Hero's Realm

Completed

Griever plays Hero’s Realm:

Gameplay: 10/10

The battles in Hero’s Realm are well balanced. You’ll never get frustrated with this game, although you will usually find the battles challenging when you enter a new area or come up against a new boss. Bosses are worth a special mention because, although they pose a credible threat in this game, they aren’t the ultra-immune titans that bosses are in many other games – especially other games of the type Hero’s Realm is aiming to be. Being able to use your skill sets to their full potential is very rewarding (in a strange way), especially when you eventually find that one status-effect or element the boss is especially weak to.

Exploration is also handled extremely well in this game, and I don’t just mean at dungeon level. Sure, the dungeons are well mapped and are a joy to walk around, but your exploration is rewarded just as much on the world-map level. There are a lot of games that don’t utilise the sense of exploration and conquest you can get out of a properly designed world-map, but Hero’s Realm is definitely one of them. The way exploration's very much a part of the game’s setting is also good to see. NPCs are often talking about exploration in this game and they will usually give you a good reason to stick your hiking boots on and have a look around – many even have optional quests you can take up to gain a little more gold and experience.

When used, the puzzles are quite thought provoking, which is really their only aim. The only problem in this department was a slight penchant for arrow-tile puzzles, but they weren't used so often that it ever got annoying (and I am actually quite a fan of those kinds of puzzle if they are done well!)

The standout gameplay element in this game, though, is saved for the fifth chapter. Bringing the four parties of the previous four chapters together results in having four parties to play with at once, something that has been used and abused to its fullest potential. It’s because of this that some of the end-game dungeons are totally amazing. Remember Kefka’s tower in Final Fantasy VI? Yeah, like that.

Basically, this game ticks every box on the “how to make a fun, generic role-playing game” checklist.

Classes: 7/10

Class development is well worked, with the classes being differentiated enough from one another that there isn’t too much overlap between them. This means that building a good party is a key factor in your progress, especially when some areas only allow you to take certain types of character with you. The fact that you get to build four parties over the course of the game makes experimentation a real possibility as it removes the problem of having to start over to try a different set up.

However, the fact that the “main” hero in each party has a set development sometimes makes the party selection a little less rewarding/entertaining than it should be. The “main” heroes usually have enough skills to balance out any weaknesses your team might have and – at the same time – seem to develop a lot of the same skills as each other (I’m 99% sure they all develop fire and healing-type magic whilst you have them). The secondary commands they have work well to alleviate the latter of these two problems as they do a lot to make each “main” hero different to the others, but I still sometimes got the feeling I could get through the game quite easily without having to balance my party at all…

Storyline: 6/10

“A big, evil thing is coming! Gather your party and destroy it, hero!”

You would probably expect something akin to the above, but you’d be wrong. The storyline in Hero’s Realm actually comes together quite well because the individual stories that bring the four heroes together are actually decent (if slightly extremely cliché). The first four chapters of this game are basically there to remove the “chosen ones” dogma most games of this kind have, successfully setting this game apart from other games of similar ilk.

The storylines are by no means brilliant, but they do a decent job.

Graphics/Mapping: 10/10

First off, the mapping in this game is excellent, especially from a gameplay point of view (see the gameplay section). Each dungeon is really well designed, as is the world-map), and the result is a game that is really fun to walk through.

I don’t have many complaints about the graphics, either. The graphics used reflect the type of game this is very well, and because of that they work. This game is definitely an example of “RTP done right” and, although there are little edits thrown in every now and again, none of them ever clash. The result is a game that is very consistent graphically.

Music and Sounds: 8/10

The music is good in this game, although it is littered with songs you will have heard before. This doesn’t particularly annoy me so long as they songs are used in the way they were intended to be used (and that is the case here) but if you are one of those people who doesn’t like hearing well-known tracks in a game then perhaps you won’t enjoy the musical score quite as much.

The sounds are also functional, although most of them are from the RTP (I think). Again, if you’re not a big fan of games that use the RTP sound effects (I know that the combination of common tracks/RTP sounds does annoy some people) then you can again knock some points off for this section.

Overall: 8/10

Man this game is long…

But despite it being long you will enjoy it all the way through. The gameplay, especially the exploration and battling, is top notch and are more than enough reason to play this game. If you’re a fan of traditional RPGs then just do yourself a favour and download this now.