{"id":454085,"date":"2024-01-24T14:15:47","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T20:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/?post_type=eg_reviews&p=454085"},"modified":"2024-01-24T14:15:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T20:15:56","slug":"review-backpack-hero","status":"publish","type":"eg_reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/reviews\/review-backpack-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Backpack Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Remember Diablo 2<\/em> and its infamously stingy inventory system<\/a>? Years ago, the classic RPG <\/em>taught many of us how remarkably satisfying it feels when all of your loot clicks together just <\/em>right. Enter Backpack Hero<\/em>: a game that takes this very system and runs \u2014nay, sprints<\/em> with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To be clear, Backpack Hero<\/em> isn\u2019t the first attempt to make a game out of loot packing. The Save Room<\/em> games<\/a>, for example, turn Resident Evil 4<\/em>\u2019s inventory system into a standalone puzzler. What, Backpack Hero<\/em> does, instead, is interpret this concept as a full-fledged, deckbuilding roguelite. The result is surprisingly engaging, even if some of the game\u2019s supplementary systems don\u2019t quite stick the landing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Backpack Hero <\/em><\/strong>(PC [Reviewed], Switch)<\/strong>
<\/strong>Developer: Jaspel<\/strong>
<\/strong>Publisher: Different Tales, IndieArk<\/strong>
<\/strong>Released: November 14, 2023<\/strong>
<\/strong>MSRP: $19.99<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Granted, calling Backpack Hero <\/em>a deckbuilder is slightly misleading. Here, items you find along the way are your deck, and your playing mat is the very backpack you\u2019re lugging around. As you crawl through the game\u2019s dungeons and engage in turn-based combat, the uppermost portion of the interface always<\/em> shows your inventory. You attack, cast spells, and generally interact with the dungeon by activating items: swords, shields, gems, potions, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The catch is that most items require very specific placement and rotation in your inventory. Better yet, many of them must be arranged in a way relative to certain other items for them to work properly. And, since you\u2019re getting new stuff basically all the time, Backpack Hero<\/em> keeps you on your toes by forcing you to reinvent your inventory between encounters and loot drops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roguelikes and roguelites often force players to switch up strategies as they play, but Backpack Hero<\/em> takes things a step further with its sheer variety of item effects. Only rarely is a sword just<\/em> a sword. Instead, it may only work if stored diagonally, or heavily incentivize lugging some cursed auxiliary items around. Is it worth carrying around, then? That\u2019s a choice you\u2019ll have to make often in Backpack Hero<\/em>. Acquiring a new piece of loot demands you seriously consider your item management. It\u2019s engrossing and satisfying.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, look no further than how Backpack Hero<\/em> handles armor. Helmets are shoved in the topmost rows of your pack to be effective, while boots should go at the bottom. Add extra complexities, such as diagonal buff application and adjacency bonuses, and you\u2019ve got a heck of a puzzle on your hand with every new encounter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, certain magical items might only work if there aren\u2019t any items immediately adjacent. Others might be lighter than air and automatically float to the top of your bag. Since there aren\u2019t any item slots<\/em> to be concerned about, your efficiency in combat boils down to personal ingenuity and inventiveness. Look, if you want to fill up your backpack with three different suits of armor, that\u2019s a choice Backpack Hero<\/em> permits. You do you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, Backpack Hero<\/em> is sublime. Every run is its own puzzle, with enough pieces in play to encourage optimization on your own terms. Synergy is the word of the day here, and discovering the optimal item placements, rotations, and correlations is a delight. Not only do you get to embody the proverbial loot goblin, but you also get to feel smart about it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with many other indie darlings, however, Backpack Hero<\/em> has its own take on a vast, all-encompassing meta progression system. To keep you busy between dungeon runs, you\u2019ll manage an entire downtrodden town: Haversack Hill. Shops, schools, libraries, houses\u2026 It’s all reminiscent of the old PlayStation classic Dark Cloud<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, interacting with Haversack Hill\u2019s denizens kills the brisk, satisfying pace of the core itemized dungeon crawling. One moment, you\u2019ll be micromanaging your backpack to crowd control an entire gauntlet\u2019s worth of enemies. Then, seconds later, you\u2019re looking for roaming NPCs in Haversack Hill to tell them you\u2019ve got that sweet stack of bricks they\u2019ve been looking for. This disparity could work in the game\u2019s favor to balance out tense combat encounters, certainly, but improvements to Haversack Hill were too dull for this to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Screenshot by Destructoid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The central narrative isn\u2019t particularly good, and there aren\u2019t any interesting characters or functionalities to fiddle around with during the townscape portions. Haversack Hill just doesn\u2019t add much value to Backpack Hero<\/em>\u2019s already strong dungeon gameplay\u2014\u00a0 it\u2019s more mundane busywork. Instead of looking forward to upgrades and unlocks you\u2019d typically see in similar roguelikes, I just wanted to get back to dungeon crawling as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haversack Hill does, inadvertently, offer one bright spot. The town itself is pure drudgery, but collecting resources for its progression is much more interesting. To establish new services and invite more NPCs, you collect unique resources in the dungeon. Naturally, gathering these is a balancing act in and of itself. The only way to lug around bricks, wood beams, and other building materials is to sacrifice room in your inventory which, in effect, means leaving optimal combat performance on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really enjoyed the risk vs reward tradeoff of this system, as it adds more puzzle elements to an already intricate dungeon crawler. Had Backpack Hero<\/em> focused the township parts to their absolute basics, perhaps even reducing it down to a sleek UI, I could see myself playing it for hours on end. As is, though, I couldn\u2019t stomach more than one round of town management per session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, Backpack Hero<\/em> comes with a dedicated Quick Game mode. Here, you\u2019re free to choose whichever character you want, all of them pre-unlocked for your playing pleasure. I actually found this to be the best way to play the game: unrestrained from any townscape homework. Just you, your ingenuity, and a virtually infinite pool of delightfully weird magical items to choose from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image via Jaspel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The obvious downside, though, is that you\u2019re losing the main story mode\u2019s sense of progression. By building up Haversack Hill, more regions of the dungeon open up, unlocking new goodies and passive bonuses in turn. It\u2019s nice to skip the town segments via\u00a0 Quick Game mode, but you\u2019ll, in turn, sacrifice the intrigue of collecting resources and learning item synergies through the drip feed of unlocks. I still preferred playing via Quick Game at the end of the day, I just wish I could enjoy the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Backpack Hero<\/em> specifically lets you side-step its biggest fault  \u2014 it\u2019s a thoughtful step that gets my praises. I\u2019d go so far as to say the core gameplay is more than compelling enough to forget whatever other perceived problems there may be. It\u2019s delightfully infectious, calling me back for the same reasons the legendary Slay the Spire<\/em> did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite floundering a bit with meta-progression mechanics, Backpack Hero<\/em> is still a thoroughly entertaining deckbuilding roguelike. Its use of item management as a central game mechanic is wildly inventive, and I consistently wanted to reenter the dungeon just to explore new item synergies. I do wish the town sections didn\u2019t drag the pace of the main campaign as much as they did. But even if you strictly use the Quick Game mode, Backpack Hero is still a worthwhile venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How proficient of a pack rat are you, really?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":872,"featured_media":453780,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[24367,19152],"article_type":[23117],"coauthors":[23146],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviews\/454085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviews"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/eg_reviews"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/872"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454085"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=454085"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=454085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}