Backpack Hero

Genre: Roguelike / Turn-Based RPG / Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Backpack Hero, released in 2023 on PC and Nintendo Switch, is a game that combines Roguelike, Turn-Based RPG, and Management Simulation elements, with a strong emphasis on arranging and organizing your items and equipment in a limited space. In this game, players take the role of Purse, a young packrat who hopes to help rebuild her town by raiding the local dungeon for supplies.

Those who played classic RPGs like Diablo II may recall that one of the frequently-derided elements of these games was the extensive amount of time players would need to spend in the game rearranging the contents of their inventory like moving around Tetris blocks to try to fit as much as possible in, while also having to do a sort of triage when deciding what you kept and what needed to be left behind because it was taking up too much space. Backpack Hero takes this gameplay element and makes it central to the gameplay, with players managing a backpack of limited size, rearranging its items to try to get the most effective arrangement.

However, here it’s not only a matter of making room, but also various items will give bonuses or penalties based on what items are adjacent to them. What’s more, some enemy status effects will place junk blocks over your inventory, rendering them unusable. And unlike Diablo II, where much of your inventory was dedicated to stuff you intended to lug back home to sell, here every item in your backpack can potentially play a role in battle.

Combine this with the Roguelike elements of the game, and you have a recipe for some wildly different runs, especially as the game progresses and you can’t always rely on brute force and high defense to bring you to victory. Maybe in one run you’ll be focusing on using damage multipliers to deliver devastating attacks, while in another you’ll be counting on using items that can counter enemy status effects and rebounding them back to your opponents. This isn’t even touching on some creative inventory items, such as ones that grant a bonus, but only if given room to move around in your inventory.

Combat in dungeons is a mostly-straightforward turn-based affair, with enemy attacks broadcasted to you the turn prior much like in games like Slay the Spire. This combat gets increasingly difficult as you progress further into the dungeons, but never gets especially-complicated. Your own character’s level-ups in the dungeon are more interesting, as it’s not merely a traditional stat boost, but instead it lets players choose where to expand out their inventory with additional slots, which can be far more useful than a simple stat boost would ever be in this game.

Upon the completion of a run, players can sell off their loot to their hometown to increase the town resources, and here’s where the Management Simulation elements of the game kick in, because players will be literally building up their town, giving themselves additional bonuses when they head back into the dungeon. True to this game’s theme, how you build your town will come down to your choice of placement, with the effectiveness of buildings depending on what structures are nearby. This element is sadly nowhere near as elegantly-implemented as it is in Islanders, but it is nevertheless a clever addition to the game that gives players some long-term progress to be aiming to work on through each run through the dungeon.

The presentation here is decent, making use of simple 2D pixel art for characters and backgrounds, with synthesized music backing things up with some surprisingly catchy tunes (that were kinda’ a slow burn for me – I didn’t appreciate them at first, but now I think this game’s soundtrack is great), like Haversack Hill (Incomplete), Haversack Hill (Complete), Crypt Battle, Bramble, Bramble Battle, Deep Caves Battle, Enchanted Swamp Battle, Magma Core, and Frozen Heart Battle. Overall, I think this presentation won’t impress most at first, but it’s endearing enough that it’ll likely grow on you over time.

When it comes to complaints, I have a few. I wish the game were clearer about what different status effects do. I wish this game had stronger “Roguelite” elements to give an even stronger sense of making progress in each run. As a Roguelike, I think this game is a tad too slow to open up. And I think that sometimes the game’s menus can be a tad clunky.

However, while I do have some complaints here, overall I think Backpack hero is a delightfully creative and highly-compelling game that does a wonderful job taking a much-bemoaned gameplay element of older RPGs and turning it into something fun and engaging in its own right. Fans of RPGs and Roguelikes in particular will definitely want to give this game a look.

tl;dr – Backpack Hero is a game that combines Roguelike, Turn-Based RPG, and Management Simulation elements, with a strong emphasis on organizing equipment in your backpack for the most effective results in battle. The way this game takes a classic RPG mechanic and expands on it to make it such a major element of the gameplay here is absolutely inspired. There are a few areas where this game could do with a bit more work, but overall this game is an absolute delight, and one that is definitely worth a look for fans of RPGs and Roguelikes.

Grade: A-

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

Winner:

Best Roguelike – Backpack Hero gets really good mileage out of the fact that it’s a Roguelike, because each run through the dungeon is a chance to try a completely different configuration of equipment, something the game encourages through its quest requirements. And playing these diverse backpack builds lends some really fun variety to the game, and pushes players to leave their comfort zone and try new things. Plus, the loot you bring back then folds into the game’s Management Simulation elements. This is the kind of game that absolutely makes Roguelikes shine, exemplifying what makes the genre work so well.

Most Original – There were quite a few games this year that explored new ideas or recontextualized old ones, but Backpack Hero did something truly brave and took an old game mechanic that many players despise, inventory management, and made it the centerpiece if its gameplay, expanding on it and making it something truly remarkable. This willingness to rethink even the worst parts of videogames to think of ways those maligned gameplay elements could be transformed into something wonderful is truly commendable, and I feel we should be encouraging it every chance we get.

Runner-Up: Game of the Year, Best RPG, Most Overlooked (No Metacritic score for Nintendo Switch), Best Music (by BinaryCounter)

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