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.

My experience with the game has been quite irritating so far. The first and most major problem with this game is the combat system due to how the wait timers that happen between turns due to the combat system being like Chrono Trigger have you waiting 10~12 seconds between actions and that'll add up to a lot of downtime.

This issue is made even more frustrating by the mechanics of the first boss. Specifically the part where the foe who cannot be killed (or given debuffs as far as I can tell) gets to use a blind debuff on your whole party, forcing your damage to an annoying crawl since I didn't see any cure items for that debuff in the shops. That foe also can cast an invulnerability buff on one of its allies (one of them being the boss) that basically renders it invincible for around like 2~3 turns. Already having waited through the surround debuffs to the point where two of my party members died due to not being able to do much but defend, heal, and get killed after healing thanks to the blind, I was left basically waiting for the boss to stop receiving that frustratingly invulnerability buff... Well long story short, after the buff faded it was recast on the boss between my character's turns. That is the definition of an unenjoyable time due to the how all of the random battles before that were painfully slow after a while due to losing patience after sitting through what must have been 50+ wait times between turns.

Also, I thought I was on wait combat (so that the monsters don't kill my allies while I'm deciding what to do) due to how the menu said "wait" when that meant it was the button to change to the wait system but it was really active combat since the enemies were still able to attack. Even after pressing the option to turn active on and display "active" on the menu when the wait system was active, I was confused because of course there were 1-2 second delays on the monster's attacks which would go off when I was selecting my attacks and that also gave me some downtime (via groups of four ravens all using double attacks right from the start of the battle all at the same time on my starting party).

One of the classes in said party was the Harlequin who basically had subpar attacks, one useful enemy group stat debuff, and then the sleep spell (which my Mesmer already had), and then Tarot cards that basically leave whether or not YOU get debuffed instead of the enemies up to RNG. One of said cards that I got was a spell that casted an instant death on my Harlequin thanks to going after dialogue from someone in a town. The walk to the location of that card also delayed getting to that horrible first boss.

This game is very frustrating for people who dislike having to wait 10 seconds between each and every turn (which will add up to potentially over an hour if you stick with the game to the end of the advertised 20-30 hour journey). Also, you aren't allowed to save in the dungeons or towns which is frustrating for people who want to be able to save in towns so they don't have to walk out of the town they're in or go to one of the very few save points that exist. If you need to go in the middle of a dungeon, say goodbye to your progress that was partially gained by sitting there unable to do anything in the game between turns (it gets irritating to the point I'm mentioning it this many times).

The world itself is unengaging, because your character barely speaks, all NPC's have 1-2 things to say at best (and its very unengaging when almost all of them in the two towns in the beginning just give a tip or two about the game), and your companions stay silent. Even before a boss fight, my character didn't say anything before the boss went on to say something like "who dares to disturb (random fantasy name)? who dares to die?" which was cliche and flat due to the NPC's only ever saying "oh no the cave (where the demon was at) is dangerous", which really gives no tension to the fight.

Overall, the game's combat system is something that can't have you sitting there for 10 seconds in between your turns and be something I can recommend. The story is bland with maybe a speck of personality given to only one character in your party, and that makes for an experience that just feels like work to advance the story which isn't worth it. The class system shows some variety and effort, but it's all for naught in the end.

tl;dr: ATB gauge combat system makes you wait 10 seconds or so between turns (REALLY starts to add up and ruin experience after first few minutes), characters/story is dull and cliche, start of game isn't worth going through just to see if late game combat is better.