Has Been Heroes Reviews
Has-Been Heroes is a funny and charming title that blends the age-old tale of heroes embarking on an adventure with the humour of them escorting the princesses to school.
During the times Has-Been Heroes clicks you’ll find yourself having fun with it. If you can stick with it through at least one complete run then the game does open a bit and begin to add some much needed variety. Unfortunately the game also has too many hindrances in its gameplay that will put many gamers off getting that far.
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.
This roguelike’s cool combat system is held back by a terrible structure.
The game being hard isn’t what brings it down. We all love a good challenge. It’s the fact that so many factors go into the actual gameplay, and it simply isn’t worth the effort. It’s stressful for no reason, and it’s unfortunate because of how much I enjoy different “out there” ideas.
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.
A tedious trawl through the worst aspects of roguelikes, turn-based strategy, and bad interface design. Only somehow less fun than that sounds.
Despite having a lot of Items and unique heroes, Has Been Heroes lacks exciting gameplay. The levels become very repetitive very soon and winning some of the battles solely depends on luck. Although strategy plays an important role in the game, but if the game doesn't give you good items, reaching the final boss is virtually impossible.
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Has-Been Heroes is as tough as nails and built for people that like to lose over and over again. The combat offers an interesting twist on a familiar mechanic, but never really evolves beyond that initial learning process. Some of the whimsy present in the Trine series has been carried over here, but not enough to balance out the punishing difficulty.
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.
Overall, Has Been Heroes is...ok. If the RNG was fixed up a bit and the difficulty curve was altered so you're gradually introduced to the game, it would be a pretty good rogue-like. As it is now, it's simply too frustrated and luck-based to be up there with other great rogue-likes like Rogue Legacy or Darkest Dungeon.
Has-Been Heroes is an interesting attempt at a new kind of puzzle/strategy/brawler hybrid, but it’s never as much fun to play as it looks like it should be. It’s a game that has good ideas and strong visual design in its favour, but it never manages to balance the high difficulty level with rewards that make the hardship worth your while.
Despite all of these complaints, Has-Been Heroes isn’t a terrible time.
The core concept of Has-Been Heroes is excellent. I love the theory behind the combat, and I love the exploration. In practice, though, Has-Been Heroes is confusing and fiddly in ways that make it frustrating to play, rather than challenging.
Maybe I'm just a "kick me while I'm down and I'll still get up" kind of guy but the best compliment I can pay Has-Been Heroes is that it scratches an itch I never even knew I had, and I don't come along games like that often enough. Depending on where you are on the challenge-loving scale will likely determine where you'll stand, individual results will likely vary.
Like its titular characters, Has-Been Heroes may look like nothing new, but has a charm and unique style of gameplay that should not be overlooked
A heavy dose of randomness coupled with a lack of permanent progression makes Has-Been Heroes a chore to keep playing. Though there's a good strategy idea buried in its multi-lane gameplay, the high-risk, no-reward setup isn't satisfying enough to make up for its otherwise mediocre aspects. Coupled with repetitive enemies, forgettable assets, and bizarre controls, Has-Been Heroes is a game that can go right back into retirement.
Has-Been Heroes has a genuinely inviting and involving combat system that requires real strategic thought to master. However the rest of the game just doesn’t pull together to form a cohesive whole, with brutal difficulty, frustrating permadeath and an under-utilised premise all serving to taint the end product. It does at least benefit from the Nintendo Switch’s portability, and this is where it’s at its best, but at home you’ll likely be turning it off far quicker than Frozenbyte were hoping for.
Maybe I'm just a "kick me while I'm down and I'll still get up" kind of guy but the best compliment I can pay Has-Been Heroes is that it scratches an itch I never even knew I had, and I don't come along games like that often enough. Depending on where you are on the challenge-loving scale will likely determine where you'll stand, individual results will likely vary.