Not a Hero

Not A Hero is direct, fiery and wonderfully entertaining. Without a doubt one of this year's best action games.

Relentless action, strong gameplay variety and a killer wit make Not a Hero one of the best indie games of 2015.

It is well made and feels so amazingly solid, it is just a shame it is over too quickly.

Bringing fun in abundance and a criminal amount of puns to the table, Not a Hero is a cult-classic in the making, cementing itself as one of the best indie shooters around.

If you like classic shooter, you should definitely give this one a chance.

Roll7 delivers yet another unique experience, also addictive and fun. If you're looking for a shooting-based game like you've never seen before, Not a Hero is the right choice.

Wild and funny 2D action game, inspired by Hotline Miami, that is peppered with a challenging difficulty along with crazy humor.

Not A Hero may not star a hero, but it is a heroic effort to freshen up the 2D shooter scene. It's not easy to stand out in the vast crowd of pixel-art indie productions these days, but Roll7 pulls it off, and such craft is enough for Bunnylord to get my vote.

A bright and fun side-scroller that you can lose hours in, or just play for a few minutes - either way, it will keep you coming back. [July 2015, p.64]

Between the outrageous story and visuals that ooze 8-bit charm, this is a great game to scratch that retro itch - if a little steep price wise. If you like indie pixel-art games, you’ll probably enjoy this.

Not a Hero is a truly enjoyable run and gun, easy to understand, with some great ideas and challenging levels to play with all the lovely playable characters. It has a fantastic personality and even if it lacks of leaderboards and some more levels, it can still be played again with satisfaction.

Not a hero has the flavor of an ancient game of yesteryear and the speed of a title run-and-gun.

Not A Hero is a game that rarely slows down, offers a ton of variety to both primary and secondary missions, and is seeping with beautiful nostalgia. While it’s sometimes wearisome trying to get through a single mission that keeps getting you down, when you finally get past that hurdle, there’s always something new waiting.

Not A Hero is an unforgiving and relentless dive into the world of politics, bullets and ballots. Silly, violent and nostalgic in all the right ways, it’s strangely weird and gleeful attempt at winning votes with swift deaths and top notch level design.

Addictive, spectacular and enjoyable shooter with a decent dose of humor.

Not A Hero thrives in its messy, hedonistic chaos.

I have to admit that I wasn’t easily sold on Not A Hero. It was difficult to figure out how it wanted me to play at first, and even the easiest levels saw a lot of dead BunnyLord minions due to arguing with the combination dash/cover button and forgetting to keeping an eye on my ammo count. Then I learned to play it right and then it all made sense, with each level becoming a test of both action and course execution.

Not A Hero may not constantly tickle the funny bones, but its lighthearted satirical moments and thrilling combat make the game something special for players after a challenge.

If you’re looking for some politically charged, bloody action, then Not A Hero will get your vote.

Not A Hero is another great title from Roll7, and another must play title for fans of games that make you pull out your hair with their difficulty, but give you the best feeling imaginable when you clear a level.

A Bunnylord, gruesome pixellated deaths, politics by force, and sliding while shooting...After reading that, you already know if Not A Hero is for you.

Despite its quirks and difficulties, Not a Hero is a spectacularly addictive game.

Its fast-paced action might take a little while to come to grips with, but once you do, Not A Hero is a non-stop action ride, filled with all the pixel violence and dry humor you can handle.

It's easy to dismiss this as Hotline Miami with a different point-of-view, but Not A Hero stands on its own merits as a frenetic shooter.

An interesting and, importantly, fun game with enough going for it to keep you coming back, trying out new and different things and generally helping out in one of the most violently dodgy election campaigns ever seen.

A tight, funny, smart, focused, super-violent 2D cover-shooter that works a whole hell of a lot better than you might expect.

While the novelty eventually wears thin due to lack of variety, Not a Hero offers its share of moment-to-moment thrills. The simple tactical action is sure to please players in the mood for its quirky vibe and pulp setting.

Roll7's new game tries to re-imagine the cover based shooter in a bi-dimensional game. It doesn't succeed, but the game is fun enough to catch your attention during its story.

Not a Hero is the pixelart counterpart to a lot of Jason Statham movies: The two-dimensional action is brutal, over-the-top and redundant – but tremendous fun.

Not a Hero’s ultimate statement is a brutally cynical one, but its political nihilism is always portrayed with such glee and good cheer that the unease is hard to feel until the game is shut down.

Not a Hero is one those games that is fantastic at the beginning, but that feeling doesn't last too long. After a few hours it's less entertaining but that's ok given the price.

Not a Hero is a fun game, with a surprisingly solid gameplay despite the relative simplicity of the concept. The story, though framed by a true concentrate of action, gave us some hilarious moments, and the madness of the developers has been poured on Bunnylord and other characters that populate this title.

A ballet of violence, that is what Not A Hero offers. If it works, it feels like magic, but it is too bad that the fun violent gameplay gets interrupted by slower and more boring moments.

The difficulty can be a bit much at times, but when all is said and done, there's no getting around the fact that the BunnyLord's team is one you want to be on.

Mixing influences such as Canabalt, Broforce, Hotline Miami and Gunpoint, not a hero sadly misses to get the most out of this quite prestigious list of games. In spite of an oriented sense of humor and a weird story, the game manages to be quite joyful with a nervous gameplay and a good replay value thanks to the random character system.

Feeling both nostalgic and fresh at once, it’s an entertaining slaughterfest with a strange sense of humor, a gleeful celebration of comic butchery that takes some fairly dark material and makes light of it effectively.

Ultimately, Not a Hero is a good game that gets in its own way with a poorly executed final third and increasingly hit or miss humor.

It’s not a bad game nor a very good one. It can offer 2-3 hours of non-stop action (that is if you skip the lengthy cutscenes) but it will probably be forgotten the moment you finish it. BunnyLord should seriously consider a more rigid campaign if he tries his changes on another election.

In this 2¼D world, Not a Hero is largely successful in imitating the frenetic action of Devolver’s other gore-fest Hotline Miami. It also plays very similarly to the aforementioned Broforce, letting you have your twisted, violent fun in the first few levels as you blast your way through the enemies with as little restraint as you desire.

There are way too many 2D pixel art action games. One can both great and bad pieces among them as in any other genre. Not a Hero with its quick action and surprisingly robust tactical elements fortunately belongs into the first group.

Like Bunnylord himself, fun at first and then a bit of a grind.

There is hope some of the issues will be ironed out in the future, but don’t let that hold you back from checking it out now and enjoying the great soundtrack that comes with it.

Not a Hero does a lot right - the cover-based shooting in 2D environment works incredibly well and the comical setting and writing do a lot to set the mood. However, it’s more in what it doesn’t do that holds it back from being as memorable as some of its contemporaries.

Combining with frantic combat and an utterly barmy sense of humour, the side-scrolling action of NOT A HERO can be just as unforgiving as it can be enjoyable. Providing you have the patience to overcome its challenging later levels, BunnyLord’s flawed yet commendable political campaign is certainly worth your vote.

Not a Hero is an addictive action game. You will enjoy shooting criminals and samurais, but you will feel that all action is very repetitive too.

Like Roll7's first game, Not a Hero is light on overall mechanics: It's a cover-based side-scrolling shooter stripped down to its bare minimum. That helps the game rip along, as you and the BunnyLord slide and murder your way into power. The humor may fall flat for some and there's a bit of repetition, but Not a Hero is a ton of fun.

A fun, funny, and wonderfully gory 2D shooter, but it’s not quite as tightly designed as OlliOlli and certainly lacks the same longevity.

It's a game that dares to be bold, even when it leans on the side of weird a bit too often.

Translating cover shooters into 2D makes for a good mix of contemporary and classic sensibilities. It's nice to play a shooter where avoiding enemy bullets is a bit more necessary and I like the tools Not a Hero provides with its slick cover system, mechanically varied cast, and constant chain of slide kicks and executions.

Not a Hero's humor may not always hit the mark, but the action makes up for it.

Hotline Miami meets Gunpoint, gets lost in its own jokes, and ends up with middling approval ratings. [Aug 2015, p.69]

One of those indie games that in theory do everything right but lack a spark that make them memorable. [07/2015, p.65]

There's a flash of brilliance in how Not a Hero tackles the cover-based shooter genre, excising the meticulous stop-and-pop loop and replacing it with unceasing carnage. But it can be hard to see that flash after your 30th failed attempt of a mission, when you're still trying to figure out where the game even wants you to go.

The underlying controls are fun and fluid, but the lack of variety leaves the game - and therefore its player - wanting. [Issue#162, p.106]

I don't know what a chocolate and monkey milkshake would taste like, but it somehow sums up Not a Hero perfectly.