Heedless Review

A Guild of Your Own

Once your parents ran the Explorer’s guild. Now it’s your turn. Unfortunately, since your father’s death, the guild has fallen into disrepair. As the new guild master, you must work to bring the explorer’s guild back to its former glory. Make upgrades and hire staff to help your guild grow. Of course, there’s more to Heedless than building your guild.  Explore unique lands and battle fierce foes in this charming RPG.

Heedless by solo developer Nathan Goyer is an enthralling 16-bit RPG. You start out with a mostly empty guildhall. You’ll need to explore to earn enough gold and supplies to upgrade your guild. Your first task, as with many RPGs, is to kill a few rats. You then have a blade made from the rat’s teeth. As you explore, you’ll come across a myriad of creatures to fight such as Centaurs and goblins.

A Sweet Combat System

Where Heedless truly shines is in its battle system. The controls are simple and easy to master but it still takes strategy to win a fight. Battle is turn-based. During battle, you can use attacks, abilities, spells, and items. Attacks are your melee attacks. Abilities grant you special abilities, like casting a spell without using AP or resisting negative status effects. Making use of Abilities is a great way to get ahead in a tough battle. Heedless offers some fun spells such as Volt Discharge which besides dealing lightning damage has a 50 percent chance to stun. You can use medicine or action point potions during battle by going into the item’s menu.

While Heedless is an RPG, leveling up is automatic. You’ll unlock a new ability, attack or spell with each level gained. While I would have appreciated a more flexible level up system, it doesn’t detract from the game.

Ready, Set, Upgrade!

Heedless is all about upgrades. You can upgrade your guild’s main hall, storage, commerce, and delving rooms. You can even create a secret passage between the guild and your home. Upgrading Commerce allows you to hire a trader or a prepper. The trader will take trade goods to distant lands and sell them for gold. Want a health boost for the day? Hire the prepper to make a daily meal. Meals increase your health, speed, armor or critical chance for the duration of the day. Hire the dungeon delver after upgrading delving. When exploring ruins, you’ll find Moncite, which can be traded to the delver for metals used to create weapons and armor. Starting out you can only explore three times a day. However, you can purchase a wagon, allowing for infinite explorations. Upgrading the main hall allows you to hire a bard who sings inspiring songs and a storyteller. Trade with the storyteller to craft storybooks such as Dark Wolf which when used transport the player to special boss fights.  These challenging battles are a fun way to test your skills in combat.

Each time you upgrade and aspect of the guild you will receive a super apple. Super apples allow you to explore a new land. Unlocking a new land to explore is always a thrill. From the caves crawling with enemy bats to the pyramid where skeleton await, each land has its own personality. You’ll even come across a few friendly settlements. After gaining a settlement’s trust you’ll be able to trade with them. The town of Nyanster requires you to catch some rats which can be a frustrating endeavor.  The war camp will trust you after you beat their champions in combat. These battles play out much the same as the game’s typical combat.

For the Sake of Vanity

Throughout the game, you’ll come across Vanity Tokens. Vanity Tokens can be used to play fashion roulette with the Designer.  Playing fashion roulette unlocks a random costume for your character. Your costumes can be accessed via your wardrobe. Since Heedless doesn’t offer character customization, costumes are a great way to give your character a bit of a personal touch. Vanity tokens can also be traded for Tasty Treats which are used to adopt the adorable animals you’ll come across throughout the game. These pets don’t fight alongside you like in some RPGs but are nevertheless adorable additions to the game.

Heedless is an intensely fun RPG. Exploring new lands and facing off against creatures is a blast. Upgrading your guild is addicting. At 1.99, Heedless is well worth its price tag. Gather supplies, defeat monsters, and upgrade your guild in this charming pixelated RPG. Heedless may lack character customization but it more than makes up for it in gameplay and style.