REVIEW: Silent Hope


Title	Silent Hope
Developer	Marvelous Inc.
Publisher	XSEED Games
Release Date	October 3rd, 2023
Genre	Action RPG
Platform	PC via Steam, Switch
Age Rating	E10
Official Website

When XSEED Games first announced Silent Hope, I wasn’t really impressed with it. I thought the game looked like a pretty bog standard dungeon crawler with some crafting and farming shoehorned into it. Looks can be very deceiving when it comes to games, so when I got an opportunity to check it out, I jumped on it. Let’s see if this game is as plain as I first thought it was, or if it was more than what I was expecting.

The story here follows a peaceful kingdom that was hit with a great calamity. The people became disheartened and started to lose faith in the king. They felt he was only out to protect his daughter, the princess, and the others close to him. The people became violent and things fell into chaos. The king used a powerful spell to seal everyone’s voices away. Then he hurled himself into the abyss without saying a word to his daughter. The princess, broken with grief, cried until her river of tears encased her in a giant crystal teardrop. Years passed by, and the chaos of that day was long forgotten, when suddenly, seven bright lights emerged from the abyss. These seven lights are the heroes that had answered the princess’ cries for help. Her hope now rests with these seven heroes as they explore the abyss to find out what happened to the king, and why he had sealed their voices away.

Silent Hope‘s plot is pretty basic, but I found it enjoyable. It was interesting to see the story unfold as you progressed through each layer of the abyss. It was like watching a good mystery unfold as you found out exactly what happened in this kingdom and the king’s motivations. There is a bit of a post-game story as well, and I haven’t finished all of that as of the writing of this review. But, I’m curious to see how all of it plays out.

Graphically, Silent Hope looks good. The heroes all have lots of details on their character models. The different classes you can unlock have distinct looks, and I love that all weapons have a different look. Each one of these are unique, and it’s a real joy when you find a legendary drop that not only looks amazing, but is totally badass. Each layer of the abyss is from a different event in the kingdom’s history, and they are designed to look the part. You may be at a festival on one layer and a harsh winter in the next. Monster designs look good, but they probably could’ve done better with more variation and less recolors. However, I thought the boss designs were great, with lots of details. The PC version I reviewed ran great in resolutions up to 4K, and I had mine running at 120 FPS with no issues.

In the sound department, Silent Hope is pretty solid as well. I loved the dungeon themes quite a bit. I found myself humming along as I slayed every monster in my path with extreme prejudice. The game features both an English and Japanese dub, and I found both of these to be pretty good. You will hear the princess’ voice mostly, since, well, she is the only one with a voice in the game. Though you may discover more as the story unfolds.

The gameplay in Silent Hope is what you would expect to find in your average top down dungeon crawler. You go through each level, laying waste to your enemies while picking up memories to make weapons, and materials to craft them with. You will also find seeds to plant crops to make food dishes with. These dishes will provide you with important buffs as you traverse the many floors of the abyss. Defeating monsters will not only drop materials, but Magistones as well. These stones will not only give your equipment some buffs, but will change the element of your attacks and defense too. This is very important, as it will give you the advantage over enemies of the opposite type during your time in the abyss.

The materials you gather in the dungeon will have to be refined in order to use them to craft weapons. You have two shops in your hub that will do this for you, but it will take some time to get things ready. Players can start the process before entering the abyss, and the work will continue while you explore. This is the cheapest method of doing this, and it will save your precious runes for upgrading weapons, growing crops, and other needs. If you’re in a real hurry, though, you can spend runes to get these materials instantly, or the precious Sands of Time you find in the dungeon. These are pretty rare, so you should save them for hard times. You can do this with crops and food items as well, if you’re in a real hurry to have yummy food in the dungeon.

Lastly, let’s talk a bit about the seven heroes. Each one of these heroes is a different class of fighter. They are pretty much your standard RPG affair with a Fighter, Mage, Archer and so on. I did think it was neat that they gave you a heavy fighter and a more nimble one with a shield. The farmer was very unique as well, having a pitchfork as a weapon and some lighting quick attacks. You would think this wouldn’t work, but it really works out well. Each of the heroes has two other classes that you can unlock as the game progresses, and each one will grant you three more skills to slay your foes with. These skills are, of course, your standard attacks, but some are helpful buffs as well. These skills will upgrade with points you gain as you level up the characters. I really loved the archer class more than I thought I would. There is something oddly satisfying about raining bombs down on your enemies and watching them pop. The only real flaw I found here is sometimes, you will get mobbed by the monsters and end up with a few unfair deaths due to being stun locked. This is pretty rare, and since you only lose a few items, it’s not that big of a deal.

Overall, I had a great time with Silent Hope. The combat is fun, the story is interesting, and I felt like the dungeon crawling was fair with a good amount of checkpoints on your way down the abyss. The music is very good, and the way they work the voice into the actual story is very unique and something I’ve not seen in my many years of covering games. I feel like fans of dungeon looters will have a great time with this one at the $39.99 price tag. There is a lot to love here with the solid gameplay and loads of different weapon options to keep players busy for hours. I’ve spent over 30 hours here and still have the post-game to go. Casual players shouldn’t be afraid of this one either, as the normal difficulty is pretty fair and easy to get into. Now, if you dare challenge the harder modes of the post-game, that is a different story, but that just adds more value to this great title.