Hero Siege – Review
Follow Genre: Diablo, Roguelite, Bullethell
Developer: Elias Viglione, Jussi Kukkonen
Publisher: Panic Art Studios
Platforms: Android, iOS, PC, Linux, Mac, Switch
Tested on: PC

Hero Siege – Review

Site Score
8.0
Good: The game has a fantastic price point, and really feels like a better Diablo 3.
Bad: Makes up for its low price point with a lot of expensive DLC
User Score
9.3
(3 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)

Hero Siege is a dynamically changing Diablo-like, with roguelite & RPG elements. It’s the cartoon equivalent of something like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile, but with cartoonishly over the top 2D sprites. The comparisons really don’t stop there, with the game taking almost all the better parts of those games, like greater rifts, paragons levels, etc. The story isn’t much to go on, but the pure love for the genre that seeps into every inch of the game is what makes it so worthwhile to pick up and give a shot. You’ll move from level to level, with randomized layouts and creature placement, trying to pick up the best loot and make it to the exit gate so you can move on and do it all over again. The gameplay loop is pretty addictive, and it does seem pretty conventional from the initial few hours, but it really expands as the playtime adds up.

Story

There’s not that much of a story to latch on to this game, but there are different acts in the game, with each having its own final boss you have to conquer before moving to the next act. There are seven acts in total, with six of them being in the base game, and the final act being downloadable content you can purchase. You’ll play as one of a variety of classes, set out into the world to defeat Damian, the son of Satan, and his army of monsters who have taken over the land. That’s pretty much as far as the story goes, so there’s no surprising twists or shocking revelations you’ll stumble upon, but the sheer variety of environments you’ll travel across as the story progresses is what really shines.

Graphics

The world of Tarethiel looks really great and the environments are all very detailed and full of life. Some of that life consists of some horrible monsters, but they’re all very well drawn and have a variety of unique and visually interesting aura to them that it’s hard to really imagine you’ll get bored of murdering them in a bunch of creative ways. The player-models also have some really nice attention to detail, without losing out on the readability of the game but it’s here where the game might put a lot of players off. The game itself is cheap and well worth the £6.99 purchase, but with that small initial entry fee, it seems the developer has opted to sell quite a lot of small microtransactions. However, there’s a lot to chew on with that first purchase, and 99% of the game will be available with that. There are 22 different skins, and almost all of them look really fantastic. It does beg the question of how they’ve gotten away with some of them though, specifically all the Blizzard skins. I’ve seen Soldier 76 from Overwatch, Sylvanas from World of Warcraft, etc, and each of them costs around £5. You’ve also got a bunch of other customizable aesthetics you can give your character, and the range is huge. Want to look like Luffy from One Piece? Minecraft? Halo? Dated memes? This game has it all.

Sound

A variety of monsters, weapons and classes need proper sound effects that really set them all apart and make them all sound enjoyable to hear. You’re going to be grinding these levels over and over again, so the music has to be almost non-intrusive to the experience. Even that song you love more than any other gets boring after a few listens. The developers behind Hero Siege understand that and give the game ambient tracks that can sometimes pick up into more interesting songs as the gameplay gets more intense. You shouldn’t go into this game expecting an orchestra every time you enter a new area though.

Gameplay

If you’ve ever played Diablo 3, or any of its contemporaries, you’ll know exactly what to expect on the gameplay side of Hero Siege. You’ve got 17 different classes in the game, with another one coming shortly, and each of them has their own skill-tree with passive abilities, and even some really splashy interesting ones. On the first playthrough, the choices were pretty limited with my Redneck hero, but with the arrival of season 10, each class now gets two separate trees they can choose from. The game is really made for you to play while doing something completely different though. The main difficulty comes from kiting your enemies, and avoiding being swamped by hordes of enemies that can potentially one-shot you. So in that regard, it plays just like Diablo 3, but the game actually has a lot more in common with Diablo 2 than anything else, with the game having its own mercenary system, the older battle.net system, etc. It seems to find a really great balance between the two titles.

One of the elements worth mentioning is relics, which are items that you can pick up that might give you passive buffs, extra stats, activatable abilities, etc. that you take with you to build your character up. You can only have one activatable ability at once, but you’re allowed to have 31 other passive relics. When you die though, you’ll lose them all, so you’re really going to want to avoid that or face starting again.

There are two separate modes for you to play on: local, and online. It’s worth noting that local accounts can’t actually be used online, so we’d actually recommend creating an account and jumping in online from the get-go. This is where you’ll find difficulty sliders, and get any questions answered from your fellow players in the general chat. From here, you can see what people are up to with a server list, each showing the difficulty, and what people are just generally up to as they play. You’ll start the game off in normal mode, but there are a variety of different difficulties, with the endgame really beginning on the satanic difficulty. It’s in this mode you’ll find satanic items, the strongest item type in the game, which will drop randomly, or you can roll some loot table NPC for the chance of something great. There’s a higher tier of items above satanic, but the drop is so rare that picking it up sends out a message into the general chat of your server, letting everybody know what you’ve found. On the other side, if you die on your hardcore character online, the server gets told you’ve died too. It’s a funny feeling seeing the general chat spam, “F”, “RIP”, etc. whenever this happens. With this social element, comes something big that Diablo 3 seemed to drop: a player economy. If you get something and you don’t want it, trade it to someone that does.

Conclusion

With the game being revamped with season 10, the game has only gotten larger, and more fulfilling in almost every way. The initial difficulty makes the game really easy to get into, but it really does feel like you’re just running around, slamming a few buttons and feeling like an invincible warrior. The higher difficulties change that and make you keep on your toes, but if you’re looking to use the ol’ brain a bit, it’s maybe a good idea to up the difficulty from the get-go  If you’re looking for a cheap game that you can spend a bunch of hours on a game with an active player economy, servers across the globe, crossplay with mobile, Switch, etc. then this is a game that’s a fantastic way to spend your time.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Hero Siege - Review, 9.3 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

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