David Polley Herolike is self describes as having combat inspired from classics such as Diablo and Torchlight, this hack n’ slash rogue like RPG puts you in the shoes of a powerful hero on the rise. Make your own creative decisions in epic battle encounters, ponder moral choices, acquire fantastical items, and even customize your own town. Created By Games Hut and published by Black Shell Media this game tries to combine elements from some of the classic top down adventures and newer ones as well.
HeroLike at a glance definitely takes inspiration from Games like Diablo and Torchlight. However Unlike either of those two HeroLike is not a dungeon crawler or a loot grind game. What HeroLike is, is an isometric point and click action game. I like the core concept of the game but it strikes me in a weird way.
Honestly it makes me think of if Facebook “free to play” games had a baby with Diablo. Instead of playing through a story mode you are given a series of level options Gamble, Defense, Hostile and Friendly. Each of these presents a different Scenario you need to beat. Hostile is a static area in which you must defeat a certain about of monsters or boss to win. Defense is a simple defend the point through waves of enemies. Friendly presents a series of text-based choices that increase that will increase or lower you’re in-game rep and or currency based on choices. Random can be any of these encounters at a random difficulty including bosses.
The one thing that stood out to me and also felt like something HeroLike needs is item drops I saw this in the forums as well. Where games like Diablo and Torchlight tend to be about beating the story then Gearing up in the end Game. which allows you to gear up see cool loot drop and advance your character in strength and look.
In Comparison HeroLike the grind is upfront, which is why it reminds me of Facebook free to play games. In hero like the goal is not gearing up in the late game. In HeroLike Death is permanent you lose all progress currency and gear. However, the one thing that does persist is the town. you can unlock shops, shop tiers a revive ability at a cost and the ability to start with more money and a higher level upon death.
All gear in the game I have acquired thus far came from purchasing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However and maybe this is a thing I have not experienced, I would like to see some high-end drops from bosses or monsters in-game as well. since we lose these upon death it would be a nice addition.
All in all Herolike is pretty fun. It has a nice Grind to it and currently has 2 Classes. Guardian and Shaman. Each has unique skills and abilities which are all honestly quick fun to use. I am unsure how early into production this game is however I would like to see more variety into the skills and abilities that could be swapped out and even a more in-depth tech tree. all of these over the years have become staples in the isometric action game genre.
Currently there is no “story mode” as of yet the story is Evil is doing Evil things to Ancient Artifact stop him or bad things will happen! There is no significant driving force to the story from what I experienced. However to be fair I only logged about 8 hours into the game and between grinding my town and dying I didn’t make it insanely far maybe 50% through the map at most. I did like the change of pace in the Friendly missions which offered some neat narrative and helped to breathe some life and depth into the game.
Herolike has potential I can really get behind to core mechanics and it feels like there is some people with some decent chops behind it. what is currently in the game feels great, polished and relatively bug free, minus a few crashes (could be my laptop). I would recommend picking this up at 8.79$ CAD this game is more than worth the buck. Plus you can help out a small developer hit its mark and possibly dish out updates, maybe an awesome expansion or Herolike 2 to help realize a grander vision I can see bleeding into the game.
