![]() Nobody Saves the World’s mix-and-match system, plus the baddies’ collection of wards and vulnerabilities, kept me tinkering with my builds, which is fun in and of itself. Lots of RPGs and games with perk trees aspire to non-linear progression, only to have that ideal undone when players discover that advancing sequentially is still the most efficient, least-time consuming way to beat the game. Preview: Drinkbox’s RPG takes Final Fantasy’s Job system and gets weird with itĪdvancing the big picture with smaller, focused, (and most importantly, repeating) goals helps keep Nobody Saves the World’s progression from being too rigid or linear. The arrow attack might drain off mana (and Horse, being a horse, has a lower mana bar than other forms) but I picked up another perk that let me recover more of it simply by breaking containers with my primary attack. And with Ranger’s “poison-tipped” perk, Horsey can inflict even more pain. Along the way, I discovered that Horse can attack simultaneously in two different directions if you give it the Ranger’s volley-of-arrows attack. But needing some quick stars, which gate the bigger dungeons, I found I was closest to completing a few missions on the Horse’s schedule. So, pretty much everything I unlocked was made useful through a prolonged stretch of combat, which is a breath of fresh air, considering there are trunk lines of Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed perks that I have never touched in more than a decade.įor example, I may not have preferred the Horse’s blunt-damage backward kick - it required me to face the Horse away from a threat, then hold my right trigger to keep it faced that way. ![]() Getting to the next big chapter often required marking off a series of more sundry goals from each character’s respective to-do list. And Nobody’s benevolent system of grind and reward always had me trying new powers or revisiting different attacks. (Another is the rotting husk of a pumpkin.)Īliens have crash landed in this kingdom, which is anything but a traditional high fantasy RPG setting.Ĭosmetically, all these might be non sequiturs, but thanks to Nobody Saves the World’s simple, balanced combat - four types of damage, enemies randomly vulnerable or immune to one type of it - every form always paired well with another’s combat perks, attribute scores, or even their means of traversal. One dungeon is actually the rotting corpse of a dragon. And then there’s the Horse, an appropriately ornery form that’s tricky to wield. For the remainder of the game, players will unlock various forms that sound like they came out of a developer’s bull session where no idea was rejected: Bodybuilder, dragon, and mermaid (a hideous one, at that) go along with more traditional roles like Rogue, Guard, and Ranger. Nobody is a shape-shifter, thanks to the magic wand they immediately recover while dull-witted NPCs argue over who’s in charge now. In Nobody Saves the World, you’re the literal Nobody - a featureless, vacant-eyed anthropomorph who backs into the hero job after the kingdom’s arch-mage goes missing. The stuff I was working up to, and for, was interesting, and I went into the next dungeons as much to see it in action as to defeat whatever sub-boss was in there. But never did I find myself in the resentful position of grinding out a level increase so I could overwhelm the opposition with a mere attribute score. Its pivotal stages are gated by completing a repeating series of granular objectives, and those dungeons are staffed by enemies of increasing strengths. That might be the joke I’m not sure.īut the most delightful surprise that this mirthful, meaty RPG delivers is its concise, coherent, steady dopamine drip of a gameplay loop. I forgot all about him after this encounter, and realized I never figured out how to survive his fist. ![]() ![]() A tavern mercenary with a rigid, constipated expression introduces himself as “the one-punch monk,” who can annihilate any rat with a single blow. A kindly witch sent me on a fetch quest and thanked me profusely for saving her sick husband - then immediately blamed me when a villager asked where the hell all the medicine went. When my stage magician character summoned his familiar, I prayed it would be the white tiger, not because it’s so powerful, but because it turns into a luxurious rug when it dies. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule. Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games, movies, TV shows, comics, tabletop books, and entertainment experiences.
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