Idle Horizons' auto-battling has spoiled the lazybones in me (to my inner tactician's demise)
Let the dilly-dallying begin
I suppose I've never really been a master at the art of theorycrafting, but I do feel like I've mastered the art of idling. Honestly, with how lazy I've been in my games lately (not helped by my tennis elbows that have stuck with me since 2020), idle adventures will always be appealing to me no matter what kind of package they're wrapped in.
With Idle Horizons, my idle dreams are fulfilled - it even has that handy "auto-proceed to the next chapter in X seconds" feature I love so much. Essentially, all you have to do is deploy your heroes onto the battlefield in the right positions and then leave them be - at least, until you ultimately perish, upgrade and regroup, then do it all over again.
As you might expect from the genre, you'll need to find favour from the RNG gods whenever you summon heroes to your unknown cause (there's no narrative here, and you don't really need one), as well as use your loot as resources to upgrade your squad. The charming pixel art is a nice touch, and on the off-chance that you're not away from your screen, you can even move the main interface around, scouting for random hidden items just because.
It's just all incredibly idle, and I absolutely love it. The problem is that it's almost too idle, and because it's effectively lulled me to a false sense of security, I always tend to leave my heroes fighting on, only to come back later and find that they've died spectacularly without me even knowing.
The thing is, while combat is an automated affair, there's actually a hidden and very deep layer of strategy involved here, as evidenced by all the theorycrafting and character rankings out there. Some heroes work, some heroes don't, and sometimes, not even a whole bunch of freebies and extra resources can help you if you're not even trying to tune your tactics.
Herein lies the beauty of Idle Horizons - it looks pretty chill on the surface, but there are a lot of moving parts chugging along underneath. You can't just swing your sword blindly, even when you're only starting out. Trust me - Kingmew might look like a harmless, derpy cat, but he's a king for a reason, and you can't underestimate his fancy little crown and that red cape he swings around like nobody's business.
So, the bottom line is that Idle Horizons has given me a pretty serious dilemma - do I keep whiling away my time blissfully unaware of its strategic depth, or do I actually make an effort to strategise stuff myself (thereby nullifying its idleness and the reason why I found it so appealing in the first place)?
I suppose I can let the fates decide by seeing whether or not I can survive my next encounter with the mighty Kingmew. There is, after all, a swordsman in my party named Himmel, and if he's anything like his namesake in Frieren, then he'll make the right choice.
