Ever wonder what heroes do after they’ve saved the world?

We all know about the majestic heroes that save the land from evil villains that look to bring chaos upon the world. What we don’t know about is what happens to the heroes after they finish saving the land from the forces of evil. While there is no definitive answer, Has Been Heroes has an idea on what happens.

Has Been Heroes follows three, once great, heroes as they answer the King’s call for one more quest. The great Knight, powerful mage, and sly thief embark on the important mission of…………..brining the King’s daughters to school!!! The heroes must traverse the dark forests, escape the dreary swamp lands, pass through the fiery lands to get the King’s daughters to school on time. Now that I think about it, maybe they should relocate to a different school at this point if this is a normal trip to school.

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As I first played Has Been Heroes, the gameplay mechanics were some of the strangest I’ve ever witnessed. Combining real-time strategy, turn-based strategy, and lane brawler felt overwhelming are first with a massive learning curve to overcome. After playing the game enough times, I’ve started to grasp on how to successfully maneuver character around to survive.

Gameplay involves moving around the map that is located at the bottom right hand side of the screen by selecting where to go next on the map with the right stick. The map locations vary offering shops to purchase equipment, stamina camps to rest and restore stamina, battles, and a few other varying locations. You must make your way through the map to the boss area to continue the story, but it’s recommended to stop at the various shops to progress even further. This matters as there aren’t any save points, you must progress till the end of the story in one run. While this may seem overly difficult already, it gets even more difficult.

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Battles have you facing off against waves of enemies until a bar that runs across the top of the screen runs out. Enemies have stamina blocks that showcase their defense against your attacks as they try to defeat you, and take the King’s daughters. You must strategically place the three warriors in ways that not only deplete the enemies stamina, but allow you to deal damage to the enemies to push them back. Players have the ability to use normal attacks, spells, and items they’ve picked up across the map to stop the enemies. Using the left bumper lets you pause time to plan out your attacks. This becomes vital as many times you’ll become overwhelmed with numerous enemies. After one of your heroes attacks, you can switch their lane with another hero to continue your attack on the same enemy. While this sounds like a strange tactic, it is almost vital to actually deal any damage to the enemies.

When you do end up failing your quest, which you will fail a lot, you’ll be taken to heavens gates where all the souls of the enemies will be used towards random unlockables. While you are able to unlock new characters, items, spells, and such, you never really know what you unlocked as it tells you nothing regarding what was unlocked. Essentially you’ve unlocked a nice little icon that seemingly does very little.

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While the game is frustratingly difficult, it does look particularly gorgeous in design. The main problem is that most of the enemies you’ll encounter are different variants of skeletons. While some of the skeletons are funny in design, the overall lack of diversity in the enemies really keeps you from wanting to reenter the game after dying for the 50^th time.

Has Been Heroes will offer hours of gaming content, if you’re ok with re-running maps over again because you’ve died a lot. While I found myself going back numerous time trying to better my last attempt, I quickly grew bored as it was like draining a pool during a storm. In moderation, Has Been Heroes can offer a lot of fun times as you gain new spells, and heroes to use. While it doesn’t do much to wow us, we can only hope that it gets a sequel to fix its flaws and hopefully succeed next time.

THE BREAKDOWN

PRO’S  

• Gameplay looks to create an ambitious mix of styles that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
• Maps with various routes keeps you exploring, instead of rushing to face the boss.

CON’S

• While we wouldn’t want it to be too easy, the difficulty is waaaay to difficult
• Lack of diversity in enemies keeps you from wanting to go back for more
• Unlocked items don’t tell you what they are, or what they even do.

*Complementary copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.