Little Town Hero – Impressions

Game Freak, known primarily (rightfully so) as developers of the beloved Pokemon series, steps out and creates a new RPG game unlike anything else. Using card based mechanics unlike what we’ve ever seen before with a splash of board game mixed in created an RPG that doesn’t require constant grinding of low level monsters to beat. Truly something unique in the world of wash, rinse, repeat of game development but is unique always good?

The game is set in an isolated village on the edge of the world. The only gate leading outside is heavily guarded by a castle, and the villagers are not allowed to leave. Most of the villagers don’t give it a thought, and happily go on with their everyday lives. However, you are a  little different from the others – he wants to see the world outside. One day, a “Monster” appears in the village, shocking everyone because until then, no one knew such creatures existed. You are able to fight it using a mysterious Red stone he found in the coalmines. In the course of his defense of the village, he gradually unravels secrets of how the stones and the monsters came to be.

The graphics are bright and charming as is the environment. The music, written by the same composer (Toby Fox) for Undertale did a good job but ultimately doesn’t come close to the magic of the music in Undertale. There was minimal performance issues in my play through, some frame drops and mildly annoying load times. The writing really needed some work, as we know in a traditional RPG it’s the characters and story that keep us engaged. Unfortunately I found in Little Town Hero I got neither, the characters were largely lacking any sort of “soul” and most were easily forgettable.

Where Little Town Hero does differ is it’s combat. When starting an encounter you are brought to an over world map board (think the boards in Mario Party), you roll dice to move around the map to a position before attacking, if you land near another character they will reward you with perks to help you achieve your goals. The combat is done in a very strange way that is basically at it’s core a card game with a limit to how many cards you can play each round. Your character will be able to form ideas and then spend “Power” in order to convert them into offensive, defensive or stat-buffing maneuvers. Some of these moves are one-shots, while others can be used several times in battle. The ultimate goal is to beat out all of your opponent’s Dazzits to win the round. Yes, it’s as complicated as it sounds. You eventually understand the more you play as you develop strategies and tactics that work best for you in each situation. My issue with the game was combat just took SO LONG, even in the opening of the game teaching you play the combat took more than 10 minutes to beat the first Monster.

The pacing of the game is really off which is a shame that for a game that’s marketed as compact with the busy gamer in mind, it sure didn’t respect my time very much, even the dialogue and cut scenes were unnecessarily long. Even as a fan of RPGs and certainly a fan of a game that is different than others, I have a hard time recommending this one to other gamers unless you are REALLY intrigued.