League of Heroes Review

League of Heroes is something like my fourth in a row review for games from the 3DS, yes I admit that the ‘New’ 3DS has got me hooked. As stated in my last review, the vast content on the Eshop is great and with Sunday’s announcement it will only grow more. What I am talking about is Unity coming to the ‘New’ 3DS soon, this has caused feverish talk among indie developers and fans alike. This basically gives the ‘New’ 3DS a large catalogue of games that wouldn’t have come otherwise (Please note it is ‘New’ 3DS only, not the regular one). Unity basically a game development engine with high 3D and graphical specs, needless to say this is quite the game changer. This is huge as far as I am concerned; bringing 3DS players content that is another level, where hopefully the rubbish can be ignored.

This unfortunately can be applied to this game. League of Heroes is a port of a mobile game, not to be snobby about it is a port of a mobile game. Mobile game ports are fine, as long as they are good. It’s just this one is not that good. Mobile games are simple by nature, they sell upgrades or time skips through their relevant app-store. However here we pay upfront and don’t have that pay skip facility so this breeds a game of grinding for levels and waiting for certain times to unlock challenges. Not what I like in a game at all, I like quick pick and play, this game does give this at first, but quickly it becomes a grind.

By grind I mean, basically the game is you are dropped into an area and you fight goblins, ghosts, big bear type things and so forth. This fight takes no skill, you just button bash until the level is clear and you back to the player hub. In the player hub you use the experience or money you have to upgrade armour, weapons, health ect. After which you go back out and do the same again, while it is fun for a while and the upgrades can be okay, but they are mostly in looks only, and the gameplay is unaffected.

Talking about looks, yes, that is this games strong point. The cartoony graphics are nicely styled and detailed and while I don’t find graphics funny, I can see the attempts at humour here and they are fine . The development team certainly paint a nice picture of fun. The sound is okay, suitable, voice actors making funny voices, and suitable medieval like music, I mean it is fine overall, I just didn’t hear that much that wowed me, even I’d think whether it was quiet or just unremarkable. Everything with the graphics and sound was indeed okay, just okay though.

The grind, the lack of true reward or achievement leaves me with not much else to say really about this one. I would expect better from a 3DS for the price point, after all I would have only had to pay fifty pence more and got myself BoxBoy! By HAL laboratories, a true lesson in game design. The two aren’t even comparable, I am feel I am starting to be harsh, but I get wound up by these types of games. Overpriced, well polished in looks, attracting youngster gamers in, for what, a grind, for what, nothing.

That is why Unity coming to the ‘New’ 3DS is exciting to me. What it exactly means, is more quality games and less we need to pay attention to these types of games. While regrettably, this game is getting it harsh, it is still just okay, and the price point isn’t that high, so I will appoint a score that will appease, but I wouldn’t recommend this to many people, just anyone with the interest in this type of game. As for Unity coming to the 3DS, this is a great occasion, and I cannot wait for it to happen, the more quality games the better!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.