Check out the Silent Hope Review Trailer:
Silent Hope, developed by Marvelous and published by XSEED Games and Marvelous, is a dungeon crawler RPG full of hack-and-slash action with lots of opportunities to collect traysure.
Story
The story begins when the king of a land set in the Rune Factory universe steals his people’s voices because he doesn’t like what they are saying. He then jumps into a mysterious chasmy abyss for mysterious reasons to save his kingdom from even more mysterious reasons. His daughter copes with this by crying until she becomes encased in her own crystalized tears.
One day, seven rainbow lights fly out of the abyss. Twist, these lights are actually seven heroes, who may have been called by the princess, may have been sent by the king, it’s unclear. But the heroes have one thing in common: they can hear the princess’ voice in their heads. This is a full-on blurse because, while it means they can help restore the kingdom, it also means they have to listen to the princess say every thought she thinks.
I actually completely understand why the seven heroes are so willing to literally dive face-first into the abyss because it’s the only time the princess can’t talk.
And thus begins the grind.
Gameplay
If you’ve ever been disappointed by the Rune Factory fight mechanics, then Silent Hope is for you. The gameplay revolves around two core principles: rise and grind, baby.
Functionally, the game is split between two main areas, the abyss, and the basecamp; players will spend their time grinding levels in the dungeons and grinding turnips at the farm.
Players can only select one of the seven characters, each with a distinct class, to enter the abyss at a time. Each character has a unique combat style, ranging from ranged weapons to heavy weapons to punch ‘em’ up fists, to pitchforks. At first, I was nervous about how much time and effort it would take to level each character, but honestly, I think the game helps players achieve this quite nicely. While only one character can enter the abyss at a time, players can switch out characters whenever they find one of the Princess’ teardrops. This means that players can completely deplete one character’s health and potions, then switch to a new one and keep going in the dungeon. This also means that each character gets played roughly the same-ish amount of time and, therefore, levels up with the rest of the pack.
It is entirely possible to play this game with only a single character; you can put all of your efforts into maxing out one character’s stats and just tearing through the dungeons, but I found it fun to switch between all of them. I liked how each one, from the caster to the fighter, forced me to adjust my play style, and I genuinely enjoyed each character’s special attacks. I also found that switching between fight styles helped hold off the tedium that can set in with this game.
The non-stop hack-and-slash mechanics walk a fine balance between relaxing and boring. As gamers descend deeper into the chasm, they will find new challenges, secret rooms, and hoards of monsters, all of which come down to the same idea: kill all the things! And keep killing until you perish, reach a checkpoint, or use a teleport crystal to return to base camp. And then, once you’re back at basecamp…grind that farm!
The Silent Hope base camp is where players can refine materials for crafting, craft weapons
and armor, and craft food to enhance your characters’ abilities.
Unlike Rune Factory games, farming, and relationships take a back seat to fighting. The basecamp works on a set-it-and-forget mechanic. Players will assign non-active party members to do tasks using the materials found in the abyss, such as converting wood to lumber, stone to material stone, and seeds into food.
Basecamp is my only actual complaint about the game (yes, I know I was bad-mouthing the princess earlier, but she’s really not that bad). While it is super easy to craft and upgrade equipment, it is unnecessarily clunky to actually compare current equipment stats with the stuff brought back from the abyss. There is no easy compare feature, and players will have to repeatedly exit out of the Change Equipment screen to the Check Storehouse screen. In all honesty, this is a very minor thing and much more of an annoyance than an actual problem with the gameplay, but it is weird to me that the devs didn’t invest in this sort of user interface.
Overall
8/10
If you enjoy a relaxed and casual dungeon-crawling experience with a focus on looting and grinding characters, then Silent Hope is for you.
Going in with realistic expectations will set you up for success; this is not a farming sim, this is not a dating sim, this is a dungeon crawler, which was exactly what I happened to be in the mood for when I started playing it on my Steam Deck during a five-hour flight.
This is a great game to zone out with. So boot up, put on a podcast, watch the new season of The Great British Baking Show, and enjoy a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Silent Hope is available for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch.
Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones
I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.
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