Game: Silent Hope
Genre: Action, Role-Playing
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Marvelous Inc | Marvelous XSEED Games
Age Rating: US E10+ | EU 12+
Price: US $39.99 | UK £34.99 | EU € 39,99
Release Date: October 3rd, 2023
Review code used, with many thanks to Decibel PR.
Silent Hope is an action RPG with crafting elements. As usual with Marvelous Entertainment’s games, it’ll be published in North America by Xseed Games and in Europe by Marvelous Europe.
Previously, at LadiesGamers, when Yvonne attended Gamescom, she interviewed Silent Hope’s producer Makoto Shioda and scenario writer Honoka Moriwak of Marvelous Japan. You can find the interview here.
Save the King
In Silent Hope, you must help a Princess whose Father has done a few nasty deeds. Long ago in this land, a terrible calamity attacked the peaceful kingdom. The King, who you would think would know better, used his powerful magic to steal away people’s ability to speak.
When the King had finished stealing everyone’s voices, he threw himself into the Abyss. Unable to cope with her grief, the Princess cried endless tears, resulting in her being encased in a giant crystal teardrop.
Many years later, seven rainbow-coloured lights appeared in the kingdom after flying out of the Abyss.
The seven rainbow-coloured lights appeared before the Princess as seven heroes who were ready to answer the Princess’ call for help and find her Father.
The Princess and the heroes dive into The Abyss to search for the lost King. However, the malice in the Abyss pushes them back to the surface. The Princess decides to bless one of the seven heroes who will be the first to brave the Abyss. Since the King stole everyone’s voices, the Princess is the only character in Silent Hope who speaks and is voice acted. She relays the story to you as all the heroes are silent. More on that shortly.
Dungeon Crawler
Silent Hope is billed as an action RPG. However, it’s much more of a hack’ n-slash dungeon crawler than a fully-fledged RPG. When you enter the Abyss, you can choose only one of the seven heroes to play; each hero has their own strengths and weaknesses.
The Heroes
Firstly, we have the Wanderer, who functions as Silent Hope’s all-around character. The Wanderer was the character I first picked to run the Abyss. He wields a sword and shield and is fairly balanced for beginners and veterans.
Next is the Warrior, who uses a large sword with slow but powerful strikes. After that, there is the Rogue, who uses quick movement abilities and dagger attacks to dispatch foes. Following this is the Archer, the bow-wielder who can take on enemies from afar.
The fifth hero is the Farmer, who fights with a pitchfork and strange earth magic. Second to last is the Fighter, who uses powerful punching attacks and stylish combos. Finally, there is the Caster, who is a powerful magic-user.
Each hero’s stats can be increased with crystals you have collected in the Abyss. Additionally, once you progress further into the game, you can change the class of any hero. Each hero has two other classes you can choose from, all with three different abilities. For example, the Wanderer can change to Adventurer or Drifter class. This allows you to experiment with each of the hero’s stats, abilities and builds.
The Abyss
Once you choose your hero, you go to the Abyss to collect resources and crystals as you fight your way down the floors. The Abyss is split into floors, so up to ten or twelve floors can be in a run before you meet the boss at the end. However, you will find a campfire on a floor, allowing you to return to that floor without travelling through the floors you previously visited.
The hack’ n-slash nature of dungeon crawling makes for a good time, and there are plenty of items, resources and treasures to find. I particularly like some heroes’ abilities, such as the Wanderer’s Shield Tackle move.
Plenty of Challenges
You’ll also find Memory Rifts in some of the Abyss. A Memory Rift is a portal to greater rewards and challenges to help you on your mission. Usually, these areas are packed full of monsters to fight and present a challenge.
Additionally, there are Blackstone Statue Trials on certain floors of the Abyss. Floors with a Blackstone Statue set you a particular challenge for that floor, such as using an ability for a set amount of time, and completing the trial successfully gains you a reward.
Swapping Heroes
If you want to swap hero characters, you must use the Princess Crystal teardrop located somewhere on the floors in the Abyss. Each Crystal teardrop is a one-time use; once you use it, it disappears from that floor. You can also change heroes while in the base camp on the surface.
The heroes you are not using in the Abyss do not level up their experience simultaneously with your character. Initially, I liked the swapping characters system but was disappointed that I couldn’t change characters on the fly with a button click anywhere in the Abyss. However, an advantage of this system is if one hero is on the brink of collapse, you can continue your expedition by swapping to another hero at full HP.
Furthermore, as I continued playing Silent Hope and got further into the Abyss, and I soon realised that the heroes I wasn’t using remained on low experience levels. This means if I was on the seventh floor of the Abyss, using the Wanderer at level 12 experience and swapped characters, the lower-level character wasn’t at a high enough exp level to clear that floor of the Abyss.
Moreover, to get all seven heroes to the same experience levels and keep them there, you have to swap them constantly, and while that’s fun for a while, it gets tedious and involves a LOT of grinding. Especially since I could only swap characters in one of two places: at the base camp or the Princess Crystal tear in the Abyss. Ultimately, I stuck to using the Wanderer and didn’t use the other heroes much.
Base Camp
In the area above the Abyss is the base camp; you return here after each successful run of the Abyss. Or if you happen to KO’ed in the Abyss, you lose half of the resources you have gathered and return to the base camp. You can also leave the Abyss using the Princess Tear Crystal without the penalty of losing half of what you have gathered.
In the base camp, the remaining heroes get to work crafting resources, equipment and weapons with the spoils you returned from the Abyss with. There are fields, a farm, a forge, a workshop, a kitchen, and the atelier. All these areas combine to give you a better chance of surviving your trip below.
Additionally, the crafting, farming and all the services at the base camp are purely menu-based. You pick items like food from the menu of ingredients, and the cook makes them for you. Or you click on what crops you want to plant in the field and don’t participate in these activities.
Visuals and Controls
Visually, Silent Hope is vibrant and colourful, especially in the Abyss, and the environment changes as you progress down the Abyss.
You may have recognised the adorable chubby cow in the Silent Hope images or trailer, a mascot of the Story of Seasons series. That’s because Silent Hope is an offshoot of Rune Factory, which in turn is a spin-off of Story of Seasons. They’re nice and familiar for players like myself who have played the mentioned games. You will also recognise the monsters if you have played any of those games.
As I mentioned at the start of this review, the Princess is the only NPC to have a voice or be voice-acted in Silent Hope. Her voice acting is pretty good. However, she does repeat a lot of lines over and over again, especially when you are at base camp. Boy, oh Boy, she goes on and on and is never really quiet. In the end, I turned the voice setting down as I couldn’t listen to her repeat so many lines. So kudos to you if you can listen to her while you play the game.
In the Abyss, at glowing spots on the ground, the Princess relays more of the storyline to you; it’s a great way to break up the fighting in the Abyss.
Conclusion
Silent Hope is a fun dungeon crawler. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the fights in the Abyss and trying out the different heroes. I would have liked the crafting to be more hands-on for the player than just menu-based crafting. I don’t think Silent Hope is a game for all players; you will have to enjoy fighting baddies, as that is basically what it’s all about. The fighting in the Abyss is fast and engrossing, especially trying out the heroes’ abilities, which I enjoyed.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 