Clunky Hero

CH is one of those games I shouldn’t play based on the reviews I’ve read but I wanted to despite all the odds. With the game complete now, I can say it was worth playing but some of the issues soured me on the experience, especially near the end. The game is a metroidvania with a few twists. It doesn’t have maps by default. You find one in the dungeon section you are currently exploring and then use it to reveal the map permanently for that section. The games focuses a lot on dark humor, fourth breaking wall and some adult jokes too. It’s from the perspective of a grumpy dude who is out of touch with social media. Oh, and the game doesn’t hold back on punishing you. If you die, and you will often, nothing is spared. The game will happily make you go through everything again. The game is not necessarily difficult but it forces a very patient approach instead of running through the dungeons like a headless chicken. The feel of that reminds me of Souls games a bit. CH’s twists make the game unique in a good way. While I normally enjoy having maps by default, it has to be said that it was fun exploring the unknown until finding a map. The special abilities and bonus passives are well thought out, they all have their uses. The game is very good with keeping track of how many secrets you found, the enemies you encountered, what you have left etc. Likewise, it’s great that the game keeps track of all the 16 quests you can do by telling you where the quest givers are and where you’re supposed to go for the quests. The patient approach of gameplay can be very rewarding and lots of dialogues were enjoyable to read. The achievements are fair, fun and addictive. Most of them involve killing normal enemies 10 times, you will easily achieve this. The rest of the achievements are collect everything, do all the quests and find all the 35 secrets. The last one will be the most annoying if you’re not keeping track of the secrets you’ve found when you miss a couple near the end. It took me over 17 hours to 100% the game. My one major issue is the lack of any means to return to the main hub quickly. Usually, each dungeon has 4-5 big sections while there is only one fast travel point for each dungeon. This means that you have to walk A LOT to leave a dungeon once you’re done with your business or you have side quests to do. Let’s say the teleporter is in section 3 and you just finished section 5, now you have to walk all the way back to section 3 in order to leave the dungeon. This is way too excessive and tedious. A simple consumable teleporter you buy from shops could have easily solved this problem. Make it rare or expensive if you’re hellbent on keeping the challenge but having that option in some form feels like a must. Then you have the disappointment that is the last dungeon. I understand that being the last means the challenge needs to be the greatest, but I would have liked a better way of achieving this instead of relying on more cheap tricks. The way to get over that dungeon was just stocking up on lots of healing items and use them for every unexpected situation. And lastly, having a tedious quest after beating the final boss felt like a slap in the face. I get the joke and the intention behind it but remember what I told you about not being able to teleport quickly. There should have been a better way to do this inside the final dungeon instead of leaving the dungeon and going on a fetch quest. All of this combined leads to a more limited appeal. The game could have been far more enjoyable with a couple of minor tweaks. Still, what we got is worth playing if you’re the patient type and you don’t mind a bit challenge with unexpected deaths. I’ve bought CH with the last Steam sale for €2,24 and it was good that I got my curiosity out of the way.