Silent Hope Critic Reviews

Silent Hope brings classic isometric JRPG dungeon crawling into the modern age with its adorable characters, slick combat, and heartfelt narrative about protecting the people we love. The seven protagonists and hundreds of potential load-outs offer endless ways to play and replay this magical story.

Silent Hope is an outstanding dungeon crawler and one of the few on the market that are easy to recommend for players either burned by prior games or who are completely new to the genre. Having so many different kinds of characters to play as keeps every run fresh and encourages the player to not only keep trying with another run, but do so with a different character with every failure to see if their outcome changes. It controls wonderfully across the board with responsive button commands and accurate stick movements. It looks good enough too, with a consistent framerate and a complete lack of slowdown and should be a must-buy for anyone looking to get into dungeon crawlers or who wants to experience one that emphasizes player fun over pure loot.

Silent Hope is an action RPG that will likely be overlooked due to the sheer quantity and quality of 2023’s video game releases. Still, if you’re yearning for a more low-stakes adventure that manages to remain fulfilling across brief play sessions, then this title is an ideal pick-up. The engaging progression systems, weight-filled combat, and addictive, varied gameplay loop make Silent Hope a delightful adventure.

Silent Hope seems like a simple premise, but it is executed beautifully. The level of challenge is just right, the loot that is picked up with each run gives a very satisfying feeling, and the story is a journey, not only in what happened within this kingdom but also an exploration of mental health and pride. It truly becomes a dungeon crawler with hidden depths as the philosophy behind the story comes into play and the need to know more of what happened drives players to want to keep going and try to get a little further. Silent Hope is truly a well-crafted experience that offers much more than meets the eye.

Regardless of its outward simplicity and colourful art style, Silent Hope is a really fun, rewarding and likable game.

Silent Hope isn’t going to light your world on fire or anything, but if you enjoy a good dungeon crawl action-RPG, it’s assuredly worth looking into. Its lack of any immediate fancy flourishes might make it seem forgettable at first, but give it time to unfold a little and I think you’ll appreciate the finer details of its design. It’s the kind of game that is all too easy to slip in and out of, and I like to keep at least a few games like that living on my Switch at all times.

In closing, Silent Hope is a excellent, Etrian Odyssey-styled dungeon crawler with a great story, lots of things to do at base camp, and randomly-generated dungeon layouts. That being said, the music was a bit forgettable, and only the title theme and the first dungeon theme stuck out to me on a first listen to. Also, there can sometimes be a bit too much to do in the base camp at one time, which leads to a sense of feeling overwhelmed. Despite these 3 setbacks, the rest of the game definitely does way more than enough to make up for those shortcomings. I definitely recommend this game if you haven’t played it already.

With hours of additional content post-credits thanks to an unlockable hard mode, much like its farming-focused cousins, Silent Hope finds its place in being video gaming comfort food that you can easily dive into at any time, and I am definitely going back for seconds.

Silent Hope is not a game for everyone, but if you're looking for a comfortable Action RPG with an intriguing plot and a satisfying challenge, I recommend you download the demo and give it a shot.

Silent Hope is a charming, adorable game with pitch-perfect sound design, from its limited voice work (the Princess and the King), suitably adventurous and mysterious music, and dopamine-inducing sound effects. It gets repetitive but has a well-oiled gameplay loop that keeps you on the rails. The limited character builds result in a lack of depth, but the fun of combining the right weapons, runestones, and skills to make huge numbers appear and enemies disappear is always present. Silent Hope is simple in almost all respects, and yet it brings me joy to play it and likely would do even more so for the children in your life.

While Silent Hope does rely in a very specific sort of routine that may (or may not) click with a player, I had a lot more fun with it than I expected. It was really satisfying to go on excursions into the Abyss. So much so that I got caught up in making sure my Caster and Farmer felt “right” to use, rather than focused on progression and heading deeper for a while. That said, it is a very repetitive game that relies on a certain kind of feedback loop, and those who don’t get invested probably won’t learn all of the game’s secrets.

Silent Hope is a solid action adventure title that is easy to recommend to fans of the Marvelous aesthetic, but may be a hard sell to newcomers.

A lot of Silent Hope’s problems stem from under the hood tuning, and I can see another swing at this idea landing a much cleaner hit.

At the end of the day, how you feel about Silent Hope will depend on how big a fan of classic isometric dungeon crawlers you are. At it’s heart it’s a pure experience that encourages experimentation and learning a variety of playstyles, but this comes at the cost of all the extra bells and whistles.

It’s remarkably easy to tell yourself you’ll do just one more expedition, only to balk when the Princess tells you how long you were down in the Abyss. I caught myself desperate to push on just a little further, to level up just one more time before I went back to Base Camp, leading to late nights that I’m not upset to have spent grinding my way to prowess and power. As long as you can handle the Princess chatting your ear off while you’re at Base Camp between expeditions and occasionally passing out and being brought back there before you're ready, the hours you’ll effortlessly sink into “just a little more” of Silent Hope will be a joy from beginning to end.

Silent Hope is a simple action RPG that provides plenty of fun even if it doesn’t pose a substantial challenge. Paying all playable characters equal attention will lead to redundancy, but shifting your focus to just a few will help the quick combat and hero customization to carry you through.

Silent Hope is an adorable romp through some dungeons. There are some detractions with the Princess trying her hardest to chat the player’s ear off as they try to navigate the frustrating menus in the base camp. But, each dive into the Abyss feels fun. Customizing the characters, obtaining more loot and punishing the too cute enemies is addicting. Many players should be happy to dive in to the Abyss and hit those adorable critters even if they might want to leave the Princess on mute.

Silent Hope is a decent budget title that can scratch your itch for a quick action RPG. If Diablo IV's price is a bit too steep to pull the trigger on and you want a quick fix, Silent Hope will satisfy you. While Silent Hope's light story and simple gameplay may not be the most exciting, it's a charming game that can still hook you with its gameplay loop.

Silent Hope is a challenging dungeon crawler with familiar sights from Rune Factory sprinkled in and there's definitely some fun to be had for those looking for a more action-packed adventure that's set in the same universe. However, the unbalanced heroes and mandatory grinding will certainly put off many players.

For a game that’s supposedly Rune Factory-adjacent, I’ve got to say that I feel a little let down here. Between its engaging premise, large cast of playable characters, and emphasis on crafting, Silent Hope offers a lot to players but never really goes anywhere interesting with it. As a fan of both Marvelous and Rune Factory, I know that this developer is capable of creating games with plenty of depth. Ironically, however, the game about literally exploring a near-endless abyss isn’t one of them. The game does have its charms, to be sure, but the sheer amount of potentially cool things that it could have done (and didn’t do) left me feeling more frustrated than anything.