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How do you make dungeon-crawling even better? How about making it adorable?

1K View2023-10-10

Silent Hope

Lore-RichDungeon CrawlerAction RPGActionLootCraftingJRPGRPG

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SHOULD I PLAY SILENT HOPE?

Definitely give this one a chance if you’re looking for a surprisingly relaxing, grindy dungeon-crawler, but maybe skip it if you mainly go to RPGs for the story. Silent Hope goes back to the absolute basics of the Japanese RPG formula, with a crew of seven mute heroes, each representing a different class, journeying into a multi-level abyss to save a fallen kingdom. By sticking to the fundamentals, the game is able to focus on making the characters and world charming as hell and the core gameplay streamlined and solid.

TIME PLAYED

I’m just over the four-hour mark in Silent Hill. In that time, I’ve managed to clear the game’s “first dungeon”—technically it’s all one dungeon, but the themes change as you progress—which consisted of ten floors. I’ve spent plenty of time with each of the game’s seven heroes and have leveled all of them up to around level 6. I’m still trying to unlock the advanced classes, though.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT SILENT HOPE?

• It’s straight-up just cute. The character and enemy design in Silent Hope is on another level when it comes to being adorable and wholesome. Each of the seven heroes is easy to distinguish, and they all look fantastic. Even the weapon design stands out; my favorite weapon so far has been the sword-and-shield combo you can see in the video at the top of this article, where the sword is a carrot and the shield is a big rabbit face. How can you not love that?!

• Simplified action-RPG combat. Dark Souls this ain’t. Silent Hope focuses on hack-n-slash combat where your character will keep swinging, shooting arrows, or tossing off spells just by holding down a single button. Each character has three unique abilities that can be learned as they level up, but all of these abilities are on simple cooldown timers; no worrying about mana management here. While some hardcore gamers might balk at how friendly it feels to take on monsters in this game, I appreciated that almost every action I took was easy to understand and pull off at will.

• Unique play styles. While the combat isn’t complicated, it has a little bit of depth due to the size of Silent Hope’s cast. Each of the seven characters has its own class; the wanderer is a basic sword-and-board hero, the archer takes on enemies from a distance, the farmer charges into battle with a pitchfork, and so on. I enjoyed playing as each of these heroes and was surprised how different (and good!) the game felt regardless of who I was exploring with. And I haven’t even reached the advanced classes yet, the first of which unlocks upon hitting level 15. I can’t wait to check those out!

• Hero swapping. While I initially chose a single character to plunge into the abyss, I wasn’t stuck with that hero forever. Whenever I encountered a crystal in Silent Hope’s dungeon, I was able to switch to another character/class, and I even earned stat bonuses for switching multiple times without returning to the surface. I enjoyed checking out everything the game had to offer, so it’s especially nice that I was encouraged and even rewarded for doing so.

• Light cozy sim gameplay. Silent Hope was developed by Marvelous Inc., the same studio behind life sims like this year’s excellent Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, so I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that this one contains some cozy gameplay as well. When I was in the dungeon, I had to harvest various materials like stone and wood. Upon returning to the small town on the surface, I could spend time processing those materials, crafting up new weapons and accessories, and even petting a cute little cow. It makes for an engaging loop that’s sure to get more interesting as I discover new material types to harvest deeper in the dungeon.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT SILENT HOPE?

• Ranged combat can be a little annoying. Only two of Silent Hope’s classes—the archer and the caster—stick to ranged combat, but it’s worth noting that these ended up being my least favorite to play. That’s mostly due to the game’s lack of reliable targeting. Sometimes I was able to ping an enemy from afar without issues, but other times I had to keep readjusting my character to try to actually aim properly. It’s not unplayably bad, but it’s noticeably less tightly designed and satisfying than the melee combat.

• They weren’t kidding about the “Silent” part. If you’re a fan of JRPG storytelling, look elsewhere. Silent Hope’s plot is all about a kingdom plunged into darkness by a greedy king and a princess trapped inside a crystal trying to make things right. But aside from an (admittedly pretty) opening cinematic, I have encountered basically zero story in this game. It doesn’t help that the princess is the only character who can actually speak; she pipes up from time to time to offer some backstory on what the kingdom was like before it all fell apart, but it’s not going to be enough to satisfy players who are looking for an engaging narrative.

• Strange time-gating for crafting. For some reason, Silent Hope forces you to either wait a set amount of time while lumber and stone are processed into usable crafting materials, or to pay a set fee using runes to process them instantly. Of course, I was able to just return to the dungeon and keep making progress while I waited, but I was confused why this system was in the game at all. It seems like the kind of thing you'd run into in a free-to-play game that's trying to slow down how quickly players progress, but this isn't free-to-play and there's not any monetization or scummy microtransactions tied to it. Very weird!

💬 Are you ready to try to save the world with seven noble heroes, or is Silent Hope too simplified for your tastes? Let me know what you think in the comments!