Loot boxes should be outlawed. Otherwise, we do not have a chance.
To be absolutely clear two sentences in, today’s game is Lovish, and it does not contain loot boxes. Lovish is great! And only partially because it never involves a single microtransaction. What we have here is a tale as old as time: four mighty Saviors of Light venture forth to rescue the princess from the Demon Lord. But our brave knight, Sir Solomon, has concerns about the beautiful Princess Tsuna falling for one of the other party members. Oh no! So Sir Solomon dumps his monk, white mage, and black mage in the moat, and ventures forth alone. Thus, this RPG becomes an action platformer, and Sir Solomon must jump, slash, and dash through a series of one-screen stages on his way to the top of the Demon Lord’s castle. Will he make it before he runs out of 200 or so hearts? Or will his hopes lie dashed against this castle’s 10,000th spike pit? It is up to you!
Lovish is a splendid action platforming experience. It is not quite masocore platforming (there is never a situation where an invisible block will terminate a good run, nor are you ever worried about a chamber that is 95% buzzsaws by volume), but it is still a game where your 1 HP hero is fragile and must cautiously navigate rooms full of slimes and fireballs. You have a life counter in the hundreds, and, while I never dipped into the double digits on my own hearts, a “tip” did confirm that the game would not end if you ever hit zero. I have to assume it just puts a frown on Sir Solomon’s face. Oh! And there are challenges! After obtaining a few particular items, every stage has a bonus for clearing a certain time threshold, and another bonus for not damaging a single enemy. Couple this with one “secret crown” per stage that is hidden somewhere, and you have plenty of reasons to revisit older stages with earned experience. And you can upgrade, too! Find pennies lurking about, and you can earn the ability to air dash, take one (precious) extra hit, or even summon a single moth! That last one is… situational. Look, point is that you can gain new skills and abilities that will completely recontextualize earlier areas (not since Mega Man X has a dash upgrade made such a difference), so “replay factor” gets a 10 out of 10 this time.
Your decision to replay earlier stages may also be impacted by orbs.
As you may have already guessed from “hero drowns his party so he can impress a pretty lady”, Lovish is a comedic game. And, while some games would be content to have a funny premise and goofy sprites, Lovish goes the extra mile by including “events” with every stage. Once you have completed a level, whether it is the first time or the fiftieth, you will see a randomly chosen “scene”. In some cases, it is something simple, like your hero stepped in poop.
Or the natural opposite of that situation: thinkin’ ‘bout tacos.
Maybe your knight triggers a trap, and you lose a heart to a dagger to the head (don’t worry, he has a helmet).
Perhaps you must participate in an RPG-esque battle against a hated foe.
Sometimes, there is an action component, like dodging monkeys, or attacking a heavily armored foe in something akin to a WarioWare minigame.
And even beyond that, sometimes a random event will unlock a completely different game. Finding a faux Gameboy (Lovecon) led to an entire dungeon in the vein of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (but with a better control scheme)…
… Or an invasion of ghouls and a demand to “survive” generated a Vampire Survivors-esque challenge. Oh! And one time, Dragon Half from the 1993 original video animation Dragon Half showed up for no reason.
Good to see Mink is still getting work after 33 years
According to the description on the Nintendo eShop, there are “Wacky randomized event scenes between levels with hundreds of outcomes!” And that is probably accurate! You will definitely see some events repeat (my poor hero has stepped in poop so many times), but there are enough events that you will likely see something new even after you have replayed some stages repeatedly.
I only saw this one once
On your first go through this haunted castle? You likely will not see a repeated outcome for at least an hour. And, while ridiculous cameos are always appreciated, the idea that a randomly chosen scene could grant you an entirely new game to play, or a cache of coins that could help you earn that next upgrade is exhilarating. Sure, my knight is fighting to rescue the princess, but I am advancing because I want to see what crazy thing is going to pop up next.
It was that realization that made me realize I am hopelessly addicted to randomness.
I said it once already: Lovish is a great game on simply its gameplay merits. It is a carefully attuned puzzle-action platformer (we really need simple genre words. Meatboylike?), and the natural player progression from “whew I just barely made it” to “now I can beat it in ten seconds without touching an enemy” is flawlessly calibrated. And it all looks good, too! These are some delightful pixels, and this is an ideal art style for emulating an era of gaming that never existed. This is faux 8-bit, but 8-bit not once looked so good. This is what animated commercials for NES-themed cereals looked like, or when an anime had an episode mocking Dragon Quest (the only game franchise available in Japan from 1986 to 1990). The music ain’t bad, either! Lovish plays good, looks good, and sounds good. It is everything I look for in a videogame.
But I can think of other games on my Nintendo Switch 2 that fit that criteria, and that number has climbed up into the hundreds. In fact, I have self-diagnosed myself with whatever kind of ADD that means I will randomly flip through my Nintendo Switch library (which now contains nearly a decade’s worth of games) and rapidly cycle through games until I find something that actually holds my interest. I have flipped past many games just as good as Lovish, and never returned to those adventures. I know this! I feel bad about this! AAA, retro, or something in between, Lovish is one of hundreds of games on my Nintendo Switch 2 that could be described as “it’s a good game, you’ll have a good time.”
But what held my interest in Lovish? Why did I play it through to the finale, even when my backlog is pulsing there in the periphery of my library? Because of the randomness! Because of the silly little scenes! It was cute on the first couple of pulls, but once I got the S-Rank reward of an entire damned Lovecon game? I was done. Now I knew I would be playing this to 100%, and I was cooked. The hooks were well and truly in me, because if a random level could end with a whole new game, then what would be next? I had to know! I had to see what I could possibly win from completing a task I was going to enjoy anyway. This was a slot machine, except pulling that one arm required platforming action. I love that! I was playing a game of skill to win prizes! And sometimes those prizes would be terrible…
But that just meant I had to beat the next level to get a better prize. There are over a hundred events! And I have an item that keeps track of all of them! I have to check all those boxes! I have to keep playing Lovish! I need to see it all!
And, Christ, once I was in the full thrall of Lovish, if they started charging me to see these random outcomes? I would have forked over my life savings.
I am someone that has been warned of addiction my entire life. Due to an extended family that includes more than a few “cautionary tales” (“Your Uncle Mitch started drinking in high school, and now he’s an undead republican!”), I have long been cautioned that I have the potential for an “addictive personality”. Thus, I have lived my life in a conspicuous “that’s how they get you” state of watchfulness (paranoia), always prepared to turn down that drink or cigarette, lest I become a hopeless addict. “I am a good boy,” I shout as I maintain my 401k and avoid spending a dime on abhorrent sins of the flesh. And then I finish my work for the day, prepare some nutritious meals, lay out my clothes for the morning, and play a random Switch game until 2 AM because it has loose randomization mechanics that exploit the soft tissue of my brain.
Even when random rewards do not cost a dime, they still trigger the same inevitable behavior. It is one thing in an amusing puzzle platformer, but it is more than a little insidious that these same mechanics have become ingrained in games for children. I love you, Pokémon Go, but there is a reason “random” Pokémon eggs have been outlawed in Brazil (a surprisingly true, if absurd, statement). Loot boxes (and the thousand covert ways they have been disguised as other mechanics across a thousand other games) should be outlawed in this country, too. Even if you are 100% objectively aware of their dangers, they can play with your impulses just as easily as any addictive substance. The fact that it is legal to put a recurring price tag on that hit of adrenaline should be the shame of our nation.
Lovish, which offers its randomness as part of the finite sticker price, is a fun time. Any game that progressively exploits addictive behavior should be banned. There is no reasonable explanation for why this is still legally permitted.
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FGC #741 Lovish
- System: When a publisher does not update their website (it still says “coming soon!”), it is difficult to pull this information together. Nintendo Switch is what you are looking at for this review, but it looks like it is also available on Steam, Playstation 5 (?), and at least one of the Xbox systems. What the hell is “cloud gaming”?
- Number of players: You are Sir Solomon. Get it? Solomon. Solo-man. You get it.
- Favorite Cameo (not already mentioned): Psycho Goreman destroys the world. I had to remind myself who Psycho Goreman ever was, but once I remembered, I was happy with his presence.
- Favorite Item: That Dash Cape is a real game changer. I never want to try a “new game” run simply because I know I will have to wait to re-earn a Dash Cape, and living without my Dash Cape would be a fount of sorrow. There is one level that (temporarily) removes your Dash Cape. Even if it is a delightful Castlevania parody, it is overflowing with sadness.
- True Pacifist Route: So you can complete absolutely every stage without ever once striking an opponent. And this includes the boss fights! How? Well, you gain the ability to summon Mort the Skeleman, and Mort can handle the dirty work while Solomon chills out thinking about hippos. Sometimes the greatest route to keeping your hands clean is delegating.
- An End: The initial ending rebukes the hero’s selfish ways. After finding every hidden crown, completing every minigame, and defeating the secret boss, you earn a brand-new expanded ending that teases a sequel. Unfortunately, it also confirms Solomon will literally never learn from his mistakes, so… baby steps.
- Did you know? When encountering an “unusual” chest, I always chose to open it, and it was always a mimic. Now, I understand that this should indicate to me that I should never open unusual chests, as these mimics have apparently infested the Demon Lord’s Castle. But I choose to believe there is a 1% chance there is treasure in there, so I am going to keep trying.
- Would I play again: I found everything! I conquered every stage! I beat every time trial! And apparently I unlocked some additional “random” cutscenes for after levels. So maybe I can beat it all again to see if that slot machine rewards me with something new…
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Spirit Swap! Don’t let your spirit leave you. Swap it! Please look forward to that!
This is going somewhere…