Thank you Orangepixel for sending us a review code for this game!

While I haven’t played the original Heroes of Loot game, I have enjoyed other titles from this one-man development studio.  The 2D pixel art-style in this title is consistent with the other Orangepixel games we have reviewed.  Heroes of Loot 2 takes place after the first one and the characters are bored and looking for more work.  With the promise of adventure and loot they venture into this dungeon in hopes of conquering it.  

When you first launch the game, your only options are the normal and local co-op modes. Until you get enough experience to become a level five dungeon master, you won’t be able to enjoy the survival game mode.  In the normal game mode you get to control two heroes and in the local co-op mode each player gets to control two adventurers.

The pair of heroes consists of one long range and one melee fighter.  In the beginning, the long range characters include an arrow shooting elf or a magic casting wizard.  The melee characters can be either a warrior or a Valkyrie. If you collect enough hero cards, you can unlock a barbarian, mage, paladin, and a thief.  The melee classes are strong enough to move statues onto pressure plates when the need arises.  These characters can also uncover secret areas that their long-range counterparts won’t notice.  Since the characters share the same health gauge, they’ll have to deal with each other’s strengths and weaknesses as their lives depend on it!

The dungeons are randomly generated so you never know what you’re walking into and each playthrough will be different.  In the beginning the enemies are relatively easy and consist of slimes, bats, skulls, flames, and fire throwing, demon-like creatures.  The pixel style graphics make it hard to make out what some of the monsters are.  What I can tell you is that they get harder as you venture deeper into the dungeon.  

You’ll come across shops where you can buy shields, health potions, and other useful trinkets.  Some NPCs will sell you magic shards which can permanently unlock magic spells that are available in future playthroughs.  Other NPCs will grant you access to a warp zone or shortcut that will advance you multiple levels if you can afford to take them.  Be sure to collect all of the gold coins and gems you come across.  Sometimes you’ll stumble into treasure rooms and other times you’ll wander into a battle challenge.  Be prepared for anything and don’t pass up buying a healing potion if your health isn’t maxed out.

Other than the occasional warp opportunity, there is generally one exit and once you enter a level, you cannot turn back.  You can save and resume your game from that point though. The level’s exit is usually behind a locked gate which has a key hidden somewhere around there.  Besides keys, you’ll occasionally need to collect runes to place onto a circle to unlock the path to the exit. On my first playthrough one of the runes was inaccessible and inside of a statue that I could not interact with.  Despite that one glitch, I have not experienced any other issues playing this game.

Each hero has their own inventory.  Keep that in mind when you collect keys and runes as you’ll have to switch characters in order to use them.  Some levels require you to use bombs to blast through thick stone doors.  Throwing the bombs seemed to be hit or miss for me.  It seems that you can only throw them at a certain location. Other than the bomb throwing, the controls were pretty intuitive.

Between collecting loot, solving puzzles, and trying to stay alive as long as possible, I’ve been thoroughly entertained and enjoyed my time exploring the dungeons in Heroes of Loot 2.  While this title hasn’t been rated by the ESRB, the original game was rated Everyone. Other than some blood splatter, this game is relatively tame.  Given the randomly generated dungeons and fun gameplay, the $9.99 asking price is justified.  If you prefer playing this game on a mobile platform, it’s an even more reasonable $3.99.