In the end I became dangerously addicted to Has-Been Heroes. I couldn’t put the game down because of how much depth there is to the gameplay. Chaining melee and spell attacks across the 3 heroes and landing a ton of damage on an enemy is incredibly satisfying. Or that rewarding feeling you get when finally figuring out a strategy to defeat the boss and progressing further into the game. Make no mistake, Has-Been Heroes is a hard game and not for the faint of heart but if you enjoy a fun, rewarding challenge, at $20 it’s a must have for your Switch collection.
Despite some flawed execution, the core concept of Has-Been Heroes is strong enough to recommend the $20 downloadable title. It isn’t quite the endlessly re-playable adventure implied by constantly changing maps and a rotating cast of characters, but the bite-size dungeon crawling action is perfectly suited to a portable option like the Nintendo Switch.
This game is original, fun to play and totally worth $20.
I have over 25 hours of gameplay in this game so far. Its been an addiction and I can't stop playing. This is the game I want to play all the time on my Switch. I was hesitant to get this because of the negative review, but I am SO HAPPY i disregarded them.
The artwork is great, the strategy is solid. It takes all my brain power to actually play this game, which is very welcoming for an experienced gamer like me. The controls still aren't 100% 2nd nature yet, but I have no real alternatives for suggestions, so I'm fine with it. Not sure how else you are going to control 3 lanes other than mapping them to 3 buttons.
So the rest of this review is defensive. But it has to be given the lower score. It makes me sad because these low reviews are THE REASON games don't experiment too much these days and typically play things safe. For the sake of the industry I'm going to defend this game.
I am floored at how many reviews I've read where they haven't even beat the game and criticize it. Learn how to play a game before you review it, seriously (yes, even IGN)! I think game review sites are starting to have more and more newbies writing reviews, or they are just getting too corporate and want to get the reviews out the door. ITS TRAGIC because this game is really great. I think there are a lot of people writing reviews on this that don't even like the genre or didn't actually take the time to fully learn the mechanics and strategy.
For instance, I read one review, and they guy said you couldn't see the information on stuff before you picked it up, but could on the PC. NOT TRUE! You can't see info on items you get for the FIRST TIME because you don't know what it is, which is kind of cool. Then, FOREVER. You can see the info before you pick it up. GUYS, come on! Learn games before you review them.
Maybe I just grew up in a time when games had no real tutorials, but I'm fine with this game not teaching me and letting me slowly figure things out. Its fun. This game is fun and its great quality. I think maybe its too smart for most people, or people are just impatient and have too many games to play now a days to relax and learn?
People say this is a "Plants vs Zombies" clone. Give me a break! Its not even the same thing by FAR. PVZ is tower defense. This is NOT tower defense. Where are my towers? I have CHARACTERS that move back and forth. Do they think its like PVZ because it has lanes? So do many other games (with that definition, is this a Subway Surfers clone too?). Is this like PVZ because it has undead? So do many other games. Maybe Has Been Heroes has some influence from PVZ on their art? Who knows, but I'm fine with that. I love PVZ art, its great and fun just like this game.
Seriously, most of these reviewers are immature and too quick to judge. This game really isn't like PVZ at all and I can't believe how many times I've read that.
People get upset that they die? Boohoo. You unlock stuff when you die and start over. Its all on your head, dummies. You aren't really dead, you keep the same characters and go on another adventure with new stuff. Its fun! And each time you beat the game you unlock more heroes! I'm sorry you can't get over your ego enough to think you should be alive at all times in all games, or somehow its not fun for you because you don't win 100% of the time.
Buy this game if you like a strategic challenge, fantasy setting and are mature enough **** that many games now a days feel too easy. This game is really rewarding if you take the time to learn it. Its not impossibly hard, you just have to think. Every time I lose, I get what I could have done better (though occasionally I get a really really bad role, but thats interesting too) .
This game is polished, original, done really well and totally worth $20. I mostly love it because its not like anything i've played and thats the reason we play games, is for new experiences.
Critic reviews completely off base. Game was hard at first but with some time you figure out the mechanics and nuances and it becomes incredibly enjoyable and addictive. Have spent 50 hours with the game and still discovering tricks especially as you unlock items/spells. There is a component of RNG but that makes each run different based on what items/spells you pick up, and has not held me back from now clearing up to the 8th (final) map before unlocking the second set of heroes.
Belongs in a Switch game library. Easy to pick up/play and saves progress immediately if you go play something else.
Critics need to re-visit this game and give developers their due.
Has-Been Heroes could be better if it had more depth, far more addictive if it wasn't as repetitive, and, most of all, an unquestionably worthy purchase if the gameplay didn't rely on randomness as much as it currently does so. Long story short: very one-more-try-ish, but also in definite need of some tweaking.
Has-Been Heroes is a game that is full of great ideas but gets dragged down by poor execution. The way it combines RPG and roguelike elements with basic tower defense gameplay has so much potential that it unfortunately can't live up to in the face of imbalanced difficulty curves and unwieldy controls. It feels much more like a proof of concept that, with time and updates, could some day lead to a great adventure.
Has-Been Heroes includes good ideas but is let down by an insanely high difficulty level and a lack of reward. You'll enjoy it in bite sized chunks via handheld mode to begin with, but you'll quickly grow tired of feeling like you're making no progress.
This is one of the best games I've ever played, and it's at a 52 on Metacritic.
Tragic.
Partly this is because the reviews were done before a Day One Patch dropped the difficulty, and partly it's because the reviewers were embarrassingly incompetent.
This is a game that rewards investment and pays deep dividends for climbing the learning curve. Yeah, the game is hard. It's also EXTREMELY rich and worthwhile.
IGN, for example, wrote a review without completing a single run. That would be equivalent to reviewing Dark Souls 3 without finishing the tutorial boss. They effectively didn't play the game they were reviewing.
If you've read this far in my review, spend the $20 and get this amazing game. Persevere. It's *worth it*.
Pro tip (you'll thank me later): Candles are spent on *edges*, not *nodes*.
You're welcome.
Has-Been Heroes is an action roguelike strategy game developed by Frozenbyte and published by GameTrust.
Has-Been Heroes is like no other game I have played before. The best way to describe it is it reminds me of The Darkest Dungeon. The reason for this is the fact that if anyone of your party members die, you have to start all over again. And you will die a lot in this game. At first this can be annoying, but once you get over it, the game becomes almost addicting. I found my self saying, just one more play through....five hours later I am still playing.
The story of the game is rather simple. A rogue is on her way to the castle hoping to run into the heroes of legend. The warrior and wizard have been summoned to the castle for a task ordered by the King. Of course the rogue meets up with the has-been heroes and they agree to allow her to join them. The King then tasks the heroes with escorting his daughters to school, as the road there has been crawling with monsters. So the five of them set off on their journey to the school. Along the way an evil spirit sets loose many monsters to attack the Has-Been Heroes and thus the game begins.
Each area is procedurally generated and the game starts off with only two areas to conquer. The goal of said area is to reach the boss and defeat him. Along the way you can run into merchants, camps, spell vendors, and treasure boxes. Each of these will have random items you can buy or find. Collecting said items can help you survive the many battles that you will have along your path to the boss. Once you reach and defeat the boss in an area, another area opens up and you guessed it another boss to kill. If you are successful in defeating both bosses the game ends and starts over from the beginning. This can also happen if any of the three party members die during your travels. Yup, you only get one life and once you die the game starts all over again losing all spells and items. A fresh start to say the least. This may sound annoying, but like I said before once you die the first time or beat the first two bosses you quickly understand what Has-Been Heroes is all about.
Tactics and strategy is the heart of this game. Plan your moves wisely, and take full advantage of the pause button. See, during any battle with the many enemies you can encounter or bosses you can fight, the combat is simple. The rogue gets three hits, wizard two hits, and warrior one hit. Of course the warrior is the strongest of the three and hits pretty hard. But items can help raise the damage of the other two party members. The interesting thing about the combat is when one party member attacks the game pauses, letting you switch party members and move them around the three lanes. How this helps is knowing the enemies that are attacking you down those three lanes. It is very similar to Planets vs Zombies. Enemies attack down all three lanes, and you can move your party members depending on which ever enemy is closest. But the strategy is to match the party member with the enemy of similar stamina. Monster's can have a range of stamina from one point to five points. What you want to do is switch around your party members to knock out the stamina matching their attack number and then switching in another party member to deliver the final blow. If done correctly, you can combine some deadly combos this way. So it is always best to plan your moves and attacks. Of course the game doesn't make this easy. It throws in some randomness to make things harder and thus ends up with you dying a lot.
Though dying is ok in this game, whether you die or defeat all the bosses your reward is unlocking more Heroes, Items, Monsters, and Areas. To unlock these you must collect souls, and souls are only collected by fighting the battles in an area. So if you mess up or the RNG is unfair, the souls you collected are totaled up and you see what you have unlocked. Starting over from the beginning is not so bad, because now you have more chances of getting better items in which you just unlocked during your next play through. It is hard to describe, but once you play this game it can become very hard to put down. You'll always end up saying to your self, just one more time and then before you know it five hours have past.
At first glance it may seems there is not much to this game. Go through random areas, fight monsters, collect souls, die or defeat all the bosses and then rinse and repeat. But the more you unlock, the cooler the items become and monsters you fight. Adding to the challenge of the game.
Conclusion:
Overall the game is fun and can get pretty addicting at times. I found it hard to put down once I picked it up. But the RNG can be very unfair at times and can leave you demoralized. I really liked the combat style, it is unlike any I have seen before. If you are looking for a roguelike strategy tactics game, then pick up Has-Been Heroes.
(I could've sworn I already wrote a review for this game)
This game has SUCH potential. But it seems hidden behind a series of barriers, where the devs feel confident in projecting a message of "mad cuz bad".
The difficulty curve is nice, but the game seems to not be protected against algorithms where you are literally thrown impossibly difficult scenarios. Even if you build up your heroes, you can be cut down by some absurdly OP, multi-hacking creep, reaping the benefits of a nearby speed aura.
The devs feel this is appropriate? Fine. Make some way to continue the game. The absolute zero restart is a cheap and unconvincing way to punish the player, and to quote PlayerEssence, it just makes you feel like they don't respect your time.
Other than that, the game is well-structured. The reward tree could throw you a bit more. I've still put an ungodly amount of time into this game.
Éste indie no es para todo el mundo, requiere de un arduo aprendizaje hasta dominar los controles, y poder desbloquear la larga cantidad de objetos que el juego esconde, por lo que si no te gusta mucho perder seguro lo hallaras frustrante y repetitivo.
El juego es una especie de Plants vs. Zombies con menos carriles, mecánicas más complejas y menos tiempo de reacción. En general los gráficos y la música están bien, pero el duro trabajo no se ve redimido al final de la experiencia.
Si te gustan los desafíos pruébalo, suma tenerlo en Switch porque es el único medio de jugarlo en forma portable, pero no recomiendo la compra salvo que ya lo hayas tenido entre manos o esté con descuento.
A shallow purchase I made on the first months of the Switch's lifetime, where if you had already beaten BOTW there wasn't a lot to do. The game is not bad, mechanically, it's just not compelling enough to merit the grind. I would not recommend it.
SummaryEmbark on an epic journey with the Has-Been Heroes, a group of legendary champions once celebrated throughout the kingdom - almost forgotten until the King has one more quest, the most epic of them all:
TO TAKE THE TWIN PRINCESSES TO SCHOOL!
Key features:
* Meet the epic band of heroes as the young and eager Rogue, joining the c...