The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is a game with an ingenious high concept – Diablo vs Dungeon Keeper – that we really would have preferred to like. But in practice, it felt a little like returning home to find you’d been burgled, in our Might Quest for Epic Loot review.
What does work in Mighty Quest is the nitty gritty hacky slashy part – so it’s odd to see Ubisoft Montreal fiddling with that side of things, rather than work on rebalancing the business of castle building. Pets will accompany players on their grand home invasions, providing company and picking up gold and life force.
I can’t help but wonder if Ubi have just removed a key consideration from the battle equation – and that the game will be less tactical for it.
In Mighty Quest, players are rewarded for speed as well as thoroughness, and each castle has a time to beat. That means time spent hoovering up gold is time you might otherwise spend beelining for the throne room. It’s not risk-reward, but rather a reward-reward question to consider in the moment.
Similarly, dipping out of battle with a boss creature to pick up a life orb is something that requires good timing, and usually judicious deployment of a stunning attack of some kind.
Mighty Quest’s pet dragons, hamsters, spiders and squids will “help players pick up gold and life force while you are busy attacking enemies”, say Ubi. How they’ll do that without upsetting the game’s robust combat mechanics, I don’t know. Do you?