7 min read
There are times in people’s lives when the weight of all of your responsibilities can start to take a real toll on you. Things you loved start to become less fun, your hopes and dreams start to feel unattainable. One day you wake up and realise that all you do is work, eat, sleep and any exceptions to that formula start to become fleeting reprieves from an over-familiar routine. It’s times like these when a person could really use a holiday. A week away in a place they’ve never been, under a ceiling they don’t recognise. This is the case for our heroine, Luisa, who is visiting Hinterberg to escape her dead end job. Why Hinterberg? Well besides being a beautiful town in the Austrian mountains, it’s also home to adventure; magic, monsters, dungeons, people visit from all over the world to become renowned Slayers. Much like Luisa, I could also use a holiday, that’s not happening any time soon though. So I got the next best thing, a game about having an adventure and a holiday rolled into one.
What is it?
Dungeons of Hinterberg has a lot going on from the outset. The open-world areas are full of secrets, loot and encounters if you stray too far from the paths between dungeons. Luisa has gear she can replace or upgrade, including swords, armour and charms. There’s a Persona style social links system with a range of colourful characters who have an affinity level wherein they will happily part with items or knowledge when you level up your relationship with them. Time spent doing anything in Hinterberg will level up some part of Luisa, whether its her health, stamina, abilities, upgrades, renown, familiarity, amusement or relaxation. You can spend your afternoons delving into dungeons or relaxing on a mountain peak breathing in the fresh air. Both will boost Luisa’s stats, but which stats depends on the activity. With all of this going on, it might seem overwhelming. Well don’t worry. Seriously, you’re on a holiday, stop worrying.
Delving, Dying and Delighting
Exploring the world was an absolute delight. While the graphics are simple, what is there is used to create this serene and beautiful landscape filled with little hideaways for treasure chests and mini-puzzles. The game rarely made exploring not worthwhile with the rare dead end only being a result of over-enthusiastic exploration on my part. The world is broken up into different zones with each one providing a very unique style and its own set of game-play too. You unlock new spells for every area, and each area makes you use those spells to traverse through it and solve puzzles, this extends to the dungeons of every area too. Think of it like acquiring a new item in a Zelda game which is then used prominently in the dungeon you found it in.
The design of each dungeon feels unique and they all have puzzles which I’d say are just complex enough. Dungeons of Hinterberg never tries to be a puzzle game, so the puzzles in it are about as complicated as the ones you may find in a classic Zelda dungeon. Besides puzzles, dungeons will usually have several combat encounters. Combat is simple to begin with but as you unlock spells, abilities and better equipment encounters can become more and more difficult. Combat is common outside of dungeons too but the toughest fights take place inside dungeons, some ending on a particularly difficult boss fight. Enemy design is diverse, with a wide array of different attack patterns and strategies to deal with them. I found the combat to be pretty satisfying, but some enemies did feel a bit too spongey which protracted some encounters. Many dungeons also have unique twists, or I suppose you could call them “gimmicks.” One dungeon may transition to an isometric view for its entirety, or another dungeon taking inspiration from Super Mario Galaxy and includes little planetoids to run around on.
It’s been a while since I’ve played a game that was so preoccupied with being fun and inventive. Of course its the job of (almost) every game to be entertaining, but that can mean different things. If a game is making me feel competitive or sad or excited I’m still entertained, but when I say fun I mean in the same way a Sonic or Mario game is just upbeat and gameplay forward.
Don’t Talk to Me (Unless You Have a Stat Boost)
That being said, there is a lot of dialogue and cutscenes in Dungeons of Hinterberg too. Easily my least favourite part, which isn’t to say I hated it but when my options are hoverboarding on a snow-capped mountain range or talking to someone about fashion I guess I’m the kind of person who would pick hoverboarding every time. The characters are varied and some of them are genuinely nice to hang around with, personally I’d crack a beer with the majority of them, but none of them really stand out or stuck with me. There are however numerous rewards for hanging out with these characters from increasing your health or stamina to forking over the ability to unlock chests.
Speaking of increasing your stats, there’s a fairly robust system for Luisa’s stats. You can min/max your builds I’m sure, but I found myself very rarely having to tinker with my skills and gear. There are multiple difficulty options and I’m just playing on the “normal” equivalent, after all this is a holiday. For anyone who does like that kind of thing, there appears to be plenty of room for fucking about with the various charms and upgrades you can equip. Swords can take enchantments, with some swords accepting more or less than others. You can increase your room for charms and experiment with different loadouts, you can purchase and equip new combat abilities which can all have varying effects. I was able to win most fights with the charms and abilities I found looting, and by buying the best sword I could as soon as possible, but even then some encounters were still quite tough. I can imagine needing to be more strategic at higher difficulties.
The Nitty Gritty
On the topic of how it was to play, I spent the majority of my time in Hinterberg on my Steam Deck where I’m happy to report the game runs fantastically. I didn’t have to tinker with any settings at all and managed to ger reasonable battery life and great performance. I also played on my desktop and the game looks drop dead gorgeous on my ultrawide display.
The game does look incredible, I should add. The art style is simplistic but small touches like leaves blowing in gusts of wind across the mountaintop or grand set pieces like ascending a gigantic old tree all look beautiful. The game’s soundtrack accompanies the visuals very well, the music is heavy on synth and ranges from atmospheric to epic. Some pieces are as simple as a guitar being strum while talking to others around a campfire or exploring a forgotten trail, while music during combat encounters can be more distorted and wailing but maintains the composure of the overall theme. My only complaint about the music is that especially combat music can become quickly repetitive, but you’re usually too focused on the combat to notice anyway!
In Conclusion
So, what do I think of Dungeons of Hinterberg. Well it should be clear by now that I quite adore this game. From the exploration to the puzzles and combat I found this game a tonne of fun to play. Despite some loss of steam during social encounters (which, by the way, can probably be avoided if you don’t care about the rewards or the people) and the overall story not interesting me a great deal, I think Dungeons of Hinterberg is an excellent game. It’s focus on fun, inventive level design and gameplay are refreshing. The music is great and I highly recommend picking up the soundtrack on its own. This game wasn’t quite the holiday I so desperately need but it was a good attempt.