Developer: Games Hut
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Herolike – Review
Back in February we did a preview around Herolike’s Early Access build, which proved to be an interesting title, when not minding the blatant ripped off characters from other games, and the many bugs the game still had, as the gameplay was original, simple and above all, loads of fun. Even though Herolike still felt like an extremely rough build, the developers decided to release the game not that long ago, which had us wondering if they could have added so much, in so little time. We hoped to see a lot of extra content, diversity and of course the new classes. The latter proved to be entertaining, the rest showed us not that much more than the beta, which made us feel like this game should still be in development.
Story
No story content was added in this final build, thus you’ll have to make do with a few lines of text at the beginning of the game. Simply put, you’re a hero of the light who embarks on his quest to face the dark lord, who will plunge the world in total chaos if it weren’t for heroes like you. While a game like this doesn’t really need an elaborate plot to work, a bit more effort could have been placed into adding some story content, or some background for the characters.
Fun ‘story’ sequences that aren’t bound to the main story can be found in the situational quests, where you’ll have to make choices, which will grant you certain reputation rewards or penalties. Overall this is a very amusing addition, even in its limited and simplistic form.
Graphics
Even though Herolike handles rather light and vibrant visuals, they remain rather uninspired as you can clearly see character models from games such as World of Warcraft and Diablo, altered ever so slightly to look remotely original. While this may not be bothersome for a bulk of the potential playerbase, it just feels like the developers couldn’t come up with memorable characters of their own. The city itself is quite fun to see, as you can build up structures, albeit in a rather limited fashion, and they will also remind certain players of the earlier mentioned games. Monsters have a certain flair to them, but they lack variation, which becomes painfully clear when you face off against the same boss creatures over and over again.
You’ll notice a clear graphical gap/difference between the action portions of the game, the menus and the story quests. While the 3D aspect of the game looks quite interesting and appealing, it’s the menus and story segments that look simplistic, dated and not really finished.
While this may not be a graphical issue, it would be rather great if the developers made sure all of the spelling was correct in the limited story sequences, which is not the case in Herolike.
Sound
As the game is void of any voice acting, safe for a few grunts, screams and gurgles, you’ll have to make do with the limited soundtrack. That being said, the tunes that play in the background are never subpar, they just aren’t that memorable. Nonetheless, they add a proper schwung to the combat portion of the game, while making sure you’re never bothered by the looping music.
Gameplay
Herolike is a mix of roguelite and hack ‘n slash, which comes together as a fun blend. You’ll constantly be clearing small levels, beating monsters to a pulp, in order to build up the town, and finally, after fifty stages, reach the end boss. That being said, if you die, it’s game over, and you’ll have to start from the beginning again. Only the town will remain as it was, keeping track of the buildings you erected.
After picking one of the five classes, you’ll have to stick with it until you either clear the game, meet your early demise or simply delete your character. You’ll notice that many classes feel and handle the same, one being more squishy than the other, while others handle ranged skills better than their skullbashing counterparts. Upon leveling, you’ll get to distribute three stat points and one skill point, making sure you can mold your character the way you see fit, over the course of the fifty levels to come.
The levels are divided between short arena-like battles, defense sequences where you have to protect your base, light signal fires, escape from lava or make choices depending on short situational sketches. All of these different scenarios reward you with money, experience, renown and building materials, but the small story segments in which you have to make a choice depending on the situation at hand, you can make you actually lose money or a bit of your reputation. That aside, the combat is fluent, and you get to choose between a hack ‘n slash kind of control scheme, or a traditional one. The first depends on mouse combat, while the other requires more input from your keyboard. We liked the first option more than the other, but both work fine, and are just a matter of personal taste.
The town mechanics are rather fun, as it motivates you to think which structures will aid you best in creating a proper encampment to aid you in gearing up, providing you with more materials or simply grant you better starting bonuses for future characters. Overall this is probably one of the most fun features of the game as it creates a very interesting goal for you to pursue, sadly it is limited beyond redemption at this current version of the game. After one to two runs through the game, which takes about two to four hours, you’ll already have a fully upgraded time, making it rather useless to keep playing the game, as it lacks any multiplayer features, has a very bland ending and no goal after your town is complete. We hoped to see a lot more content revolving around gear, which you can buy from the merchant buildings you construct, or simply a lot more buildings which unlock new stages, monsters, or simply ‘content’ for that matter.
Even though most of the gameplay sound rather interesting so far, the game is hampered by bugs and lots of them. Every few levels we noticed that we had to exit the stage we were in, simply because the monsters did not spawn. Other situations pretty much killed us outright, as the game prevented us to move, access menus and so on, forcing us to watch our untimely death, simply because a bug that was reported months ago, still isn’t solved in this final build. More than often we found ourselves unable to target a monster because he was behind a tree and we can keep the list going for quite some time. This should not be the case for a game that is considered a final build.
Conclusion
In many ways it pains us to see that this title wasn’t properly taken care of before it was pushed to its full release. While many fun facets of the gameplay still remain, the bugs and the very limited content drag the whole title down. In its current state, this title should still be in Early Access, or at least shoved back in the oven, as it’s simply not done cooking. If you want a hack ‘n slash title, with fun roguelite elements that can keep you occupied for a few hours, then this one will still do the trick, but prepare to feel like a beta taster, rather than someone who can simply enjoy the experience at hand.
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