I Am Overburdened Review: Unluckily, it's Burdened by its Predecessors (PC)

    Well, 2018 is finally here! We all had our nice holiday celebrations and traditions, but now it's time to get back to work. I celebrated my holidays with my family and got some books and a few movies, including the hit anime movie Your Name *cue Zenzenzense by the band Radwimps*. I know for Logan Paul, his holiday had him going to Japan, testing the patience of Tokyo's citizens via his antics, and trying (and miserably failing) to have a serious moment in Aokigahara Forest when he found someone's lynched body. Classy AF. While Logan caused me to fail my resolution to not be bothered by junk on the Internet, I can still work on my resolution to play more video games so I can review them (and clear my huge backlog.) Today, that game is the satirical dungeon-crawler I Am Overburdened, by Magic Item Tech.

The old tavern that also serves as the main menu. That's Joey in the lower-middle.

     I Am Overburdened tells the story of Joey, an artifact hunter (also known as a burglar) who enters a large dungeon underneath a tavern to find treasure. He's also down there to kill the Buzzard Wizard, who, according to an old man in the tavern, cast an evil spell that removed magic from the land. It's obviously an excuse of a plot, but it raised some questions for me that took me out of the game for a second. Questions like "Why would a mage purposely remove magic from the land? Magic is their only source of power!" and "If there's no magic, what about all of these items in the dungeon? They've got some pretty magic-like effects." Since it's an excuse plot, there was  no point of thinking heavily about those questions, and the only real option for me was to go down and try to kill the Buzzard Wizard.

The main gameplay screen. Note the 20 equipment slots on the right.

    The game has you roam around 33 floors that each take up a single screen. The randomly generated floors hold a variety of monsters and items. Among these items are health potions, gold, items that boost your stats (attack, defense, max health, speed, and luck) and equipment, which may be locked in chests that somehow require gold to open. The monsters are content to stand around and watch Joey loot anything he can reach, but if one's blocking the way or you just feel like killing it, you can fight one by moving into it, initiating a single round of combat. After every three floors, you're allowed to spend some of your gold on one of three items at the Black Raven Market. It seems like a strange business model to sell only a single item. I doubt many people risk their lives just so they can get the opportunity to choose between buying a steak, some coffee beans, and a health potion.
    It's a pretty simple game overall, and it works decently well. The big draw behind the game is how it's supposed to be a satire of loot-based permadeath RPGs where the player is expected to collect every single thing they can find. This comes across in the fact that Joey has 20 equipment slots that can be filled by equipment in the dungeon. The various pieces of equipment in the dungeon come in four rarities, with better rarities appearing more often later in the dungeon. Since most of these items appear in chests, you never know what you'll get until you open it, and Joey seems kind of clingy with his stuff, so you can't drop anything and can only get a new item in that slot if you find something else to replace it. Most items simply adjust your stats, but you can also get abilities from items. A good example is the small blue hedgehog. It's a blue-quality item (the lowest in the game) that provides a speed boost and deals 1 damage when an enemy damages you, but you also lose a gold when you take damage.

It also makes it hard to make great 3D games, makes loading screens 40% longer, and makes attempts at serious drama come off as cheesy. 

    As I mentioned, the game works fine overall, but the game seems to rely way too much on luck. A good example is that in the early game, the only stats that really matter are strength and speed, as this can allow you to one-shot enemies without losing any of your limited health. Defense only becomes more useful as you get further in the game, because enemies always deal a minimum of one damage if they hit. Even if they are the same rarity, a sword that gives +4 attack is way better than a helm that gives several defense and a 5% chance to automatically miss your attacks. If you have to keep take damage from weak enemies, they can cherry tap you to death. You can avoid those fights, but you miss out on gold and items that can help you later on, delaying your death. On the other hand, if you get good boosts and items, you can clear out floors without taking any significant damage and have plenty of health and equipment for when actual challenges come up. As a result of this luck-based gameplay, I often found myself restarting the game on the first floor without making a move when I see the items on the floor aren't useful. Resetting so many times really made Joey's whispering chatter grate on my nerves. I ultimately found myself becoming more irritated if I played for over an hour, and not in the good sense of being positively challenged by the game.

    It's true that there are many game where luck plays a factor, but it really seems like luck is notable here. In a game like The Binding of Isaac, luck plays a factor in whether your first power-up is something awesome, like the ability to heal from explosions instead of getting hurt, or something useless or detrimental, like a health booster on a character with no health. However, the player's skill at fighting enemies and making the most out of given resources can help compensate for bad luck. In all fairness, maybe I'm spoiled by being able to sometimes get a character build so powerful I can literally defeat the actual final boss by standing still, walking away to make a sandwich, and return to find myself unscratched and victorious.

"I don't understand why you all hate Afterbirth + so much. I mean, Delirium doesn't seem that difficult." - Me, to those who constantly complain about Afterbirth + and Edmund McMillen in general.

    The second major thing about this game is the fact that, to me, I keep feeling like this is a watered-down version of Desktop Dungeons. Both games have the same single-screen dungeon aesthetic and it's quick to play a complete round with either, but Desktop Dungeons has a good deal more complexity, strategy, and replay value. That game has a variety of classes with their own pros and cons, and that makes it so different resources have different value for each round. Playing through I Am Overburdened just makes me think about the things it lacks compared to Desktop Dungeons.

    While I wouldn't say I Am Overburdened is a bad game, I feel like some of it's design choices wind up limiting my enjoyment of the game. The game's mechanics run fine, but the heavy emphasis on hoping the dungeon generation goes in your favor makes it so a good amount of the time, your run's success is preordained to be a failure. The game is supposed to be a satirical take on loot-based permadeath RPGs, but the satire never really came through to me. It might be worth a few hours of your time, but I'm personally on the fence on how good of a game it is.