The bottom-of-the-screen idle game genre has been blessed with as much trash as it has treasure. With the genre booming and much gaming to be had, Duelist: Idle Expedition has some strong competitors, but there’s plenty to discover for those looking for a new adventure.
Build Your Squad
Duelist: Idle Expedition sits comfortably at the bottom of the screen, allowing your team of up to four combatants to face off against waves of enemies. Your squad will happily march forth, collecting loot automatically until facing defeat. At this point, you can return to camp, where you reorganise your squad, level your recruits and improve their equipment before setting off once more.
For the most part, this is the gameplay loop of Duelist: Idle Expedition. You equip your squad, you choose a location, and off you go. However, you will need more than levels and equipment to clear the map successfully.
Level Up Your Camp
Your camp screen serves as a hub for all of your upgrading and development needs. As you level up, you unlock new tents that include the blacksmith and tavern, where you can get recruits and equipment. Each unlocked building has a feature that either improves your recruits or generates income, giving you flexibility in how you use your resources.
I found the Class Hall to be the most interesting. Here you can unlock new classes of heroes so that you can retrain your recruits into a higher-tier class. Naturally, you can try to hire these classes in the tavern, but you can’t guarantee they will have the base stats that you want. Unlocking each class also gave me something extra to aim towards, such as crafting 50 of an item or defeating specific enemies, which I really appreciated.
Not that Duelist: Idle Expedition is lacking in things to do.
A Questly Quest
You are given two types of quests in Duelist: Idle Expedition: challenge and follower.
The challenge quests work to guide you through the different boss battles and items hidden in each camp facility. These usually come one at a time and have no time limits.
Follower requests usually encourage you to use the camp facilities by spending money or upgrading your squads. Although they are optional, ignoring them will leave you wanting when you want to upgrade your camp. They are also timed, so I would try to do them right away, then return to whatever task it had pulled me away from, which is where Duelist: Idle Expedition might get a bit heavy for some players.
Squadded Up
Duelist: Idle Expedition is a great idle game. You set up your squad, aim them at an enemy, then ignore them for an hour or two. However, it does require a lot of micro-managing before this stage, especially once you unlock six squads.
Although you can largely get away with just having three mega squads kitted out for battle, each of your four squad members still requires individual levelling up and equipment. This means managing at least twelve characters with only auto-equip to help you.
You can be lazy with your organisation, but it will slow your progression immensely if you don’t check in with your squads and level them up regularly. However, you won’t be able to overcome “boss battles” without some level of team management.
Who’s Da Boss?
After completing an area, you can enter a boss battle. Boss levels are battles where three teams face off in a knockout round. Your team is usually healed between rounds; here, you are not. Some speech bubbles have a vague plot inside them, but otherwise the mechanics are largely the same.
You also unlock extra “duel” battles after clearing all levels in a zone. These work the same as boss battles, but unlock squad skills once you have cleared them all. They’re worth doing for the squad skills, but not every skill will appeal to every player’s strategy.
Good Stuff
I wasn’t expecting a lot out of Duelist: Idle Expedition, but it managed to surprise me.
The pixel graphics are deceptively intricate and endlessly charming. Each new area has a beautifully designed backdrop, and uncovering the over-world map was incredibly satisfying and kept me invested. It took me a while to find everything that Duelist: Idle Expedition has to offer, but I think there’s just a lot going on. The user interface was pretty clean and easy to navigate once I figured out what everything was.
Supporter Pack
I also received the Duelist: Idle Expedition – Supporter Pack as part of my review. This adds background packs and seasons to your camp. Although it’s totally optional, I like that there’s a way to further support the game should players wish.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed Duelist: Idle Expedition and plan to complete the expedition on my own time. Normally, I would try to finish a game before writing my review, but I believe I have at least 200 hours of gameplay left in my run.
If you enjoy idle games, then Duelist: Idle Expedition is worth the investment. The micromanagement of recruits can get crunchy (especially if you start sacrificing recruits for better stats), but I think it depends on how deep you want to go down that rabbit hole.
Platforms: PC
Publishers: Infinity Fun
Developers: One Interactive Studio
Played On: Steam
Key Provided By: Developers
About the Author
