Backpack Hero

Despite floundering a bit with meta-progression mechanics, Backpack Hero 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’t 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.

The core concept of Backpack Hero is one with incredible potential for an awesome conbination of two classic genres, but the result feels slightly muddled and confused in the final product. Where the foundations are solid, convoluted and poor explanations of complex mechanics lead to an experience that left me scratching my head more than a few times, and not in the intended way. Despite oozing with personality from the very beginning, and offering a wide variety of content to sink your teeth into, I didn't find myself meshing with the offerings on show here. Sometimes less, is undoubtedly more.

The core mechanics with the backpack are ingenious. It's not unique, and there are now several games with similar mechanics, but it remains fantastic. Packing your backpack as skillfully as possible and creating a deadly build for your character is fascinating over and over again. Unfortunately, most of the other aspects of "Backpack Hero" are mediocre at best. The story is boring and becomes almost unbearable due to a miserable font. The construction of Haversack Hill is confusing and unnecessarily complicated. The fights sometimes lack balance, which is why you are quickly too strong or too weak. In addition, the menu control with controller and virtual mouse cursor is neither pleasant nor intuitive. Nevertheless, the core mechanics manage to entice you again and again with another run and have fun with it.

Backpack Hero is a game full of strategic planning and suspense. Whether you choose Story Mode or a quick game, you’ll find plenty of challenges and tactical fun. Although it has its flaws, it offers a unique experience thanks to its innovative use of the backpack as a central gameplay element. Plus, the developers promise to add more content in the future.

Despite the interesting spin, I don’t think Backpack Hero breaks any new ground, but boy is it fun! Despite the aggravating problems, in the grand scheme of things, they are minor issues in an otherwise very addicting roguelike, and I can’t help but give it a thumbs up. It is a shame that it falls into the same trap of poor performance that so many games on the Switch fall into, though. There are many more graphically-intensive games out there that run buttery smooth on the Switch, yet it seems every other day a promising game trips over execution. I’m hoping that the next release from the devs of Backpack Hero will take that into account.

Backpack Hero is a novel game that can be enjoyable at first but its awkward controls and repetitive dungeons get stale rather quickly.

Backpack Hero offers some neat adventures worth experiencing, but you'll have to grapple with a persistently irritating interface and other rough edges to find them all.

Backpack Hero immerses players in a nostalgic experience, with its pixelated aesthetic and soundtrack that evokes the days of classic consoles. The simple gameplay hides an intriguing complexity in the inventory organization mechanics, making each choice crucial to success in the dungeons. However, some details, such as the frequent need to consult the glossary and the lack of a more robust progress tracking system, can make the experience a little stiff, but without compromising our enjoyment of the game.

Backpack Hero is a rogue-lite, dungeon crawler, inventory management game that is so much deeper than it appears on its surface.

Backpack Hero makes Deck Building easy by replacing a deck of cards with a backpack, and has some seriously unique ideas.