Silent Hope

A princess sends seven heroes into an ever-deepening dungeon to rescue a missing companion, and Silent Hope builds its entire structure around that simple premise: descend, fight, loot, craft better gear, descend further. Reviewers reach for comparisons like Torchlight, Diablo and Made in Abyss, and the chibi-anime presentation and escalating dungeon variety genuinely earn some of that company on a surface level. Beneath that surface, though, a remarkably consistent set of complaints recurs across reviewers who otherwise disagree about almost everything else.

A charming shell around a simple loop

What draws reviewers in initially is real: seven distinct heroes, each with their own weapon type and class progression, give genuine surface-level variety to which character a player gravitates toward, and the colorful, chibi-styled presentation earns consistent visual praise even from reviewers who are otherwise sharply critical. The core gather-craft-descend loop works as intended, and reviewers who enjoy low-commitment, relaxing dungeon crawling describe genuine satisfaction watching their characters grow stronger across increasingly varied environments. Steam Deck and controller support draw specific, confirmed praise, with reviewers describing the handheld experience as genuinely well-suited to the game's pick-up-and-play structure.

Combat that reviewers call mobile-shallow

Where the reception turns sharply critical is combat depth. A remarkably consistent complaint, appearing across both positive and negative reviews, describes the actual moment-to-moment gameplay as largely basic-attack spam punctuated by occasional skill use, with little tactical depth beyond that pattern regardless of which class a player chooses. Multiple reviewers independently describe the game as feeling like a mobile title adapted for PC rather than built for it, citing simplified systems that never meaningfully expand as the campaign progresses. One detailed review states this plainly after reaching the game's true final content: "I always asked myself at what point the combat gets better and I get to use something other than basic attack + a few skills until I realized that's it. That's the game."

Nearly universal agreement on price

The single most consistent complaint in this game's review base, regardless of overall recommendation, concerns its asking price. Reviewers who otherwise recommend the game and reviewers who don't independently arrive at nearly identical language, describing the roughly NZ$62 list price as considerably too steep for the depth and length on offer, with recommendations converging on waiting for a discount in the 30-50% range or deeper before buying. That degree of agreement across an otherwise divided review base is unusual, and it's worth treating as close to a consensus fact about the game's value proposition rather than a matter of individual taste.

Controls that reportedly don't work on keyboard and mouse

A separate, specific technical complaint concerns keyboard-and-mouse support directly: multiple reviewers describe the experience as close to unplayable without a controller, with one reviewer calling it "absolutely awful" after switching from an initial keyboard-and-mouse attempt. This review found no patch note addressing keyboard-and-mouse-specific fixes in the two total updates the game has received, meaning the recommendation to play exclusively with a controller or on Steam Deck should be treated as a practical necessity rather than a mere preference.

A confirmed fix and a confirmed gap

To the developer's credit, one specific complaint did receive a direct, dated response: a repeatedly criticized base-camp companion character whose constant chatter several reviewers found grating was addressed in a post-launch patch adding an adjustable "Base Camp Chatter" setting, letting players choose between Frequent, Moderate, or None. That's a genuine, specific quality-of-life fix. Set against that, this review found no patch addressing a separate complaint: at least one reviewer reports specific achievements, including one tied to reaching a "Legendary Hero" milestone, as permanently unobtainable due to a bug, with no fix appearing anywhere in the public patch record across the game's only two post-launch updates.

What the achievement data suggests

Global achievement figures show an unusually high completion rate across the board, with many tracked achievements sitting in the 70-97% range of the playerbase — a notably flatter, more forgiving curve than most games this lane has covered. That pattern is consistent with, rather than contradicting, the combat-depth complaints above: a game whose systems don't meaningfully expand or gate progress behind real challenge is also a game where most players who start end up completing the majority of its content without much friction.

A class system that promises more choice than it delivers

A related structural complaint concerns character progression specifically. Each hero can theoretically access three classes offering nine total skills, but players can only equip three skills at any given time, and the third class typically unlocks so late — often well after the main story concludes, requiring significant additional grinding — that several reviewers describe never meaningfully engaging with it at all. One detailed reviewer frames the resulting structure as effectively linear rather than a real choice: first class, then a fixed second class at a set level, then an optional third class most players will never bother reaching. Combined with the skill-slot limit, that means a meaningful share of each character's theoretical build space goes unused in practice, undercutting what looks on paper like real character customization depth.

Where it lands

Silent Hope offers a charming, low-commitment dungeon-crawler experience for players specifically seeking that combination on a controller, but the near-universal price complaint and consistently reported combat shallowness are real, well-corroborated weaknesses rather than a small minority's nitpicks. The confirmed keyboard-and-mouse control problems compound the case for treating this as a controller-only, sale-only purchase. For genre fans with modest expectations and patience for a discount, there's a pleasant enough time here — just not one that justifies its current asking price.