Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (ICFR) is Dungeons and Dragons themed game set in the much revered Forgotten Realms world setting. I loved (and still love) these books, and now that I'm writing about it... I remember that I have some digital comics that are set in this universe that I want to go and read! Well... after this review!
ICFR was developed and published in 2018 by Codename Entertainment and came to my attention a month or two ago when it launched on the Epic Games platform. Now, I generally use Epic to just claim free games each week whilst using Steam as my primary storefront. I had already had some suspicions about this game from the title "Idle..." and also from the fact that it was free to play. However, Epic Games was giving out a whole bunch of free loot and crates for just downloading the game and so I figured, why not give it a little bit of a spin.
Well, as you can see from above... the game doesn't even have a proper Title Screen and doesn't even launch in a full screen setting either (other than forcing it via a Control-Enter... every single launch!). It's not very hopeful.
The Setup
So, as I mentioned earlier, ICFR is set in the every awesome Forgotten Realms DnD Universe. This is one of the most developed and deep game-worlds with stupendous amount of lore and a huge array of books, comics and game material. It has been a world that I fell in love with as I grew up, and through University. So, naturally, something with its name on it will at least catch my attention!
Plus, they have appearances from some of the most famed names in the Forgotten Realms setting! What could possibly go wrong?!?!?!?
The Game
So, basically the games plays out like many Idle-style games. You set up your hero formation and then enemies come swarming in and your heroes auto-battle it out until a set number is killed and then you move to the next stage and repeat the whole thing.
The player input is pretty much limited to clicking on enemies to cause a comparitively tiny amount of damage and to activating time-based hero skills and spells. Oh, and to hover over loot and coins to pick them up...
You then use that gold and loot to level up your heroes to ridiculous numbers in order to survive a few more waves on each run. Speaking of ridiculous numbers, the damage numbers start to get pretty silly... and the coins required for upgrades and levelling up characters also does as well. In fact, from the screenshot at the start of this article... the BEST way to collect the gold coins for levelling up your party isn't to play the game... it is just to turn it off and log back in several days later... and you will have realised that the game and party have been printing gold coins faster than central bank with zero or negative interest rates (Bam! I had to get that one in there!).
Of course, all of this crap economy in gold and level ups is all in order to shunt free-to-play players towards spending the much more valuable fiat money (hahaa....) on LOOT BOXES... Sorry, locked chests.
Unfortunately for the broken game economy, I had received an airdrop of about 100 loot chests just by signing with my Epic account... which meant that I had to go through the chore of opening 100 loot chests with 5 pieces of loot in each box!
You know when you get too much of something... you don't really value anything? Yep... I turfed through all the loot boxes and got lots of interesting and not-interesting loot... all of which had no relevance or interest to me game-wise. Micro-enhancements to my characters that would be outweighed by several days of not playing and collecting gold to level them up in a ridiculous manner.
There is a really loose storyline that seems to draw upon existing game material... but most of the time, it is just text boxes popping up that you have to click through. The least they could do is shower you with gold for clicking on EVEN MORE THINGS!
There is some rudimentary specialisations and a hint of the class/character system from DnD underpinning all of this... but it is all so terribly explained that I was completely confused... much like the overwhelming airdrop of inventory. Plus, I just buy characters that I have no attachment to... and so, I honestly don't care how they level up as I have no intrinsic desire to keep them alive as there isn't any emotional investment in their development... numbers just go up.
WTF!?!!?!?!?!??!?.... after completing an adventure... you are rewarded with loot, and a CHARACTER and TEAM RESET?!?!?!?!?
Okay... I hope my computer didn't get a virus or hacked from this PoS (not Proof of Stake) software. I'm getting rid of this as soon as possible!
Visuals, Sound and Performance
This game will run on phones, PCs and pretty much anything with a screen and two neurons. The only limiting factor seems to be storage space for the download... and your sanity after discovering how terrible the game actually is... and perhaps whatever metadata and personal info that it has collected on you.
I don't think my computer has bene more relieved than when I uninstalled this game...
My Thoughts
Sometimes you come across a game that changes your definition of what a game is for better or worse. Perhaps it is the game mechanics, the art style, the scope or the narrative... often it is a mix of all the above!
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms managed has managed to reset the bar in terms of how terrible a game can be in the most terrible way ever... ICFR has managed to turn the game playing experience into a glorified version of watching paint dry, in fact... the player actually isn't required most of the time! In fact, the game sort of is more rewarding if you DON'T play it!
I have much more fun watching Transaction Street which is the really cool bus visualisation of transactions on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Actually... Transaction Street is really cool!
Review Specs
DELL XPS15 (9560)
CPU: i7-7700HQ
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050
Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:
XMG Fusion 15
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD (SATA/Nvme)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 2070 Max-Q
Intel BX80662I76700 Core i7-6700 Prozessor (3,4GHz)
6GB EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING
GIGABYTE Z170N-WIFI
Ballistix Sport LT 16GB DDR4
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 512GB
S4 Mini Case (NFC Systems)
Nintendo Switch (1st generation)
Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)
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