Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age, released on Nintendo Switch in 2023, is the second in a series of such games, preceded by Loot Box Simulator – RPG Anime Girls in 2022 and Loot Box Simulator – Crimson Fire later in 2023. All three games are functionally identical, with the only differences between them being the different aesthetics of each game. As such, I will be copy-pasting the majority of my review for all three games, since that’s basically what this game creator did.

Loot Box Simulator is a game in only the loosest definition of the word “game”. Players are repeatedly provided with four choices, and there is a consistent score that goes up or down based on those choices. These choices can be anything from “find $14” to “Enter the dungeon” to “Just be happy”, and all three Loot Box Simulator games offer the same three choices.

I suppose at least nominally, players are trying to select the choice that is the “best”, though I’m not sure what criteria is being used to judge this – choices like “buy a healing potion” seem like they would be good, but invariably ended up causing me to lose points (I guess because I lost money?), while choosing to do other mundane things caused me to gain points. The amount of points you are awarded, or penalized, for each answer are inconsistent, with many of these options coming up repeatedly (sometimes with multiple duplicates in the same set of four) but giving different points at different times. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason here.

Upon accruing 100 or more points, players can choose to open the titular “Loot Box” which awards them with a few pieces of randomly-distributed artwork. This artwork doesn’t actually do anything, doesn’t help you with the game, and isn’t used to build up to some greater goal. No, this game is just unlocking artwork for you to look at in a gallery, that’s it.

As I mentioned, each of the Loot Box Simulator games has different aesthetics. Heroes of the Dark Age features a 3D background that looks like a poorly-lit temple (the same one that was in Crimson Fire), features detailed medieval fantasy-style artwork, and is backed by music that sounds like decent but somewhat generic instrumental fantasy-style music.

I should note that in addition to the pointlessness of the gameplay, there are additional problems here as well. The highlighted menu selection only looks slightly different from the other selections, making it harder to see which option you’re picking. The game lacks touchscreen support despite large buttons that seem like they’d be ideal for this. There’s no way to zoom into the artwork to see it in more detail. Upon selecting one of the four options, there is an absurdly long animation as they leave the screen to be replaced with different options, but players can still select the new option before they even see it – in fact, if you’re exasperated at the slow pace, you can simply button-mash and accept whatever the game randomly gives you, and I can’t say this isn’t the best way to go because of the random way the game assigns points. Oh, and there’s no penalty for hitting zero or even going into negative numbers in this game – you just have to earn more points to get back into the positive, that’s all.

There is so much about Loot Box Simulator that is broken or inexplicable, from the poor menu interface to the lack of any sort of logic to the core “gameplay”. This game has so little to offer players, save for the artwork… and if you’re interested in this game for the artwork, just go online and look up a website like DeviantArt, I assure you that you’ll find plenty to look at that won’t force you through a tedious game with nonsensical gameplay, and you’ll be able to see that artwork in much greater detail.

There is just no reason to get Loot Box Simulator. Absolutely none at all.

tl;dr – Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age is a “game” where players repeatedly select one of four options in hopes of it being the “best” option so they can score points. There’s no rhyme or reason to this gameplay, and the goal here is to unlock artwork that you cannot zoom into to view in detail, nor does it actually do anything in the game. In other words, this game’s only worthwhile utility can be much, much, much better served by simply getting online and going to a website like DeviantArt. Do not waste any money on this pointless “game”.

Grade: F

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Game, Laziest Copycat, The “Who asked for this!?” Award

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