Conan Chop Chop. Grind first of all?

Let’s talk about game Conan Chop Chop and why you shouldn’t buy it. Let’s go!

Despite the fact that the gaming market is currently experiencing a real boom, and sometimes it feels like new projects are being released almost every day, it is still quite difficult to find quality projects in the roguelike genre with co-op. Instead of playing what you really like, you lower the bar for your own assessment of games and start looking towards any projects, as long as the genre is more or less suitable and there is co-op. Before you can blink, you are already buying games with a “Mixed” rating on Steam. The same case applies to the game Conan Chop Chop, which I will tell you about today.

Story

As such, it is almost non-existent here and the whole thing is told in several non-animated (well, at least voiced) cutscenes. As usual, an evil sorcerer named Thoth-Amon decided to summon his equally evil master. But it didn’t happen as expected, and he summoned only half of his master. So he will have to look for the vessel. To do this, he decided to hold a competition among the heroes, during which the very vessel will be found. We are required to…er…go through several randomly generated levels, and having proven our ability not to become the same vessel.

The idea was good, but…

I don’t want to write about all the pros, so I’ll start with the cons. While mentioning the pros, the main cons are monotony.

Imagine that we are given a game with four levels. Nothing strange, right? And now we add that at the end of each level a boss will be waiting for us. A classic scheme. But it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, because in most other similar games, the developers create mechanics in which there can be different bosses at the end of one level. Here they don’t give us such chic, so the game will have 4 regular bosses, one main boss, and… that’s it. They don’t change from level to level. An even more interesting fact is that if you watch the original trailer, it will show you all the bosses that you will encounter during the game. Beyond that, there is no more content. Each boss fight is also typical, and the less health he has, the newer attacks will be added. However, there is nothing new here either, because the main problem in battles with them is not the battle itself, but the fact that regular opponents are generated during it. Some of them have quite “specific” attacks that you see at the last moment (because the enemy can hide behind a boss that takes up half the screen).

The same story applies to the enemies themselves – a certain number of them (such as sorcerers) move from level to level, only changing the colour of the attack to the colour of the level and…their attack is somewhat similar to what the boss of the level will attack us with. Imagine that at each level there is an enemy with a bomb, and he differs only in whether he runs with it himself or throws it. Moreover, there are several options for the latter (those who throw the bomb).

The weapons here are also not original, be prepared that there are just a few types of weapons (swords, hammers, spears, bows) that have slightly different characteristics, but in general have the same movesets for each type. Here you will not find “the same, extraordinary sword” that you will want to play all the time, because they are all about the same thing. Swords are slightly diversified by their bonuses to damage with sand, poison, fire or ice. But we get these bonuses, first of all, thanks to amulets, which we still have to open. In 36 hours of play, we managed to open all the achievements in Steam and almost all the items, but, frankly, there was a constant feeling that you were purposefully dragged into the game by how many items you need to open and the bonuses that they will give. So in order to swing a sword with a fire attack, you will have to run for another good 5-10 hours. Because all weapons and equipment in the game must first be unlocked for bonuses that we get from killing enemies and bosses. An interesting fact is that there is an altar that generates opponents. If you don’t destroy it, you can farm resources to unlock items. I would call this the fastest method.

Another disadvantage is that things improve their quality with each new level. That is, for example, if at the first level the armour added 1.5 hearts to health, then at the second it already adds 2.5. As a result, you are obliged to change the armour constantly so that your health level is sufficient for further progress, but you can lose your “build” for a particular direction of the game.

Pros

Among the pluses is a rather interesting combat system. The fact is that despite the “so-so” weapons, this game, compared to other roguelikes, has added a full-fledged ability to parry blows. If you manage to press block when the warning light next to the enemy lights up, the parry will be successful and the enemy will go into “stun”, after which you will have the opportunity to beat him up with impunity for a certain time. For games of this genre, this is an interesting innovation, and I will say more – it is very useful, including during battles with bosses.

The availability of equipment has become a nice bonus, as each hero can additionally have armour and a shield. This slightly expands the variability of the game, which is very limited here.

We are given four characters to choose from. Surprisingly, the developers managed to separate each of them. And although any weapon can be used by anyone, the character skills are distributed in such a way that you know exactly which weapon each character is better at fighting with.

In conclusion

On sale, the game costs $2.5, and it’s hard for me to say how much it’s worth the money. On the one hand, the trailer makes you think it’s going to be interesting and fun, on the other hand… there are, if not countless, then a certain number of games that will be no less interesting for the same price. If we’re talking about the price of the game without a discount, then the price is unreasonably high, because in fact we’re getting a demo version of the game, which in this form should have been in early access.

The last update to the game was almost three years ago, so the game will not improve in any way. Because of this, it is not worth hoping that something will change. That is why I give the game a 4 tentacles out of 6. This is not much different from its 65% positive reviews on Steam, so the internal perception is somewhere the same. I do not advise buying it, but you can run if you have absolutely nothing else.

Author: Sa Crea

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