Product provided by creator. (Also my 1st major review)
The Horde of Viscount is a game that at first could be ignored, But this game has bite for it's byte. Let dive into why.
-Story-
It is a fairly simple story, you are Whipp, a horde hunter who gets found by a ghost named Lashe, Together they go through this world helping villagers and stopping the horde. It is a straight forward story that leads into the action.
While in the world of Horde of Viscount, the story and dialog is given to you by cutscenes and text. As you get to the end, You meet a colorful cast of Villagers. They do not provide dull interactions nor are they just "villager". These are npc's with names and personalities and conversations from funny to surprisingly more serious as the games overall dialog feels more light despite being in a world of monsters. Regardless, I would say these interactions with the villagers feel very falcom coded in that regard. It's not unlike Y's or trails and I feel like this was an attempt at that level of world building.
-gameplay-
Gameplay comes into three sections, Combat, Farming, and Customization.
Combat is straight forward, Whipp is a belmont, He has weight, his attack is slow and lacks range compared to his inspirations, and even has a small learning curve. But in time, one will get used to his control.
The subweapons are what gives the game more action. They have a primary focus on combat, but also have a secondary use for exploration that is more in line with mana or zelda games. If there is a jump out of reach, use a wing, a stone blocking the path, use an axe. It is a small addition, but this gives the game depth in it's combat and exploration.
The second part, farming, Helps the player grow, by collecting various items, one can give them to villagers or use them to level up your own status. By giving them to villagers, you increase their rank, filling out their rank will benefit you with rewards and a upgrade to their location like more healing items, more weapon refills, and a discount on restoring health, complete the ranks, and a quest will show up and finishing that quest will give you a unique conversation, a rare item, and the best version of each location. Helping the villagers, while optional, provides a rewards system that is genuinely beneficial to the player.
The third system is customization.
As mentioned, the player grows in level not by experience points, but by giving farmed materials to level up. This increases your base stats, there are 3 of them, but the most important, is EP. ep is what allows whipp to equip rings to get stronger. By equiping rings, he can get more health, hold more sub weapons, double jump, critical on attack, pierce an enemy and more, there is even a reference to Christopher Belmont and his bullet soul from his gameboy games. How one acquires rings is by playing levels. However, this is where that rewards system shines. There are three difficulties, each difficulty and it's requirements when completed, gives you these rings. It gives major incentive to keep replaying levels and getting rewards and if the higher difficulty is too much, you can lower it and try later. This alone, had a lot of thought put into it and it shows, The player will have fun experimenting with what they can do with the EP and ring system.
Overall, the gameplay is simple, but the three aspect put together, it creates a depth that one will find fun in.
-Music-
The music in this game is plentiful. Each stage for the most part, has it's own theme and feeling. There are more quiet themes, more adventurous ones, creepy ones. It is never a dull moment in this world and it does the job of carrying the games atmosphere to it's end. This is a soundtrack that leans into more link's awakening and belmont's revenge rather than say (gb) ducktales, so it's good.
-Critique-
They issues I had with Horde of Viscount are far few But I wanted to talk about them.
There is the occasional cheap hit that happened, especially on harder difficulties, and while you can look down and have it scroll, it would have been better to have as much action on a single screen as possible.
The next are boss fights, If one balances their level ups and equipment, most bosses can be defeated, however there were a couple bosses that I had no choice but to take damage which felt cheap, and later bosses towards the end felt dragged on, just two, but the 1st form final boss is perhaps the only big complaint that I have. It was not fun at all fighting his first phase, as there was little to no breathing room for attacking and no matter how hard I tried, he just could rush me or do a move that I had a hard time reading.
But besides those small complaints, the question can be answered, does Horde of Viscount have bite? The answer is a clear yes, and after 20 hours of play, I can recommend it no problem, there is even more hidden things that the player should find out by playing, and for it's price, it is hard to pass it up!
