RPGs with multiple character paths are a rarity and action RPGs are an even harder commodity to find with that much versatility. Silent Hope offers up seven different playable characters to work with thanks to the premise being that they’re all there at the behest of a princess out to save the world, bring back the ability to use words that her father took away, and then find him deep in the Abyss – where he’s been for 100 years. The cast of characters are essentially vessels to carry out her plotline and it’s odd, but does work well in the end.
Silent Hope’s blend of action, storytelling and switching thing up with base actions keeps everything fresh across the board. The action-based dungeon-crawling can be frequently switched up in the dungeons themselves with checkpoints enabling you to switch out characters for a fresh HP reset alongside trying out a different character for a given area. If you have a section with a lot of long-distance foes, then being a short or medium-ranged wanderer or warrior will put you at a disadvantage. Using a long-range archer or mage has huge benefits in those sections because you can attack from not only afar on that same plane, but also attack foes who are so far away that they can’t reach you – but you can reach them and get cheap kills in that way.
Having so much variety in playable characters helps alongside things like environmental damage being a big help during intense battles. When playing as a ranged character like an archer or a mage, you can blast exploding barrels from afar and deal out massive damage to at least one large enemy, or hopefully, catch more enemies in the blast radius. There’s a big adrenaline rush from corralling enemies into a circle, then blowing up a barrel and taking out all of the small foes and heavily-damaging a larger one. Larger enemies can be a great test of your defensive abilities as much as your offensive and when it comes to boss battles, it’s always better to use larger regular enemies to fine-tune your timing on defense.
Every character has the ability to take out foes equally – they just have various pros and cons to them based on their attack style. For those who want to do a lot of damage quickly from up-close, you can go with a higher-risk character like a warrior or a farmer because they attack without much distance, but deal out a lot of damage with each shot. The farmer is also aided a lot by their buffs and skills because in battle, they can conjure up items to help them with a random element like HP refills or a defense buff alongside their usual skill tree upgrades within the job code. Having the ability to use a short-range attack and then stun as a wanderer helps a lot because you daze a foe and then either unleash a barrage of basic attacks or go with a single charged spin attack. Being able to chain attacks and consider things like going from one special attack to a regular one, then to another special attack factoring in cooldowns for special attacks adds a lot of strategy to something that may seem simplistic on a surface level.
The archer became my favorite overall choice thanks to their ability to do a lot of damage from afar through the sheer number of arrows you can throw as a regular attack during the cooldown time for things like a single shotgun-style arrow shot or a multi-arrow attack. Leveling those up adds to the fun because you can feel your power levels grow and doing that did make even repeating a whole run of floors from the beginning fun to just to feel the character’s power levels grow from run to run. Death can be a slap on the wrist if you’re properly equipped, but even a worse-case scenario death sends you back without some items and hopefully having found a flame to act as a restart point further down the abyss.
One low-key amazing thing with this game that few dungeon-crawlers get right is having a turbo mode kind of baked-in by default. Simply holding a button allows you to do multiple attacks in a row no matter what class you’re using, which makes it much easier to use characters like archers that require more accurate left-stick aiming to be used effectively. Just having this feature means the game features a lot less finger fatigue than others in the genre and it makes longer play sessions much more fun. One problem I’ve had with dungeon crawlers over the years is just how tiring they can be when you’re trying to play for an hour or two each time instead of just doing a single 15-20 minute run.
Visually, Silent Hope looks fantastic for what it’s trying to be. The goal of the core game is to have a lot of enemies on-screen without any slowdown and the somewhat chibi art style works at creating characters that take up enough of the screen to be easily-visible in any dungeon setting alongside having boldly-colored outfits make it easy to tell them all apart from afar. The graphics are very much like a more modern-looking GameCube style with a sharp design and not having massive amounts of detail while still making everything easy to see. It’s pleasing at all times and the framerate never drops even when playing in portable mode on Switch.
Audio-wise, Silent Hope is put into an interesting position because the entire premise of the main game relies on no one speaking – but the game does still feature voice work in the form of its anime opening cinematic, and it gets the blood pumping nicely. It sets the stage for the main game, which has subdued music throughout the overworld areas when you’re increasing stats and farming and the like, while the dungeons go for a heavier soundtrack that keeps you excited. The sound effects for various weapons are also nice and leveling up your attacks results in a bigger impact for when they land, which furthers the feeling of character growth and gaining more strength as the adventure continues.
Closing Comments:
Silent Hope is an outstanding dungeon crawler and one of the few on the market that are easy to recommend for players either burned by prior games or who are completely new to the genre. Having so many different kinds of characters to play as keeps every run fresh and encourages the player to not only keep trying with another run, but do so with a different character with every failure to see if their outcome changes. It controls wonderfully across the board with responsive button commands and accurate stick movements. It looks good enough too, with a consistent framerate and a complete lack of slowdown and should be a must-buy for anyone looking to get into dungeon crawlers or who wants to experience one that emphasizes player fun over pure loot.
Silent Hope
Silent Hope is an action RPG in which dungeon layouts change each time you run them. You’ll make expeditions into the Abyss to find loot, materials, and recipes for new gear, with the aim of helping restore a fallen kingdom.
