration from card-based battle systems. During battle Axe is able to attack by pulling ideas from his head. Each turn you draw up to five ideas (called Izzits) from your headspace and hold them in your "hand." Then you need to activate an Izzit to turn it into a Dazzit, which can then be used to attack your opponent. Activating Izzits costs power points, so you need to think carefully about which Izzits you want to activate on a given turn. Once you have your Dazzits, you use them against the opponent's Dazzit, and the two ideas clash. Each idea has an attack value and a defense value: the attack value damages the defense, and if the defense reaches zero the Dazzit breaks. If you break all of your opponent's Dazzits in one turn you get the opportunity for a chance attack which attacks the opponent's HP directly. If this sounds at all confusing don't worry, the game provides a pretty detailed tutorial to walk you through these concepts. It may seem overwhelming at first but once you have a bit of practice with it Little Town Hero's battle system is pretty engaging. The core concept of it comes down to leveraging your Dazzits well so that you can break your opponent's Dazzits while protecting your own, so there's a rich sense of strategy at play here. Which Dazzits are you willing to sacrifice in order to break your enemy's? Which ones will you try to save for a more opportune time? You have to examine the situation in front of you and make strategic decisions, which can be challenging but is also extremely satisfying when things work out. Dazzits can also have special properties, such as gaining temporary boosts to attack or defense or even temporary invincibility when initially activated, so you really want to think carefully about which Dazzits to use up quickly and which to save. Like a card-based game, broken Dazzits are discarded until you "reshuffle" your ideas (either by taking damage or using special action points to refresh your ideas) so you have to keep in mind what Dazzits are still available to you, because your opponents never actually run out. Finally, at the end of each turn, you move around the field of battle in a board game-like map, where different spaces can have different special effects, such as allies you can call upon for assistance. It's another detail to remember but invaluable as these special effects and assists are often massively beneficial. With all of these little details you'll need to keep in mind while fighting, battles can be extremely slow, especially when you don't draw the Izzits you want and it feels like you have to spend a couple of turns just marking time. But Little Town Hero focuses on a relatively small number of battles that are more complex and involved—there are some short skirmish-type battles as well but the main story-related fights are generally pretty long. The game is meant to be a little slow, which affords you plenty of time to think about your next move. The downside is that some of these battles can be exhausting, especially when you aren't prepared for certain bosses' special abilities. It can be a little too easy for the tide of battle to kind of spiral out of your control, to your disadvantage, which is pretty discouraging. Thankfully restarting the battle isn't hard, but it can feel like wasted time. Occasionally the game gives you the opportunity to test out your strategy skills in short battles or even puzzle scenarios, such as breaking all of an enemy's Dazzits with only a couple specific Dazzits of your own. These puzzles are actually a ton of fun and I would have loved to see even more of them. As is, Little Town Hero is a little light on side quests and side content. It's still definitely worth pursuing every side quest you can though since they often reward you with Eureka points which can be used to level up your Izzits (somewhat surprisingly, you never collect new Izzits, you just level up the ones you have). And even if you do pursue just about all of the content that Little Town Hero has to offer, it's not too long of a game. Something around 15 to 20 hours will see you through the whole adventure, even if you take the time to tackle side quests. To match the cute, simple story Little Town Hero sports cute, simple graphics. The visuals are bright and colorful, especially among the human characters (though the recycled models for townsfolk is a little hilarious considering the tiny size of the town). The monsters designs are pretty great as well—they're massive and imaginative, and definitely give you something fun to watch during these long battles. The only problem with the game's presentation is that there isn't more of it. As mentioned the game takes place in a single town and there aren't that many monsters in the game, so there's not too much variety in the visual design. It would've been great to see an even wider assortment of monsters. The music is a lot of fun though, even if it can be similarly repetitive. But composer Toby Fox does an excellent job of giving the game a fun, engaging audio identity. Little Town Hero shows off some great ideas with its in-depth battle system that rewards careful strategic thinking. Occasionally the gameplay can feel like it gets mired in its own concept, but for the most part the challenge of keeping one step ahead of your opponent and adjusting to whatever Izzits you draw on each turn keeps the action engaging. A bit more variety in just about every aspect of the adventure would have done wonders for making the game feel more rich and energetic, but as it is Little Town Hero is a charming little adventure with a deceptively deep yet satisfying battle system. Rating: 8 out of 10 Dazzits Review copy provided by publisher Little Town Hero is available now on the Switch eShop for $24.99. Spring, TKrazyO, DLurkster and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment
DLurkster Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 Played the first 2 hours of this game and before playing I watched the review by Gamexplain and they did not enjoy the game. Afterwards, I read here and getting different feel so as I said after 2hrs. I can see the pros and cons from myself and I am in the middle but I am having fun. Where I thought I was running into trouble is when you are fighting against your green haired rival. I died against him 3 times and each time had him down to 1 heart when he beat me then I realize the problem is when I 'all break' I either didn't have any idea or dazzit attacks to do a 'chance turn' properly. You can break all their dazzit to score a actual hit but you must follow-up with 'chance turn' to continue damage and end the battle for good. So when I faced my first monster I won on my first try and in doing so I realize the fun in this game is to think methodically. (I am good at and enjoy) So pretty much if you can wrap your head over the combat and are patient you will like this game but if those don't sound like fun, you may not enjoy the game. I believe that is really the pro and the con of the game. Quote Link to comment
Eliwood8 Posted October 16, 2019 Author Share Posted October 16, 2019 Yeah for a game that looks pretty cutesy the combat system can be surprisingly complex; you always have to be thinking a couple of actions ahead and still be prepared for any surprises the opponent may throw at you. I think people that like strategy games will enjoy it though. Quote Link to comment
Spring Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 Ahhh, the more I read about this game, the more I want it. The battle system looks really fun and the graphics are exactly up my alley. Great review, Eliwood! I want this to be one of the first Switch games I get, I think! Eliwood8 1 Quote Link to comment
Cinny Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Awesome review, Eliwood! I've seen a lot of back and forth on this game, but I believe your review has sold me, or in the very least, I'll grab it for myself during Christmas seeing as I'm shoulder-deep in Switch backlog as it is! Just gotta add this to it now...haha! Eliwood8 1 Quote Link to comment
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