Herolike – Preview
Follow Genre: Hack and Slash
Developer: Games Hut
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Herolike – Preview

Good: Concept, Building mechanics
Bad: Artwork are sometimes blatant copies of the 'inspiration source' of the developers
User Score
5.7
(3 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 5.7/10 (3 votes cast)

The glamorous life of a hero, where death awaits you at every corner, people cheer when you approach, as you charge no money for your valiant deeds, and are often quite poor when your heroism days begin. Getting battered, cut, stabbed, shot, enveloped in dark magic is all in a day’s work and even then the arduous task of keeping the world safe is pretty much never over. Come to think of it, being a hero isn’t all that fun it seems, but hey, someone’s got to do it. Perhaps this game might even make you feel hero-like? We were quite curious to see how a game that was inspired by Diablo and Torchlight would turn out, even in its unfinished state.

Herolike

After getting two or three phrases worth of story value about the forces of evil claiming the Earth Stone, the very essence that keeps this world in one piece, you’ll be sent on your way. If the Dark Lord (Someone call Harry Potter, he’ll know what to do) corrupts it, life as we know it will be over, as there won’t be any life left. Once that was settled, we were able to start our journey to the depths of hell, or simply a bunch of randomly generated levels that would take us to the evil being that has caused all this misery.

We’ll first start off with a rather uninspired part of the game. Even though the developers state they were heavily inspired by games such as Diablo and Torchlight, it doesn’t mean you can pretty much copy/paste the styles of said games and throw in a bit of World of Warcraft building models and character models while you’re at it. Even though everything looks rather pleasant, it felt like there was a bit too much recycled material from other games thrown into the mix.

Herolike 1

As expected the game finds itself well within the Hack and Slash genre, and thus you’ll find yourself busting the heads of many monsters in mere moments. You’ll be treated to a rather big map, with different events marked on them, varying between Hostile, Defense, Friendly and Gamble, which is one of the three aforementioned types. In both the Hostile and Defense events you’ll have to clear the map of all monsters, and stay alive in the process, as you have to start over from scratch if you do happen to lose your life. The friendly events are simply small ‘story’ events, where you’ll have to make a choice, which will either lead you further down the righteous path, making you gain renown, or if you’re greedy, you might end up choosing the option that fills your pockets. These friendly events don’t have that much effect, but they do count as one of the fifty events you’ll have to complete before your playthrough is over.

All of this means that every battle is actually within the confinements of small ‘arenas’ and that’s pretty much about it. The current build doesn’t offer that many different areas, situations or even characters to choose from, but the concept and gameplay prove to be quite entertaining. You’ll find yourself limited to two characters in the Early Access build, namely a Guardian and Shaman, who each are able to use their basic attack and four skills that will boost your firepower exponentially. Sadly, you’ll only be able to equip two pieces of gear per character, which makes the overall gear system a bit too simple for our taste. Nonetheless, you’ll quickly find yourself plowing through heaps of battles, simply because the overall formula is addicting, simple as it is.

Herolike 2

Of course, a proper adventurer will have to have his own headquarters and thus you can return to town in-between missions, allowing you to purchase gear and even build structures to create a prospering city. These buildings will end up providing you with better gear (to purchase), more materials gained after each mission or they will even boost your new heroes, after you either die or complete the game. This mechanic actually makes the game very interesting and fun, but the current build is again quite limited in the amount of buildings you can make and thus we hope to see more building and options in the future, as well as better looking menus when bartering with the local blacksmith or merchant.

Missions reward you with money (if you pick some up at least) and building materials. Money is used solely for goods and gear, while the materials will help you build the town into something more memorable. You’ll find yourself with loads of money and building materials to spare, after you’ve finished the game once or twice (in about an hour – hour and a half) leaving you with not that much else to do. Thus we hope to see a lot more content in the future, at least more than merely adding characters to the game.

Herolike 3

Conclusion

Tossing the recycled visuals aside, Herolike has a nice thing going on when it comes to simple mindless fun and the town building mechanic. While there is currently not that much content to plow through, this game can surely become something to remember, if the developers add a lot more items in the future and explore certain mechanics a bit more. Truth be told, we would love to see a multiplayer mode added to the game and of course we can’t wait to try the upcoming character classes. If you like heroes, Herolike might just make you hero-like.

Herolike 4

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Rating: 5.7/10 (3 votes cast)
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Herolike - Preview, 5.7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

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