Relic Hunters Legend Preview
While their genres are entirely different, Relic Hunters Legend reminds me of Super Animal Royal. Of course, the latter is a battle royale game and not a fast-paced looter-shooter, but the vibe is the same. They’re both colorful, addictively fun, fast paced, geared towards co-op and leavened with a lot of engaging humor.
Save the Galaxy, One Duck at a Time
Relic Hunter Legends is now out in Early Access and developed by Rogue Snail and publisher Gearbox, which might explain the Borderlands meets Diablo feel Relic Hunters Legends is a top down, isometric looter shooter. The first thing you’ll notice is the art style. The blocky cartoon design is distinctive. It isn’t detailed and environments aren’t richly textured, but things are moving too fast to notice. The speed and sheer chaos of the battles, weapon effects and explosions and the stylized nature of the art occasionally makes it hard to follow. By and large, though, the design sells the story and action.
Speaking of story, there’s more than you’d expect in a game like Relic Hunters Legends. You play as one of several relic hunters — Pinkyy, Jimmy, Ace, Raff, Biu, and Jimmy’s little sister, Panzer — and your larger mission is to defeat the big bad Duke Ducan, an evil duck who has bent the laws of time and space to rewrite the past and conquer the galaxy. As you fight the duck armies you begin to restore the galaxy to its pre-Duke state. The developers have created a free comic book series that rather delightfully expounds on the game’s backstory and characters.
Thanks to the narrative sci-fi premise being as expansive as the galaxy, missions take place on a variety of planetary environments and when it comes to weapons, anything goes. That kitchen-sink approach extends to game’s goofy, Cartoon Network-esque presentation. It’s filled with humor that’s both clever and silly and will probably appeal to a wide range of ages. The music and pitch-perfect voice acting make Relic Hunters Legend feel like a playable and comfy Saturday morning cartoon.
Endless Loots
Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Relic Hunters Legend is the sheer amount of stuff to find and experiment with. Each of the hunters have very different playstyles, weapons and abilities. For example, Ace is a melee specialist, wielding blunt weapons. Jimmy uses pistols and one of my favorite hunters, Raff, uses a combination 80’s style keytar to blast the enemies with powerful audio riffs. Each of the hunters has an extensive, RPG-style upgrade and ability tree to explore. The way the squad of characters work together is incredibly fun.
Not everyone can, or wants to, play with others all the time, so there is an extensive single player campaign in addition to a large and growing number of multiplayer maps. Although the tutorial starts things off pretty slowly, in no time at all the screen is filled with things to fight, breakables to break and a seemingly infinite amount of treasure to find. Once Relic Hunters Legend gets going, the pace is fast and furious. There are few games with so much to do, new weapons or magic-like spells to try. Thanks to a combination of hand-drawn and procedurally generated maps, the environments remain surprising.
Fun is Good
Not every game needs to be heady, angst-filled, gritty experience. Relic Hunters Legend can be challenging for sure, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The tone is fun, there’s a lot to do and it’s hard to imagine anyone getting bored playing either solo or with friends. There’s plenty of content already and much more to come.
Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.
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