It has been a long time since I’ve dipped my gaming toes into a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). It’s quite possible that Lord of the Rings was the last MOBA I played, and I enjoyed that one very much. The strategy snagged my interest while also introducing me to a new genre that I had never tried out. Even though I played the hell out of LOTR on the PlayStation 3, that wonderful experience in the MOBA genre sadly did not propel me to League of Legends. Could have been a different career move. Maybe a championship or two. *looks up at the future that never was*
Nah. I wasn’t that good.
Anyway, developer Sunblink has brought their own flavor of MOBA to the world, though one that is more side-scrolling with some minor RPG elements involved. HEROish is an action strategy that uses MOBA and deck building at the heart of it all to produce an entertaining experience, though one that is short in longevity.
Let’s get it going.
Gameplay that has a mixed personality
I have never in my life seen a MOBA that was just pure side-scrolling. Typically, MOBAs have three lanes of traffic to traverse and have multiple points where you can stop enemies or at the very least create a choke point to slow enemies and strategize. For HEROish, it’s just a left and right motion with multiple tiers during certain levels. Moving through a MOBA like this where you create characters to fight alongside you while figuring out how to best use them can be tricky when you don’t have the space to stretch your strategy out a bit. The lack of a trio of lanes takes away the strategy to pick/choose who is going to do your fighting for you to help get you to the end crystal to destroy. Certain helper characters should be sued for certain lanes of enemies. It’s a strategy lover’s dream to juggle such decisions. It’s interesting what is taken away from the MOBA structure when you change how the genre functions, especially when those lanes disappear. Is all this bad? Well, yes and no.
It’s not bad because this comes straight from a mobile port. If you know much about mobile games, having a MOBA function properly would require a big screen. Mobile devices, even when they’re the ‘pro’ or the ‘plus’ size, just don’t do this well. Because of this origin story for HEROish, the game works fine with what you’re given. If you can imagine the amount of space needed for a MOBA, then you understand why Sunblink might have gone in this direction when it was designing the game. Honestly, it’s not a bad direction to go, as the chaos is far more focused and in your face than a bird’s eye view of three lanes. Call me crazy, but dealing with three lanes of action can be a bit much, especially for an old person like me. With HEROish’s one lane in a side-scrolling environment, you can see everything that is going on and you can prepare for powerful enemies much easier when you’re close. It works and it can be a lot of chaotic fun at times.
So, what is the flip side of the coin? Well, as previously mentioned, when you’re trying to figure out which troops to send in to take out the baddies, there is no real strategy for decision-making. You’re essentially just putting in your more powerful characters and creating a bunch of lower-power characters to overwhelm pretty much everyone. It just makes the experience ridiculously easy, and less strategy-driven. This goes full circle back to coming from a mobile gaming world. Casual gaming (a term that is not insulting, but rather used for something that means ‘short experiences’) lives on the mobile platform. HEROish was developed for that platform and works in a stop-go manner while not asking the user to think too heavily about their method of play. You simply build troops, point them at the bad guys (and they’re going that way on their own), and keep replenishing them as you lose them.
This is all half of the gameplay experience. I can give some concessions to the gameplay structure for coming from a mobile platform. I just wish there was a bit more strategy to the action. Part of the joy with MOBAs is that they are engaging at a cerebral level. People are drawn to that as if it’s a true battlefield situation that you’re trying to figure out. That is why Age of Empires and Total War are such big sellers for gamers.
The other half of this game that helps the above half out is deck building.
Calling Cards
The troops you use come from a deck of cards that you’re building as you progress through the game. You earn cards by defeating levels of enemies, and each card comes with a different type of attack or defensive buff. As you gain cards, you also gain coins from successful mission completions and from treasure chests scattered around. The coins can be used for upgrading your cards, which makes them more powerful and somewhat more durable.
In traditional MOBAs, you would gain buffs and coins to use within each match and not carry them over beyond said match. For HEROish, you can upgrade cards and keep them upgraded throughout the experience, or throughout the three stories presented in the campaign. In this respect, the game also contains a very lite version of role-playing game elements. You are essentially adding more skills to your players and unleashing them on sometimes unequal matchups. It does make the game more fun, as you can grind and build up your characters to a high level before going into major quest fights to further the campaign.
To access these character cards during battle, and they’re randomly chosen for you during fights, you have a point counter that counts to 36. Each character has a counter number on them that they require this counter to hit before they can be sent into battle. Part of the game’s charm is trying to decide on the fly when to access a character card and if you should wait for better ones versus weaker ones. This is probably the most strategic part of the game, but a fun one nonetheless. It’s fast and furious, especially when there is a screen full of chaos going down in front of you.
Now, the variety of cards you can get come in basic, easy-to-understand structures. There are brutes which are tank characters that are hard hitters and tough to take down. They cost a lot of points to access, but they’re as brutal as their namesake. There are also buff-ers, which help to buff up the characters on the battlefield as you push forward. This could mean better protection or better offense. There are characters that shoot from afar rather than hand-to-hand. They are good when you’re needing some assistance for the frontline troops. There are also flying characters, that are tough to hit, and frontline grunts that are sadly expendable. HEROish does give you a variety of cards with cool character animation to boot, so the choices aren’t small. You can carry up to 12 cards at a time and you can switch them out with new ones when you feel like it. Though, I will say that when you’re reaching the end of each campaign story (total of three) you basically stay with what you have as a mid-game hand can usually tear through everything.
As you can tell, the deck-building aspect of this game plays wonderfully with the MOBA part and creates a fun adventure that is more casual than LoL serious. Keep that in mind when you’re looking at this game. It’s not your traditional MOBA, but it’s fun in short stints.
Short Stints
If there is a knock about this game, it’s that it can be short. I think it took me three hours to play through the entire three-part campaign. I did play it on a normal level, so I would imagine if I made the difficulty a bit more challenging then that timeframe might extend. As it stands, the game is short, but it is meant to be replayable, and the multiplayer component might be the main reason why you return to this game repeatedly. Again, it’s born from the world of mobile, so it would make sense that its focus after the campaign would be pushing the player toward the MP mode that would extend the life of HEROish. And there isn’t anything wrong with that strategy because it has worked for Call of Duty FOREVER.
That said, if the MP isn’t your cup of tea, then be prepared for a short stint of gameplay.
Goofy Graphics
I don’t mean any slight with that subheading. The graphics are simple, playful, and typical of a MOBA-style graphics package. You have very playful, cartoon-like characters that don’t take the story too seriously, but do enough to keep your interest. From a narcissistic Thor character to a giant beastly noisy creature, you’re going to find some visually appealing animation that will put you in the mood for hacking and slashing, as well as deck building. Don’t expect any ray tracing here or a high frame rate, but do expect some visual fun.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
HEROish is a fun MOBA-deck-building adventure. While it does have quite a bit of mobile personality to it, including a short gameplay time, it is still entertaining in its simple strategy and action execution.
