Heroes of Steel is a tactical RPG set in a grim post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Coordinate your party of four heroes in turn-based combat and navigate a engaging world and story.
Mostly Positive
282 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
I first played this on a pad during long cross-country flights for work, so I rarely finished a run. To support the Devs during a sale on Steam, I bought all of their old games, including this one. I installed and played for a few fun hours. The Trese Brothers are one of the best and most supportive Dev teams out there. I highly recommend joining their Discord channel and you can ask any and all questions and get answers in less than 24 hours, frequently in less than an hour, for all of their games, some of which are over 10 years old and still supported, um, like this one. =) Their top two games are "Star Traders: Frontiers" and "Cyber Knights: Flashpoint." Both are fantastic and I have played hundreds of hours in each of them. I highly recommend checking them out.
enemies do entirely too much damage its not fair I like the game but even on easy its too hard
+Decent music
-Clumsy UX/UI
-Feels like chore to play; everything is pointlessly slow
-Terrible aesthetics; especially the 2D art
= While I absolutely love TRPGs, this just doesn't work for me at all. I wouldn't recommend this for me so I won't do that for you either.
A really fun rpg game. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you're looking for a post-apocalyptic rougelike with a deep story, you should give this a try
Game doesn't work on Windows 10.
After making a comment that my bad eyesight is making traps nearly impossible to see, the developer emails me some files to turn the trap tiles a bright yellow so as not to ♥♥♥♥ over my game.
11/10 devs. Absolute stars.
This game is amazing.
I love dungeon crawlers. I love tactics games. I love RPGs. I love games that only cost $3 on sale. I love every game the Trese brothers make. This game checks all of those boxes, and is quite possibly the best game in any and all of the aforementioned categories. What a gem! In case the reader is curious, this game easily contains 200+ hours of content in a single playthrough
Correct
It doesn't look like the magic system as applied to weapons works at all. I had a magic weapon made which had +10 lightning and +10 fire. I didn't ever see them work. Attacking and Buffing spells seem to work okay. But Spells applied to weapons seem to do nothing.
AMUSANT ET STRATEGIQUE
Fun.
This is a great way to spend your time if you need to kill a few hours.
I played for a while on a rainy day. Played 2 different groups, all different. Very much fun.
Love the simple of it all.
This is D&D, circa 1994. But much better.
I think the Witch is better at healing than the cleric, Paladin rocks in Combat... Cleric can heal and fight some, can not take a punch well.
Rogue and Thief rock
Wizard is better, but both spell caster are good
Both fighters are good. The Cavalier get's dodging and other guy get's heavy armor.
Use the Thief/Rogue to look ahead with their abilities.
Wizard and Thief rock with missile weapons.
Have fun. This game... 8/10
-1 for lack of choices in classes
-1 for lack of Races in player creation.
Stürzt andauernd ab. Unspielbar für mich.
Heroes of Steel is a well put together game. I enjoy the characters and the chemistry they have with each other throughout the story/game. The combat can be unforgiving if you try to bulldoze your way through (I do not recommend doing that lol). If you take some time to prepare get better positioning that is the way to go.
The levels are big and love the way it reveals as you go along. The skills and leveling feel good and rewarding as well. With all of this said it is a long game but if you like party turn based games this one is a steal and no brainer to buy and play!
"We have HeroQuest at home-"
Dev was responsive when I had a game crashing bug by the hour. Also, +1 for the interface, and the ability to glob and de-glob by a toggle key your party into one icon for travel.
I played it for a while but the limitation one your character skills and stats really irks me and I would not personally recommend it.
Making matter worse is the pacing and stupid level scaling ... making you always feel under powered.
Why does a turnbase crpg have LEVEL SCALING????
This game is good enough for me to recommend.
I reached level 17 and I'm near the end of Act II so far. The criticism, which you can read in other reviews, is fair.
* you will spend most of your time in fights, I personally don't mind this
* the AI is dumb and it will usually attack nearest target, it gets boring
* the maps are huge and you will fight the same enemies over and over, it is repetitive
* the enemies level together with you, this makes the fights challenging and they last longer
* items you find are really bad but it starts to get better
On the other hand, the fight system is party-turn-based, you can do whatever you want with your characters as long as they have Action Points. You can move one, cast spell with other one, go back to the first... I like the freedom.
Also leveling is interesting and building a cohesive fighting unit is a challenge. You get one free respec for each character.
I can live with the flaws and enjoy the game because I play it in small chunks. LIke a mobile game. When I have a bit of time, I fight two or three battles and then quit. This mitigates the flaws for me. I think that trying to play this game from the beginning to the end can leave you disappointed.
Unfortunately, I've run out of patience with this game in its current state.
Every single, even minor, battle, takes an absolute eternity, in part because of the enormous amount of off-screen enemies that pour in every time, but largely because every single character fights with a level of accuracy that would embarrass a hungover XCOM rookie- my rogue taking 7 attacks in a single turn and missing every single one, even with every accuracy buff available, was not an uncommon occurrence.
Movement on the map is, in most cases well done, with some minor pathfinding issues over long distances, but nothing terribly bothersome. Movement in combat is likewise well done in a way that avoids accidental clicks ruining a run, however when combat first begins, it will occasionally interpret regular movement as combat movement, sending your character rushing into a large group of enemies- this will most likely be your greatest source of deaths.
One extremely irritating part of moving outside of combat is the game treats enemies and items as identical. There is an alert when enemies are nearby, which stops character movement, with an accompanying text and sound alert. Unfortunately, this same alert occurs when a chest or hidden item is nearby. This extends to the Farsight/Sneaky Look spell, one of the key mechanics the game stresses. Normally used to check for enemies, traps, or secrets behind doors or around corners, since enemies and items are treated the same (and enemies don't render until combat begins), an empty room with one lone chest gives the same feedback as a swarm of enemies.
Using abilities in combat is inconsistent as well- aside from the unusual choice of having the basic attack in the fourth position, some abilities remain selected after use for the next action, while others (typically healing/buff spells) don't.
It's not a complete disaster, however. The writing between the characters and story itself are compelling enough, if lacking in proofreading- there are multiple occasions where characters repeat a previous line by mistake, but this is forgivable if slightly annoying.
The bigger issue is inconsistencies in world- a "twist" which occurs early on is the discovery of a species of rat people using mining picks, since apparently this species "don't use human tools".
This species has been fighting you with swords, bows and arrows, and magic staffs, for several hours, at this point in the story.
The combat is balanced enough that using combat items besides basic health potions is actually necessary to keep your team in shape, which so many RPGs don't get right, and there's enough variation in character growth options to refine to your own personal strategy.
One of the frustrating aspects of combat is that every enemy starts with the same AI- attack nearest hero, always. This means the early game consists almost entirely of sticking your tank in front while your ranged damage classes whale from behind and melee damage class runs hit-and-run attacks every turn. Enemies do become more complicated after the second major boss enemy, requiring you to make good use of the terrain and line-of-sight to protect your softer classes which adds a lot of interest to combat, but due to the aforementioned eternity that each fight takes, this occurs roughly 30 hours into game, which judging by the achievement numbers, very few people have had the patience to reach.
There's definitely a potentially great game here beneath the grime, but as it stands this game feels like it needs more time in the oven, in a way that won't be fixed by putting out new characters to play as.
It reminds me of Tunnels of Doom for the Texas Instruments
I haven't played much yet but I know a good old RPG with DnD vibes when I see one.
And the Trese brothers update their games relentlessly, even this one after 10yrs. That alone deserves a blue thumb.
Simplistic , boring and outdated with flavor of old school RPG.
Tight design and very high replayability. The evolution of character abilities is incredible, the gameplay is addictive. You will learn to flnch at goodies!
Heroes of Steel is a solid party-based tactical RPG. What it lacks in innovation, it makes up for in polish.
The Underdark is underrated.
With a little patience you will find outstanding tactical game play, which features a highly satisfying power curve.
Character development is complex and has a healthy variety of synergy, with MANY options on the medium difficulties.
The game is LONG, and the battles can get samey with a slight lack in enemy variety. This is fine if you like the tactical fighting as much as I do, and the set piece/boss battles are GOOD.
The story is excellent, though skipable if that's not your thing.
I've gotten used to the UI - it's not bad, perhaps old school, or just old.
The visual design is good enough? Sound and music is weak, but I turn that off in most games anyway.
It's actually replayable too, if you want to try Nightmare/Ironman. This is where the game shines (glass cannon builds not allowed), and there's no shame in digging up a group guide from the outstanding Trese Brothers community.
Take your time, this game is a throwback, but is aging brilliantly.
nice fun game to play remind me of the old d&d game played
Comfortable old fashioned turn based strategy RPG. If you like this sort of thing you'll love it.
The game is great. The developers are the best aspect, they are responsive and committed to the quality of their work which is high. Lengthy review incoming...
Pros:
Content - There is lots and it is a great story. The world is engaging, the characters are interesting and distinct.
Gameplay - Turn-based squad tactics. The balance is fine tuned, especially on Nightmare and sometimes you just need to pray to Lady Chance when you end a turn that your no death run doesn't turn belly up.
Replayablility - Its a LONG game but there are meaningful choice differences that people invested in the story will want to see
Builds - 9 Characters and you can't take all of their abilities. That means that there are hundreds of ways to build and fine tune parties to take out the denizens of the Underdark.
Updates - While this particular title is quite old (I think it came out in 2013 on android) it has received a multitude of updates all with customer feedback taken into account. Even now, 10 years later, the developers added another character with all new combat and world interactions to explore. Their other products receive the same love.
Cons:
Graphics - Its an older game and the characters and sprites, as I understand, were hand drawn by one of the developers. He clearly improved over time when you see some of the earlier drawings compared to the later. That being said, the graphics are simple and appeal to a certain aesthetic (I personally love the later stuff, not a fan of the early stuff)
Length - Over 100 hours for a full run through even on normal. Its a slough, I personally found it satisfying with the story but some parts of the game definitely drag. Just remember that you can step away and come back later.
Dialogue - The story is great but the dialogue reads similar to comics. That appeals to many, not as much to me.
Mechanics - This game is very fine tuned on higher difficulties and poorly planned parties will leave you frustrated. You can avoid this problem by going to their website (startradersrpg.proboards.com) or joining their discord (Trese Brothers Games). Both are usually quite active (the discord more so) and the developers almost always chime in and try to help.
RPG au tour par tour old school
scénar plutot linéaire
Absolutely fantastic CRPG!
The RPG Pillars of Character Progression - Loot - Combat - Story are all super strong here. Admittedly it is a bit combat-heavy, but there's a cool overarching story and lore as well to have fun with. But the Loot, Progression & Combat aspects are done *extremely* well and are a serious joy to play. Plus, it's old-school in the sense that it's a HUGE RPG, especially after the devs had added a bunch of free content to the game over the years! I am 65 hours in at this time and only starting Episode 2 out of 4, so I am nowhere near done with this stellar gem. If you like old-school CRPGs or tactical combat and character building, you have to play this one - the Trese Brothers devs are super talented and have made a game worthy of being an all-time classic released in 2013. It's *that* good!
Fun RPG. Simple graphics. It's fun.
Bad graphics and awkward interface. On the other hand, the gameplay is good and the price is very low.
é meio travado no começo, mas depois vai embora... os atributos dos personagens parecem não fazer sentido, mas conforme vão evoluindo, combinando auras e passivas, vão ficando fortes e o jogo vai ficando mais empolgante, o capitulo 1 é monótono, no capitulo 2 as tramas melhoram bastante, e logo em seguida são inseridos undeads, e na minha build os personagens estão dando críticos de 500 até 1000 de dano, estão com bastante regeneração de mana, somados com a cura do paladin, não dependo mais de regeneração de acampamento... Não sei em que parte do jogo estou, mas creio estar do meio para o final
After nearly 60 hours, I've had enough of my time wasted.
I originally picked this up in 2017 and put a few hours into it. It didn't grab me at the time so I shelved it. Fast forward five years, and I decided to try it again. I must say I really enjoyed the first chapter of this game. Being a gang of prisoners on the run, turning into heroes, and uncovering a greater mystery. The story is really well told, problem is you have to go through countless laborious battles to find out what happens next.
The start of the second chapter, the game really starts to slow down. The encounters are more and more frequent. Even though your heroes get stronger, the game has LEVEL SCALING which I'm generally not a fan of. So really, any talents you acquire are moot because the enemies are always a level higher than you. The enemies don't respawn, so don't think about grinding. I made it through the battle with the Orcin and was really hoping that was the end of the slogfest. The next quest I took on was investigating the underground cult. No joke, I have spent probably 20 game hours (maybe more) just in these caverns, fighting countless hordes of the same several enemies. You need to constantly pre-buff and use most of your spell points per battle, so you have to rest after at least every other battle. My fatigue at this point was really starting to grow and the game was on thin ice as far as testing my patience. And then, finally, the breaking point: realizing at close to 60 hours there is no way to flee a battle. No matter how far you move your characters away from the battle, even if the enemies choose NOT to pursue you, you will stay in combat mode until you either kill the enemies, or they kill you, and you have to respawn. There is just no reason for this except for lazy design. Speaking of lazy design, the loot: I have found the same pair of bracers at least 8 times, and almost the same ring/necklace another dozen or so times. The sheer randomness of the loot found equals the randomness of your hit chance and damage done. No matter how high I pumped up my cleric's hammer skill, her hit chance was still far lower then any other character. Almost as if these buffs/stat increases really DON'T matter.
I really hate leaving bad reviews on indie games, and I am watching their next title in development, Cyber Knights. it looks really promising, and I'll probably buy it when it's out. I just can't recommend this to the target audience (fans of the Gold Box series or Shining Force) due to the randomness, the pace, and the seemingly intentional time-wasting mechanics implemented in to the game.
good game better than i expected
Great old skool turn based fun
Great RPG game. Great story line. Choose your party, then get ready for a lot of fun. Level up your chosen characters and try not to let the Ratkin eat you.
Turn based, 4 party members, RPG, replayable, not open world.
Choose 4 of the given characters, replay with a different combination of characters for a new experience.
Good design and challenge up to half way point. Took 100+ hours to get there and I quit.
This is a great rpg with a fun tactics system and a surprising deep story. I finished it in 180 hrs so it is a very large game. You are not presented with a lot of choices but the ones you make have effects on the story. The game does have a ton of fighting as it is a tactics game, but it is satisfying and in the end game your party feels very powerful. The developer is very responsive to questions and he even fixed my save game for me when I had an issue with a side quest. That is a level of customer service that is rare. I also own Star Traders and Templar Battleforce from the same developers and they are also both great games.
This is a great game from a great developer who stands behind their product and if you have any interest in tactics rpgs with a deep combat system and story, you should give this game a try.
[b] Pros: [/b]
+Challenging tactical combat
+Good story
+Long game (+150 hours for a full playthrough)
+Fun exploration
[b] Cons: [/b]
-Combat can feel repetitive and tedious
-Some areas feel unnecessarily big
-Sudden difficulty spikes
Heroes of Steel is a good tactical RPG with a surprisingly well written story. The game is heavily focused on combat. The combat is usually fun, although some dungeons can feel repetitive when you're fighting the same enemies over and over again. Leveling up and equipping your characters feels fun, as does exploring the game's many dungeons. However, some dungeons can feel frustrating to complete due to their sheer size, especially when you're going back and forth from the resting area to restore your health and mana after every encounter.
Overall, I would recommend this game to hardcore fans of turn-based RPGs and dungeon crawlers. Casual gamers will likely find this game too boring and frustrating to finish.
A very fun game for RPG lovers!
The art style brings a lor of nostalgia, it looks like may games you searched and played years ago when you didn't have a good computer but had the spirit of adventure, that is this game, a pure RPG with an interesting background story and fun turn based gameplay in less than 300 mb!
Simple and fun but strategy and tactics matter.
The games is brilliant: the mechanics are good, the story is nice, the world is unknown, the graphics and sounds are ok, the music is meh but you just turn it off.
This games studio can really create good RPGs.
UPD (10-20 game hours later): After I completed first chapter the game is becoming too repetitive. Before that the game was really good.
This could be the problem with me, not the game though as I become quickly bored with the games.
世界観はすごく良い。戦闘や装備の更新も序盤は楽しい。
中盤頃から理不尽な敵のＨＰと、敵の数にうんざりしてくる。
魅力はあるけど惜しいゲーム。
Neat little RPG/Dungeon crawler. I found that I enjoying it more than I thought I would and am spending more time, too. I am really liking the "fog of war" set-up where I am stumbling into fights with more mobs than I realize!
+1
Very nice tactical turn-based RPG. Would be nice with some more music, but after playing some music of my own in the background, it is just very satisfying with each critical hit.
TL;DR = Minesweeper the RPG
This isn't a bad game, but I the game is INCREDIBLY TEDIOUS b/c you have to constantly check for traps. You also have to run back and forth to your camp site to rest after every battle which makes it even more tedious, but this would be forgivable if not also for trap checking mini game.
There are many keyboard hotkeys, but you end up using the mouse a lot b/c there's you can't move your characters with the keypad you would expect with similar type games. Not a huge problem, but would still be better to be able to use keypad.
As other reviews say, you choose from 8 pre-made characters rather than making your own. I guess if you like JRPGs then you will be ok with this. I prefer to make my own characters and also have somewhat open class systems, but there aren't many similar RPGs like this game so that's why I decided to buy this one. You do have some freedom customizing your characters' skill progression and attributes.
I might end up playing this game more just b/c there are few games like it and probably not another sale for awhile, but I have chronic pain in my hands and don't feel like spending all my time checking for traps. I thought this was mainly combat and light story.
There is a skill for automatically finding traps, but it only increases in 5% increments so you have to invest heavily in the skill to make it useful. I'd probably recommend the game if not for the trap annoyance, but even then it would be a lukewarm endorsement at this point
12-17-20
Runs great on my iMac with Big Sur.
UPDATE 3-14-21
Windows do not resize properly when in full screen. Otherwise works great.
It's a decent game this, and will definitely be for some people. I enjoyed it for a while, but the roleplaying elements were a bit too sparse & didn't connect with me either. Was a bit too dungeon crawlerly for me. Would recommend playing though, as it will be up a lot of gamer's streets.
I've been after something like Rogue on the Atari ST https://ataricrypt.blogspot.com/2017/08/rogue.html
Anyhow, this isn't the same obviously but the atmosphere reminds me so much of that game and the action points / turn based method is awesome. This is something to make you think but not too much that you're not enjoying it. I still consider myself an RPG novice but I'm absolutely loving everything about HoS. The interface with regards to purchases and the inventory is a little confusing however. Perhaps i'm just used to Diablo 3 in that respect? Loving it!! Great game.
What a terrible, terrible game. Ugly graphics, a bizarre interface, and boring combat. This game has one of the largest gulfs I've seen between review scores and quality, and the reviews aren't even that good.
Look, it's nothing to scream from the rooftops about, but the story is engaging, the combat is tactical enough and and the characters are as varied as you can expect from the format. I'm 12 hours in and I'm not sure where the time went but I do know I'm entertained. It happened to be just what I was looking for when I gave it a go. It's a tiny bit buggy and fails to explain a few things but this just creates a little more challenge. There isn't really any save points but you can go to the same rest points infinitely at no cost so you do need to excercise self control to find the challenge sometimes, but it is there. I would give a solid 7/10, probably 8/10 for it's specific genre.
I don't think this is a good game. Good for a first game attempt at programming, but the clunkiest thing in design. I know I've got 280 hours on it, but it's more of a time waster when listening to some pocasts. Also nostalgia.
- The progression is very slow and as the new abilities don't change rules of the game much. The improvement is usually linear, as in numbers getting bigger. The biggest game-changer you get is your spells' Area of Effect getting bigger after investing A LOT into a spell. The creators are scared stiff of giving the players any power or trump cards. There are no effects to mix things up. Nothing like poison, charm, summon (not for you), or manipulating the terrain.
- It's all about combat, but the combat is very static. The game is one endless repetitive grind. Majority of encounters are resolved the same way, by relying on your one tank. It can get kind of complex strategy, but it's always the same strategy. And when this strategy starts failing because there is no cover, you rely on a huge supply of potions and powders to save the day. There is little you can do in terms of changing strategy, it's set in stone.
- Other people did mention the scaling level of enemies. Yes, they're all your level +1, so you always fight them the same way.
- Not only is the combat boring, it's also slow. Even maximum speedup is not enough.
- The loot sucks. Again, the creators are afraid to give you anything powerful or unusual, or perhaps not good at programming it. The characters get so specialized that you can only pray for a good drop, but the stats of the loot are spread all over the place, so that almost nothing is useful to your party.
- There is an option to forge artifacts, and it helps a little, but the option to add an item to influence the stats simply does not work. Nothing I add influences the result in any way. It's not even random, it's like the result is preset for a given item.
- The game creators sure do love their animations, but much of the time you can't tell if an enemy blocked your blow or got hit, the difference in animation is minimal. You pretty much have to learn how an enemy looks like when hit, or wait a long extra second for the numbers to appear.
- The blood splatter on the ground is always red, even if you fight bloodless undead or insects or whatever.
Yes, the game is huge and the variety of enemies is great, and the story is quite deep (pun intended) and original, and I returned to the game to see how it ends. But it should be about four times faster to be still fun. Make sure to play Helherron.
Another veritable hidden gem.
If you are good at math and can get past the barebone graphic, this game can literally last hundreds of hours as the Trese Brothers kept adding content over the course of 5 years.
Hot garbage, frankly. Opaque mechanics, poor writing and translation (assuming this wasn't written by native English speakers - if it was, that's even worse), incredibly grindy.
With so many good games out there, this one's not worth your time.
OK game for $10. Worth the price.
Simple a little time consuming but fun old school D&D game
Fun tactical RPG with decent story and lots of character specialization choices.
Feels like a mobile game and had a terrible UI. The game is also very repetitive and gets boring quickly. Even being a sucker for tactical RPGs I couldn't hold interest to play this.
Is it possible to release the text files to be translated?
I wish there was a neutral button
i really want to like this game, i retry it 3 times and i just can't go further than the first chapter
The fight suck and take too much time and unbalanced.
with a tiny rat can block 3 attacks coming from my main warrior it pissed me off, and i get hit every time and you have to use so many potion it's ridiculous.
Story is nice
so if you like to wander around huge empty map and fight stupid OP monster this game is for you.
I love turn based party games, and I loved this.
Your group is composed of believable characters with their own motivations. They don't need fancy graphics. The story is acted out cleverly, with characters standing up, pacing, and sharing their internal thoughts with the player, even as they quibble with one another.
The story is spread out between long combat sessions. I would even call it grindy, but at the same time I couldn't stop playing. Combat mechanics are a powerful combination of simple yet challenging. I think I've died 116 times now? No problem. No need to restart the battle; just redo the last combat round! It's addicting.
This is an excellent turn based dungeon crawler. The story is quite entertaining (I have yet to finish, so can't go much farther there). The games is recommended mainly for the turn based tactical combat. You build a team of 4 characters. There are multiple talents for each, and each can be built in different ways. The challenge is to build them so that they complement and support each other in combat. Each turn requires thought and planning, one misstep can result in a death. There is an active forum and discord where the devs are very active.
lekker ouderwets zoeken door de map.
nadeel is dat je wel erg vaak wordt aangevallen en weinig kans om te levelen
TLDR: Excellent Pick up and Play tactical RPG, hours of entertainment, but if the perceived quality doesn't strike you as worth the price tag for a mobile port, get it on sale.
Full Disclosure, if necessary: I did back the Trese Brother's recent kickstarter for their upcoming Cyber Knights game.
If Templar Battleforce is the Trese Brother's answer to the Space Hulk board and video games, then Heroes of Steel feels like it's taking a page from another Games Workshop title: Warhammer Quest; only not just that, as I swear there's a lot of inspiration from Spiderweb Software's Avernum series (or maybe I'm just associating the whole 'underground society' thing...). Either way, whether intentional or not, this strategy RPG feels a lot like Warhammer Quest, but with far more story thrown in, and excellent for pickup and play, as is only befitting a port of a mobile game.
[b]The Good[/b]
The story is fairly standard fantasy fare, even using the second most used party starter known to RPG's where everyone starts as a prisoner, but it's interesting enough to keep me going, figuring out one more mission, learning one more plot point, discovering a bit more about the setting and why while I'm pretty sure it took some inspiration from Avernum, it's certainly not ripping that series off. I've only just finished the first chapter in the series and I'm eager to learn more about the intrigue and conspiracy behind the machinations of main Ratkin antagonists of that part of the story.
The characters are fairly generic archetypes of a melee oriented class, a ranged/roguish class, a divine class, and an arcane class, but the characters themselves are more than just attack types. They have motivations
Game play wise, it's simple, but engaging. Most battles are fairly easy, with a few large scale conflicts that had me using more resources, backing up into narrow hallways to funnel the enemies to me, while cursing the fickle gods of RNG when an attack doesn't hit (those gorram giants rats are less like ROUS's and more like Bulls, given their HP and how irritating they are to take down). Perfect for 'one more battle' or 'one more dungeon' mentality. Leveling characters presents enough abilities to focus or divide your focus on, while with attributes and skills it's easy to pick a main one or two while keeping a secondary and tertiary one in the wings.
I originally got this game when there was only the first chapter or two available, since then the Trese Brother's have added more and more chapters, and concluded the game some time last year? Or was it 2018? Either way, they've continued working on it, with a new 9th class release on the horizon. Definitely a plus, already had hours of enjoyment, looking forward to many hours more!
[b]The Bad[/b]
The UI is a pain in the ass and a terrible port. The game was designed for mobile devices and it shows, with some UI design techniques that have been established since the NES was the big home console tossed in the trash heap. A general character menu? Nope, have different buttons for different menus, hidden in different areas. Need to dump your vendor trash and buy new gear? Expect it to be a chore. Shields, Armor, Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, and Selling Equipment are all separate menu options when you go to a towns blacksmith, and you have to leave the shop and re-enter to access each one. Bought the sword you like but want a shield as well? Cool, leave the shop, re-enter, select the 'Shields' option. It's not that there 'has' to be a better way to do this, it's that there is a better way, there's been better ways for years before this game was even a concept, even in mobile games.
Other things occur as well, when you enter into a fight, the battle music kicks in. Should any one of your characters die, however, you get an opportunity to load your last turn, at which point the music cuts out. I've also noticed that in larger scale battles, the menu gets a bit finicky with how readily it accepts my input.
On the matter of death, I do kind of wish there were save slots, I don't think the game would lose anything if it incorporated those, but it's only a mild annoyance in the grand scheme of things.
[b]The Conclusion[/b]
It's clear the Trese Brother's have a passion for these games, and it shows. I'm sure they have enough knowledge to turn any of their games into a micro-transaction riddled mobile cash grab, but they don't, which is refreshing. It's also clear that the more they develop, the more they grow. The art might not be the best, but it has it's charm, the UI might be frustrating (sometimes downright infuriating), but the game itself is enjoyable enough to endure it. There's a lot of that in this game. What's more, is I've lost hours to playing this game, and have also picked it up, run a couple encounters, and put it down again to pick up for later. This is an excellent pick-up-and-play tactical RPG in that regard. If the price of $10 is too steep for the perceived quality of the title (and I well know the anathema mobile ports have), know that there are hours and hours of content available, and if you don't consider that to be worthwhile, well, wait for a sale then.
This is both much better and much worse than I expected.
I expected a very poor, barely functional game. Then I realized the game was more complex than I expected, and seemed quite deep and got my hopes up. Finally, I realized how much of a slog it really is - the game is too padded, with dozens of encounters that present no new challenge whatsoever.
The first big problem of the game is the UI/UX. This is a mobile port and it shows in many very important ways.
Every button is too large; everything requires going deep in to menus, taking too many clicks for basic actions; the main combat screen provides you with maybe 5% of all the useful information it should, instead forcing you to go (again) deeper into menus, or selecting each character individually before you know everything you need to make a decision. For example, only absolute HP is shown when you hover over a character - not its max hp, for you to decide whether or not to heal; you are not given "reachable" tiles for moving or attacks; you're not given hit % chances; to quickly check the HP and Mana of each party member, you need to select them individually rather than having miniature portraits with simple bars.
I could go on.
The quality of life features that the game is missing is immense. It's probably difficult to maintain a "complex" RPG for both PC and mobile, but the result is that this doesn't meet any PC RPG standard, and becomes clunkier and slower than it should.
The second, more important, problem is [b]density[/b]. I mean density in what you, as the player, experience. It is sparse in almost every category. In 6 hours, I've only seen caverns. There was a town with 3 or 4 buildings, but it was still an underground town that provided little variety. The game only has 2 music tracks, apparently, "in combat" and "out of combat" - and, of course, "silence". These are rather superficial, but they're important when the game design doesn't hold by itself.
The problem with the combat is that (1) dungeons are too large and (2) specific battles are neither meaningful nor challenging. In 6 hours, I've been through 3 "dungeons" or areas. They've all been roughly the same. Not only that, they've been quite long.
The enemies have come in 3 varieties, roughly - archer, warrior, and shaman. Archers attack from a distance, warriors attack from up close. Shamans are kind of like archers but they sometimes buff their allies.
This is it. There are "varieties" of each, but none of them requires me to change the strategy. Having many different enemies is meaningless if this number has no influence in how one plays the game! This is the single most important aspect, so far, and the one that made me decide not to play this anymore.
The AI is also no good. The terrain is "heterogeneous", meaning you will be able to find strategic positions in most battles. This is almost good! But the problem is that they all degenerate into "place your tank in a single tile corridor and your ranged/support units behind him". Enemies will then be forced to attack you one at a time. This has worked for just about every encounter, so far.
Even when there is a way to flank me by going around the corridor and get on my backside, the enemies just ignore it and wait until their friend dies to take his place.
I'm not entirely convinced about the classes, as their skills aren't very varied or interesting. They rely mostly on too specific or too general buffs (too specific like a lightning mage buffing only his own lightning attacks, or too general like the cleric giving everyone more defense). I haven't seen any good interaction between the characters. I suppose more complex elemental attacks play a role later on (I realize I'm very early in the game - but 6 hours of nothing isn't very promising, and reading other reviews shows that the trend continues with many hours of emptiness before some new gameplay element becomes relevant).
The leveling up also seems too linear. Since each character had maybe 5 or 6 different abilities, the rest becomes simply a sink to make the same abilities more powerful.
The final important point I want to make is about the underlying stat system. This is a problem I have with DnD games in general, but it is worse here. The game mechanics are too opaque. The game relies on too many dice rolls and doesn't explain them properly - nor does it give you enough feedback to understand why you're missing or making so little damage.
It's fine if you like reading about the calculations before/after playing the game (there is a guide by the developers on this, on Steam but not the game itself), but that's too much like following a guide. I like to learn how the game works by myself and discover cool tactics on my own. But this is impossible when the game is too opaque and doesn't give you any information about the variables you can control.
I don't want to be too hard on the game. I more or less enjoyed my time with it. But that last 3 hours, once the discovery period was over, have been rather tedious. And, above all else, the game doesn't promise much. I don't expect much to change. And since I am not looking for a time sink, I'd rather play something else.
It is very impressive that two people made this, and that the game is apparently still being updated 6 years after release (with the team maintaining other games at the same time!).
For a combat focused RPG, the encounters were all too similar, and too long. I feel like Baldur's Gate's system, at best, works brilliantly in boss fights. Buffing is quite tedious to maintain when fighting cannon fodder for dozens of hours. But bosses are unique, with strengths and weaknesses you're able to exploit with different spells and team compositions.
In my 6 hours, Heroes of Steel has only shown the tedious and laborious fodder side.
I don't think this is worth playing, BUT -
I am looking forward to playing Trese Brothers' other games. I assume they will have improved over this.
P.S.: I forgot to add. The game is sorely missing better AOE abilities and positional modifiers. The irregularly shaped terrain would provide good positioning-focused gameplay, and a lot more variety in fodder battles. This would only be augmented if you could attack characters from the back/side. Furthermore, the AOE in the game isn't very clear on who will be hit, and most cases seem too simple like hitting everyone around a tile. The warrior was particularly disappointing in having only single target attacks. Some sweep or piercing attacks would have made it significantly better. Similarly with the archer, having some scattershot or rain of arrows or something. The game just needs more variety to make the combat interesting.
Pretty nice old school game.
Mechanics are pretty simple : a fighter, a healer, a thief, a mage. Different ways to equilibrate the team the way you want. Just be sure to specialized two of them with high accuracy and damages at least at the beginning as you are on for long and intense fighting. Because the main focus of the gameplay is fighting... while swarmed by a huge amount of enemies, with a lot of fights. Dying comes easy even in easy modes if you're not careful. Which makes character building and tactics the core of your adventure. And mind the walls, maybe you'll find some nice places to loot, who knows ?
It can be harsh for beginners or players not that accustomed with specializing and focusing on tactics.
So far (episode 2 over 5), I can tell the story is well written even though it is not a revolutionary one. Which is very pleasant. An evil magus, a baron who felt for power, ancient Gods marching among humans, a huge Shattering, dark powers arising,... and 4 heroes to rule all of it... maybe.
Graphics are decent considering you're playing an indie game from a starting studio, Trese Brothers, who seem to provide quite good games (I'll leave a review on Templar Battleforce which is quite amazing, I just need to finish some more missions) with good contents. Simple, but efficient. As a gamer, that's how i like my games, graphics are secondary if the gameplay and atmosphere are well put.
If you like good old games with well known efficient mechanics, the title might suit you as it offers a nice challenge and a good story.
If you're a beginner, do not hesitate to use reviews, forum,... anything that can help you as the combat mechanics will punish you quite hardly. Just an example, you may want your thief to scout areas ahead of your group so you find traps and dangerous zone filled with enemies. Once the fight is engaged, your stealth determines if enemies spotted you or not. If so, you're in for a probable death for your thief as enemies will rush her. Which will lead you to start again the turn, the fight, the area if you didn't restore... So far, i died like 6-7 times, just by not being careful enough. Too easy ? Well, it's a trap, you'll find surely a fight that show you otherwise quite soon !
Newer Trese Brothers' games are richer, but it's still pretty solid and very extensive experience. Got a slight Incubation (does anybody remember this slaughterfest?) feeling.
Heroes of Steel RPG is a party-based RPG consisting of scripted encounters. There are four classes (tank/melee, off-tank/healer/melee/buff/debuff, ranged DPS, ranged spell/buff/debuff) and you choose from among two pre-made characters within each class.
Pros:
[list]
[*] Each of the four characters has a nice amount of variability in the degree to which it serves each of its roles.
[*] While perhaps too simplistic on the whole, the level-up system is nice.
[*] Though I care little for story in TBS games, this one was above average I would say.
[*] I saw a lot complaints about the UI in other reviews, but I didn't have an issue.
[/list]
YMMV:
[list]
[*] The game is long. Way too long. I played for ~30 hours and as far as I can tell from the internet, I am only 25% done. Per the cons below, there is no way I could slog through it.
[*] Though I am admittedly in the minority, I don't like secrets in games that require me to search for hours looking for a little button on a wall (LoG, The Keep). In this game, all secrets were contained behind a wall of a certain type, but only behind ~%10 such walls (and as such were unlikely to be missed completely). To see if a secret was there I had to cast a spell to look beyond the wall. I found this tedious and unrewarding.
[*] I think some loot drops were random. In general, I was never really excited by the artifacts or the drops. They all increased some stats, but didn't do anything exciting.
[/list]
Cons:
[list]
[*] I played through about 20 levels in Episode 1. In that time, I only saw two tilesets (castle dungeon and cave). Not counting bosses (3-5?), I only saw about 10 different creatures. All were melee or ranged. None had any special attacks that I noticed. Very few, if any, applied buffs or debuffs. I don't think any cast any spells. Maybe the devs were saving the variety for Episodes 2-4, but it became stale fast. Though my squad had a few more tricks than the enemies, 95% of skirmishes were boring and repetitive.
[*] World's slowest "fast travel". When traversing a cleared out area I don't need to be waiting 20 seconds for my squad to mosey across the screen.
[*] Health and mana didn't regenerate after battle. In some games this is fine, and is actually a mechanism I love as it forces me to be efficient with my resources and fight as well as possible. However, in this game, it is always on option after the fight to go back and completely heal. This means, that after most fights you either have to choose to press on and risk being low on health/mana or take a few minutes to walk back to heal (noting the world's slowest fast travel). As a gamer, you know what you have to do. The devs must know this. If you are going to allow us to always heal to full after wasting 4 mins IRL, just let me auto-regen my life/mana after each fight.
[*] Hidden traps exist to annoy the player (read: a long walk back to heal), but serve almost no tactical purpose. I can disarm them, but that process is almost as tedious.
[*] Locks exist. Your thief class starts out with all the lockpick skill you will ever need. These serve almost no purpose other than to annoy me by wasting time in IRL and burning my out-of-battle mana (possibly requiring a long walk back to regen mana).
[*] After gaining a level, you are not allowed to level-up out in the wild. In fact, you aren't even allowed to level-up at many of the stations that heal you. You may only level-up at "safe places" (requiring, you guessed it, another long walk). At this point, I think the devs are seriously just out to irritate us.
[*] AI was flat out stupid. I played on normal, not sure if that matters. They never attempted to flank my ranged and if all melee avenues to my team were blocked, their remaining forces wouldn't move at all. This resulted in ~65% of fights consisting of enemies spending their entire turn walking to me two at a time, with them running out of AP by the time they got to me (the abundance of chokepoints available to me made this problem all the worse).
[/list]
Overall: I enjoyed my time with this game a fair bit for the first 6-8 hours. However, the flat-out ridiculous QoL issues, combined with the repetitive combat, tilesets, and enemies quickly caused me to transition to boredom and then dread at having to play (I like to finish games, but life is too short). As you can gather from the above, I spent a lot of IRL time going back and forth to heal. Not fun. I don't thumbs-down party-based TBS games of this nature lightly, particularly since the game seems to have at least some polish, but I am forced to here.
Rating: 4/10
Для инди-команды игра получилась более, чем приличная. Местами даже весьма хардкорная. Неплохие сюжет и лор, что в наше время, к сожалению, становится все большей редкостью. По отзывам об игре кому-то не понравилась музыка...да, ее немного (всего 4 мелодии, одна из которых крутится в зацикленном варианте во время боя), но они вполне соответствуют атмосфере и не вызывают желания их выключить (хотя это и дело вкуса каждого отдельного человека), а большего от инди-команды ждать глупо - нет у них денег приглашать камерные оркестры. Единственная моя личная претензия к игре - это пожалуй то, что ее затянули. Большое количество локаций с противниками на каждом шагу это огромное количество времени, затрачиваемое на бои. А если еще учесть, что к концу игры идут бои с беготней по довольно большим картам без выхода из боя или просто большим количеством волн врагов, причем эти бои занимают порой часа по 2, поскольку героев у нас всего 4, а противников 154. Причем в игре уровень противников скалируется от уровня группы, то есть там нет противников, которые просто пачками лягут от одного аое. И можно было бы сказать, что это повышение сложности к концу игры, но персонажи уже прокачаны. Если группа у в ас кривая, вы туда просто не дойдете. Поэтому сложности как-то не получилось, зато получились ооочень скучные из-за длительности бои.
还挺中规中矩的
I've played Heroes of Steel over its long, slow development and it's really exciting that the last story part has finally been released. I couldn't recommend this game more, which is why I've stuck with it. When you kick off it looks like a normal indie dungeon crawler with kinda meh graphics. In fact it's no coincidence tho that in fact when you look closely at the graphics they're much more detailed and polished than on first glimpse. And that's true of everything about this game: what seems like a straight forward chase around a dungeon slaying orcs grows, and grows, and grows, and the story progresses, and progresses, and progresses, and had been a simple diversion has become an epic that makes Baldur's Gate look like a quick round of Snakes and Ladders.
The real strength of Heroes of Steel is its story, which is amazing, quite funny in places in a low key way, sometimes suprisingly affecting in others, and with actual character arcs. The combat is straightforward - click to move or fight - but is challenging enough to be rewarding even on the Easy level, and it definitely pays to be strategic both in your character placement and skill use. Levelling up is straightforward as well, with control over point allocation to a limited number of skills and attributes - enough to require some forward planning and organisation, but not so complex to be confusing and wtf-y. (Personally I find that in games with complex skill ladders the choices you make are essentially meaningless).
Anyway, buy this game, play it, immerse yourself in it for a long period of time, and you'll be thankful, because it's that awesome.
This game's awesome. It's definitely got its roots in games of yester year, the kind of stuff your parent(s) would have played in the late 80's, early 90's on an antiquated computer.
It's a turn-based, squad-based swords'n'sorcery game, not unlike a D&D tabletop. The game starts off with the time-honored tradition of a (literal) dungeon. True to form, you and your party of 4 quickly escape and beat feet. Your team is more-or-less restricted to Warrior/Thief/Healer/Mage archetypes but with a bit of leeway. If you don't want an archer variant of thief, you can opt for a melee version. Another example is taking the standard mage and opting him for an AoE variant. This creates quite a bit of replayability for future runs.
Something I really love about this game is the way they handle stats and skills. Not sure what to use? Your characters are more than happy to give little blurbs on how important a particular stat is to them. For an example, the mage remarks that raising his polearms skill is a matter of desperation for him. Another example is the Cleric remarking that raising her clubs skill would be more suited to making her a front-line combat medic, whereas raising her polearms skills hints that would lean her towards hanging in the back slinging Divine spells at targets.
Combat in the game is a bit on the long and tough sides, but not boring or frustrating. I'd compare it to almost the same pace of like a Chess match or a battle in X-com, where you are thinking a few moves ahead and trying to plan contingencies because the AI *will* take advantage of your gaps. While can save and quit as needed, there is NO RELOADING so you're stuck with your decisions, for better or worse.
Graphically I have fallen in love with the pastel look of the game. I notice it seems to be a tradition with the Trese brothers and I think it's a smart move. Why? It creates a unique visual to them and their game, almost like a trademark. Plus, you have to respect the time and skill it took to create these.
The sounds and dings are good, and serve to complement the art style. There's also a little touch I enjoy when units attack and that is they animate like they are actively trying to block the opponent's attack. It's a neat little touch and one that adds to the flair of the game.
At this point I feel like I am rambling so it's time to wrap up. This game is not for everyone, but I would say it definitely is for those who love turn-based games or squad-based games. It pays homages to the swords'n'sorcery games and table-tops before it.
Repetitivo y cansino.
The game is fun. Top-down tactical RPG with focus on combat (most of what you'll do in this game). You'll have 4 characters on your team (fighterish, rougish, wizardish, healerish - all of these can play various roles - so don't feel pigeon-holed) . You choose between two options for each at beginning. After that, it's all about building synergy with your team as you level up. I recommend picking a primary team strategy, and just build toward that. In general, if you're not sure what to do or have little experience with games like this, it's good to have 2 somewhat tanky characters (for situations where you can't rely on just one). The other two should be dps focused as much as possible (assuming you know how to tactic). Obviously there is variation for the more experienced. Enjoy the game for what it is. If you're still not sure, wait for a sale - either way, buy it and play it.
If you're looking for a no-frills RPG that doesn't expect too much of you, then this is definitely the game for you! I like Heroes of Steel a lot - the more I've played the more compelling it's become - it's appearance belies a lot more depth than you'd expect at first glance; if you're willing to use your imagination a bit!
"The Ratkin Veteran bellowed, and then charged. Tamilin released three arrows in rapid succession that slammed into the creatures chest. Unslowed, the raving beast-man plowed on... Ducking out from a tight corner Kyera swung her mace - the Ratkin's monstrous head practically exploded from the combined momentum. An eyeball skipped it's way merrily through the tunnel's detritus and came to rest at the feet of Vincent the Sorcerer, who poked at it with the tip of one of his pointy boots, then smirked back at the cleric."
My occasional internal battle narratives help me get the most out of this game... but maybe I'm just mentally ill!
Combat...
The turn-based tactical combat system is simple, yet robust; and it plays quite quickly once you get the hang of it. The battles make great use of choke points and other terrain features to keep you engaged (without all the bells and whistles of modern RPG's), however, the enemy AI definitely isn't going to pull any Gary Kasparov moves on you!
Some of the stats and abilities are not clearly defined, but gradually you get a "feel" for things, much like in old 80's games such as Dungeon Master and Demon's Winter, where you didn't have a clue what a weapon or spell did until you tried it a few times! I like that about this game - for me it's a feature not a hindrance.
Now onto the sound...
The SFX are very basic - everything makes a "Wuff" sound: find a chest... "Wuff", attacked by spiders... "Wuff", find a glowing crystal... "Wuff"; but I don't really mind. The music does get repetitive after a while, so I suggest putting your own choice of creepy music on in the background instead - I usually go for Cryo Chamber, Altrusian Grace Media, or Atrium Carceri. I also like to stack up 3 or 4 youtube ambient sfx vids to play simultaneously (in different browser tabs): dripping water in a catacomb, wind blowing through haunted tunnels - add the creepy music, set them to loop, and voila - Dungeon Soundscape!
A tale of heroic deeds...
The story is surprisingly good - there aren't many dialogue choices or complex interactions, it's just an enjoyable narrative between your characters (and those you meet) to flesh the world out a bit. I like the gritty no-nonsense plot, in fact I prefer it over much of the recent vainglorious tripe being pumped out by the Kickstart-loving "Industry Veterans" - maybe the next Chris Avellone project should have the Trese Brothers as a stretch goal!
Hints and tips:
You only have one save-slot, which can get corrupted, so back this up regularly! Your save folder can be found in \Users\*your username*\AppData\Local\HeroesOfSteel.win32 -
When crafting enchanted weapons always use a Crafting Tuner - the resulting enchantments are far more potent.
There are secret doors... and a way to spot them...
Excellent game. Tons of replayability, tons of content. It has rich strategic depth. It has great writing. It has a single "broken" mechanic where so long as you don't put points into lockpicking, you'll never have to worry about it. Very deep, very good. Buy this. Buuuuuuuy it. You know you want to.
Update:
Still haven't finished the game. I'm on hour 421 on Steam and probably 150 on my phone. There are so many ways to build your team and engage against impossible odds on various difficulties all to the tune of a unique story/genre backdrop... I cannot recommend this game enough!
Heroes of Steel RPG isn't a bad game, but it's not good enough to recommend.
Part of my dissatisfaction comes from the UI design. The game was clearly intended to run on a mobile device, and not much was changed for the PC implementation. Consider the screen where you put gear on your characters. Most games have a list of gear and places to put it. HoS has a screen with six small boxes. Click on a box to bring up a different screen with a screen-wide list of all gear that can go in that box. On a 7" tablet that's appropriate, on a 27" monitor it's clunky and absurd.
The mobile-device UI choices are also present in the scripted dialog bits. Each character gets to say 10-15 words, and then you click for the next 10-15 words. The writing is pretty bland, and occasionally repetitive, e.g. two different characters shout pretty much the same things when confronted with the ditch around the first city you get to.
The key selling point of the game is the combat. I didn't find it all that interesting, but I only played for a few hours, so I figure I'm missing out on a lot of tactical options that open up later.
(It probably doesn't help that the last two games I played are Witcher 3 and Dungeon Rats, so my expectations for story and combat may be skewed.)
The authors did a much better job with Templar Battleforce (which I do recommend).
What a cool game. Nice, simple fun exploration. A decent story with stuff to do. Leveling, loot, quests and genuinely fun, tactical combat with no dang turn limts or timers.
Excellent turn-based strategy RPG very reminescent of the Avernum series.
It's set in an underworld setting with large caverns and narrow, winding passageways interconnecting them, which can make for some interesting combat sequences.
Each of the characters have their own backstories which are slowly revealed during the game, and the game does have decent lore and the over-arching story is convoluted and menacing.
There's 4 character types, with two choices per character type, such as having a barbarian or dual-weilding soldier as the tank, cleric or paladin as healer, long range archer or hit-and-run fast attack rogue as thief, high damage wizard or crowd control sorcerer to make your party with, and a strong emphasis on creating a cohesive, interdependent group, each character having three distinct skill sets to level up.
The play field is dark and ominous, sprinkled with traps and ambushes. Side quests that actually synergize with the main quest, and the ability to upgrade and enhance weapons and armor.
All in all it's a complete package. Solid game, solid characters, in a foreboding, well written game world. Thus definitely a solid, worthy purchase IMHO.
At about 20 hours into HoS, I must admit it has been a long, long time since I have enjoyed a video game this much. The story is great and the retro/grid feel works well. The game seems nicely balanced on normal mode (which is all I've played so far). If you like a classic RPG feel with an engaging storyline, then this game is for you.
I would have given this a really good score... if it weren't for the fact that 20 hours in the AI changes its behavior. Until that point they always attack the enemy closest to them, so your tank char does what he's supposed to and you can skill the 2 ranged attackers as glass canons (except for the few scripted events where they surround you).
But then in Act 3 the enemy archers and shamans suddenly attack your backline as well. And that's just bs. Each enemy does around 100 damage at that point and my wizard has barely 160. So the only choice I have is re-skill the wizard (which costs 20 moonstones which are really rare ingame) and give him HP instead. But now I am stuck with 4 characters with High HP and no damage and basically no mana so I am wasting potion after potion and really it's just horrible gameplay wise.
It makes the game harder, I give them that but its an artifical difficulty. It makes each fight a grind and that's in a game where 90% of what you do is fighting.
So I probably wont finish the game. Yet I still recommended the game? That's cause Steams Thumbs up/down is really annoying and really in need of a meh option. Cause as said, the first 20 hours were fun.
The artwork isn't great and the sound desgin kinda lacking but the story theme and the combat carry it through.
I love this. It is exactly what I was looking for. It's a turn based game---which means it is relaxing and reminiscent of the paper and pencil, graph paper, D&D game--which IMO--has that same pacing---unlike real-time games. Paper D&D let you decide every move---slowing doing combat one moment at a time. The art style even looks like the original monster manual---hand drawn, folksy--which is good. The story is also good--and like a TSR Choose Your Own Adventure--come to life. If all that sounds good to you---get. Praise to the team that made this. I think the combat is fun.
Хороша и интересная игра, Классная на мой взгляд история. Правда очень сильно затянута, может быть если играть на более слабом уровне сложности, будет быстрее но не так интересно)
The combat in this game is just too simplistic and repetitive. Determining how to level your characters in a way that they work synergistically takes a lot of strategy. But that's pretty much it. Once you've determined your leveling strategy, the combat is just the same thing over and over.
It's just a well done dungeon crawl party based game. I totally recomend the game.
The practice in this game is why I lost hope in supporting early access game. Bought both mobile and steam version years ago, they said in the description that the bought version will have all 4 chapters for free, also bought some characters on mobile version. 5 (or more) years later, it's still not finished.
I lost 2 phones along with my save game on the phone during the time, had to replay twice, long and tedious each time, repeatedly also, just try to see how the game end, but now lost interest already. Stop playing the game like 1 year ago, but seeing stupid updates just balance the game again and again but took months to release just irk me to the point that I just want to write a no recommended comment. Seriously, how many months has been spent to rebalance some orcs? If only they spend 1 month just to write a cloud upload function to upload save game, I would not be this irritated.
Now buying early access game is just like reading a manga, I remember I read One Piece like 15 years ago already, but at this rate, I think Once Piece will be finished before this game release final chapter. So folks, wait until One Piece is finished if you ever want to try this game, or else try other game, not worth the time and money.
I was looking for a turn based combat game when I found this game. At first the possibilities of party build that you can do with the characters surprised me and made me play frantically. After a few hours I got tired of the combat but the world the developers created is fascinating and I kept playing to discover the mysteries of the story.
It isn't bad although, pretty basic, nothing really special here other then a massive world to explore, with very challenging strategy and tactics requirements. Funner then some of the more expensive ones.
It's a very *decent*, fairly priced turn based RPG. I was surprised.
Graphics aren't great, sound, and music is basic, and game play is a little quirky, so i think 7/10
*Buy I think you won't regret especially if your a fan of RPG's.
Don't often feel the need to leave a negative review for a game, but this one is so tedius I feel I need to warn any potential buyer that likes strategy/RPG games.
At a first glance it does look like fun, personally I'm a big fan of games like Vandal Hearts and Baldur's gate, this game looks like a crossing of the two, a medival world you can explore, with grid based tactical turn based battles. Looks can be deceiving.
You have very little freedom or chance to be creative in this game, and will spend 90% of it just standing around some cave corners, very slowly fighting against the same trash enemies over and over again, begging for the game to move on. You have pretty much no freedom in where to go, there is no open world for you to explore, there are no story line options for you, just go through the motions with a mediocre story and no freedom.
You start with a team of 4 heroes, 1 brute, 1 mage, one holy character, and one rogue. Every one has a variant hero you can pick from, so not a lot of variety there. After that you are stuck with those 4 for the rest of the game, no recruiting NPCs or changing out your team as you progress.
All of this would actually be fine, if the fighting was good, since its the most important and time consuming aspect of the game.
Alas, the battles feel very unrewarding. Usually no loot except a few gold pieces, and a bit of xp. Great, another tedious long battle for 30xp, now you just need to do another 20 battles like that and you might get another level. For being a strategy game, there's not a lot of strategy involved, just block the enemies with your brute man, heal him, and fire your arrows/firebolts.
You do get some options when you level your characters, that part is very limited too, and feels more like a slow chore then a joy. This leaves very few positive things left to say about this game.
There is nothing creative or original about this game at all, its as basic as it can get.
Pros :
+ The game seemed cool in my imagination.
+ Soundtrack is ok sometimes.
+ Good way to practice your patience.
+ It might entertain you for an hour or two.
Cons :
- Slow and tedious.
- No freedom.
- Boring basic graphics.
- Grindy, repetetive and unengaging battles.
Other points :
- Mediocre story.
- The UI is cumbersome but not awful.
2.5/10 would not remotely recommend.
So, I picked this game up as I love RPG games in general. I found the artstyle interesting, and I haven't had a good romp through a dungeon in quite some time.
I was a bit bothered when the 4 characters you get are essentially 'premade' (you choose 1 of 2 people for each slot/class space), but when I got into the game and the story, it fit in quite well.
I chose an Outlander, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue as my team to play. You get an interesting set of skills to choose from, nothing that seems overwhelming (in regards to having too many to choose from) and if you want to make a character that specializes in buffs/debuffs or dmg, you can do so.
The weapon/armor department seems a bit lacking in the beginning of the game (can't find any better shield than 3 armor) but I am hoping with the many chests I come across, I can get something better.
Overall, I do recommend this game if you have an itch to do a bit of crawling under the ground in dungeons and caves!
EDIT 1: There are some cons about the game, that are more annoyances than anything.
- The creatures are allowed to cast spells and use ranged weapons on a hero, when that hero is immediately adjacent to the creature (Ratkin especially), but your heoes cannot do the same thing.
This can make combat kind of annoying, when you wanna do debuffs, and you can't.
- The sound that is used to alert you to a battle (a sort of animal growl/snarl) is also used when you sense treasure chests and crystals. So you will get jump scared a lot. There should have been different sounds for each.
6/10, I recommend it because I liked the story, characters and the post-apocalyptic fantasy setting (you just gotta imagine things yourself sort off) and I had alot of time to spend on this game 130+ hours...
positive:
-runs on old hardware
-active devs
-you can spend a lot of hours on this (100+ hours easy)
-you can change up your strategies with some useful respec, especially to get some freshness into combat (which might be welcome if you employed the same strategy for 50 hours)
-various enemy factions
-simple but effective combat
-its not finished yet, so probably there is another 50+ hours of content incoming
more or less negative:
-very few problems (only 1 crash after switching enemy actions to the fast setting and some sort of glitch occuring when clicking through dialogues and clicking something on the actionbar while doing that)
-bad graphics (but if you checked the screenshots you should know this beforehand)
-the enemy 'AI' is very basic, sometimes you would wish more than 3 enemies per enemy spawn-pack could move per turn, othertimes that would raise the difficulty alot when fighting vs multiple packs
-lots of tedious map clearing (if you are a completionist you might feel the urge to check every nook and cranny, which is worth it sometimes), every episode the maps seem to get 50% bigger so...
-repetitive environment tiles (prepare for lots of grey floored areas), wish the overworld had some more vibrant iconic tiles
-barebones inventory system
-the lootsystem is not really exciting, personally I wouldnt mind being able to equip 12 items or more for a game that long with that many occasions of loot (1 or 2 weapons slots, 1 armor and 3 various are filled quickly wont be changed out all that often either)
-no cloudsave ? so keep it installed if you want to finish it later
I almost didn't buy this after I read someone saying that he first played this game onhis phone. Luckily I dicided to give it a try but being prepared to seek a refund if the game was too simplistic for me.
Exactly 150 hours, and 64 deaths (which are not a big deal apart from hurt pride), later on my first run through I've reached the end point of the story so far (devs working on the last part) so this game is really good value for money. The game is quite simple to play but more complex to master. the 4 characters can evolve in very different ways, and you do have to think about tactics against different enemies.
The only negatives for me are that the world map was not very helpful (but excellent ones can be found on the devs website) and the music did grate after a while but it can be turned off so that's not a problem
All in all I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting a relatively casual fantasy RPG with a fantastic story and good, flexible character development.
Highly recommended.
A MUST OWN!
GREAT PRICE!
GREAT GAME!
play it today!
So this is a fun little Tactical RPG, where you start as a group of four prisoners who have been imprisoned by a baron, who may be a bit... evil...
From there, you can try and save the world... or not...
Would suggest getting this on discount, but aside from that, no complaints.
Solid game. Almost entirely combat. Solid combat and RPG mechanics make it always fun. Four different characters to control that fulfill the basic pen and paper RPG roles (Fighter, Cleric/Paladin, Rogue, Wizard). The mechanics truly are what Trese Brothers do best. They are solid. This ensures that although it is an RPG that is almost entirely based on combat, it always remains fun. This game requires tactics. Again, solid game.
What a cool game this turned out to be for 5 bucks. 59 hours in and still quite enjoyable and not done with content. Nice tactical game with 4 character combat. Graphics are nothing special but it doesnt truly need it. Not with a really good story. It's so easy to pass by reading story line in most games....but this isnt most games and Ive really enjoyed readying the storyline arc.
What a game!! Turn-based RPG games are my favorite. As a retired Systems Director, developing mainframe software I am now an ASSEMBLER/COBOL dinosaur. I started into personal computers in the early 1980s with an Atari 800 and have owned about all of them. I also have played just about all of the turn-based games that have been developed and sold and I would rate HOS near the top, if not #1. I have more than 250 hours into and am near the end. The story line is 1st class and the action is great. Difficult enough so that you have to really think about the strategy that you have to use to beat the enemy - this goes well beyond hack-n-slash. I chose hard difficulty and I can hardly imagine how those who play it under nightmare can survive. Anyway I rate HOS as a 10+ out of 10.
