NOTE: To fully appreciate this review, I recommend that any readers go and play Hero’s Adventure over on Kongregate.
Hero’s Adventure is the latest browser-based game from indie developer Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV fame created for Klik of the Month 50.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m actually a big fan of Cavanagh’s VVVVVV, despite never having actually played it, so when I booted up his latest creation for the first time I was understandably pretty excited.
Boy was I in for a disappointment.
Hero’s Adventure is an absolute microcosm of outdated game design in a modern era. A so-called ‘retro’ turn-based RPG, the game plays out pretty much the way you might expect. The game revolves around guiding a clichéd, boy protagonist on an adventure through the woods near his secluded home, all the while slogging through random encounters and the most mind-numbing of RPG tropes.
As you might expect from such a game, the graphics are rudimentary at best. Characters and environments are blocky, dull and completely devoid of any imagination. I don’t actually have a polygon count in front of me but I cannot imagine that the developer even tried to make this game realistic. The games entire color palette seems to consist of primary greens, reds and blues while evidence of the gray and brown textures that make up 90% of the real world that we all know and love is noticeably absent. Modern techniques that have propelled this industry to mass-market appeal, such as motion capture were clearly kicked to the curb to save a few pennies.
I guess Mr. Cavanagh was just a little artistically pure to use modern techniques that we’ve all come to expect. I’m sure his hipster ‘art friends’ will really appreciate it when they all get together to pretentiously fawn over his creative merit the next time they all get together to try it out over their local Starbucks’ wifi.
Now, all of that being said, we all know that graphics are the least important part of a game. Any game can look like absolute garbage just as long as the gameplay holds up. Unfortunately, Hero’s Adventure’s gameplay is not a saving grace.
“If you find this exciting, I will punch you.”
Combat is incredibly dull and unvaried. With the main character only having access to the traditional “attack-skill-magic” tree of options. To make matters worse, there appear to be only one skill and one spell in the entire game. Neither feels functionally different from the standard attack nor do they have any long, flashy, unskippable special effects that spice up things up.
And if ever a game needed spicing up, it’s this one.
It’s not just that the game is so full of RPG clichés and tropes that make it so boring, but also how it weaves these with the dull affairs of everyday life. The story is an utterly mundane tale about a normal day in the life of any average boy. I won’t spoil anything, but I will say that I for one don’t need a video game that showcases the same sort of things that I did every day for years as a child, I’ve got real life for that. Comingle that with the aforementioned clichés (the first enemy you fight is, honest-to-god, a rat… GAG!) and you’ve got yourself a recipe for hard-boiled boredom.
And to cap off my list of complaints (and, mercifully, this review) the game is unacceptably short. Clocking in at just over two minutes in total play time, the horribly linear quest is not nearly worth the price of admission, in this case that price being free. Whether or not I actually like the game I expect each and every developer to give me my money’s worth. It is up to the players to decide, when they buy a game, what the ‘dollar-per-hour’ worth of that game is.
All things considered, Hero’s Adventure feels like a bland, overwrought, clichéd and terribly short mess of a game. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone except for use as a weapon against a sworn enemy, possibly as punishment for crimes equal to, but not necessarily, the murder of a loved one. That’s why I’m giving Terry Cavanagh’s Hero’s Adventure a 7/10.
SECOND NOTE: This review is, of course, a complete farce. It is intended to be a deconstruction of reviews and ‘fanboyism’ in honor of what I think is a wonderful deconstruction of role-playing games. I would strongly recommend that anyone who appreciates laughing until their bones liquefy go check the game out. It’s really, very entertaining. While you’re at it, feel free to also check out VVVVVV on Steam.
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