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Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes |  |
Overview
Heroes is a fantasy-themed, hack-and-slash adventure with light RPG elements, very much in the style of Baldur’s Gate:
Dark Alliance or the Diablo series. Having been a fan of both BG:DA and Diablo II, and also being a great proponent of D&D and roleplaying in general, I was understandably excited about Heroes when I heard about it. When I thought about it (before its release), I had visions of some unholy union of Dark Alliance and the old Tower of Doom arcade game, visions that made me very, very giddy. Now that I have it, though, what do I think about it? Before I answer that question, let me explain the game that is Heroes to the uninitiated.
The storyline of Heroes is about as straightforward as they come. Long ago, in the kingdom of Baele, there was a wizard, Kaedin. Kaedin was powerful, but more importantly, he was Evil, with a capital ‘E’. He wanted to take over the world, or some such thing, and in order to do so he set about killing and burning everyone and everything in sight. In desperation, the movers and shakers in Baele called for heroes to come to their aid and fight against Kaedin. Four heroes answered the call: a human fighter, a dwarven cleric, and elven wizard, and a halfling rogue. They fought, and finally defeated, Kaedin, but in so doing they, themselves, were killed. Bummer.
Flash forward about 250 years. A bunch of evil clerics try to revive Kaedin in order to steal his powers, as evil clerics are wont to do. Unfortunately for them, they botch the job, and instead they bring Kaedin fully back to life. In a rather ungrateful move, Kaedin destroys the clerics who brought him back to life, then goes back to his old ways of killing and plundering for the sake of world domination. In desperation, the powers that be of Baele decide to resurrect the four fallen heroes that originally defeated Kaedin, and charge them with doing it again. Having little choice in the matter, the newly-revived heroes agree. That’s where the game begins.
As a story, it’s pretty formulaic and forgettable. Luckily, hack-and-slash adventures are very rarely about the story. It would be fair to say, in fact, that they are generally all about the hacking and slashing of various hostile beings. So it is with Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes. The game consists largely of moving from area to area, slaying everything in sight with either weapons or magic, and collecting all sorts of loot that you can keep and use, or sell for other, better loot. By now, you might think that I don’t like Heroes very much. You’d be wrong, though.
Gameplay
As an adaptation of D&D, Heroes not only falls short of the mark, but doesn’t even seem to really know where the mark is, or that it’s supposed to be aiming for said mark. However, as a hack-and-slash, Heroes is a whole bucket-load of fun. The controls are tight and the on-screen mayhem is pretty constant. Although it might become somewhat repetitive in single-player (I wouldn’t know, I haven’t played the game alone yet), multiplayer is a blast. I would argue, in fact, that anyone who does not play this game with at least one other person is missing the whole point. Heck, the game even sports a disclaimer, on both the disk and the manual, announcing that the game is “Best Played Together”.
On to the specifics of the gameplay, then. Perhaps one of my favorite things about this game is the way the controls work. It breaks down as follows. The left thumbstick moves your character, while the right thumbstick controls the camera (clicking it brings up the auto-map). The left trigger blocks, while the right trigger brings up the button configuration menu. Here’s the part that I like. The four main face buttons are the ones you’ll be using most often. A is always mapped to your standard melee combo, X and Y are mapped to ‘Power Moves’, and B is mapped to useable items. While the right trigger is depressed, you are able to specify which Power Moves and items you would like to equip, and which buttons activate them. In this way, you are able to use the dozens upon dozens of special attacks and abilities that the game eventually thrusts upon you. Finally, the white and black buttons use health and ‘mystic will’ potions, respectively. I cannot stress enough how much I like this configuration. It’s easy to learn, allows easy access to all of your moves and items, and allows you to really let loose on all those virtual hobgoblins and such.
The various playable characters each play differently from one and other, and each is a powerhouse in his or her own right. The fighter is absolutely unstoppable in pure melee combat, the wizard has a number of destructive and highly useful spells, the cleric balances melee prowess with defensive magic, and the rogue excels in ranged combat and indirect attacking. Each character has a whole laundry list of abilities that can be bought with ‘level-up points’, and each character’s abilities support his or her own style of smiting. Better still, some of these abilities lend themselves well to multiplayer. The cleric’s Heal spell, for example, heals the entire party at higher levels, while the rogue’s ability to open locked chests without the use of keys cannot be overstated in its utility.
As I’ve said, the game is quite a lot of fun to play when you’ve got a buddy or two to play with. The cooperative nature of the game works quite well, and I have-on many occasions-completely lost track of time while hacking my way through a dungeon with friends. However, the gameplay is not perfect. The game makes sure that you level up at a fairly steady pace, and this is both boon and bane. On the one hand, it’s exciting to level up and get new abilities. Every time you get more points, it’s like a little, personal Christmas. As satisfying as this is, though, the more powerful you get, the easier the game gets. It seems as though Atari put a lot of thought into making sure that the level-up rate was steady, but didn’t put as much thought into increasing the game’s difficulty in a proportional way. While I’m sure the game does get more difficult toward the end of the game (relative to the beginning of the game, at least), it doesn’t really feel all that difficult. In fact, towards the end of the game, everyone in my party had somewhere around fifteen Raise Dead Amulets (the game’s primary method of handling player death), and nobody was really having to use them all that often. Not only that, but the game’s bosses seemed distinctly more difficult nearer to the beginning of the game than they did toward the end.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics in this game certainly get the job done, although there seems to be a distinct lack of flare. When compared to something like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, I can’t help but wonder why the graphics in Heroes aren’t as good. After all, Heroes is a reasonably recent release, and an Xbox exclusive to boot. Dark Alliance, on the other hand, has had time to mature, and was a PS2 port. It seems that more work could have been put into the game’s graphics, though it doesn’t really detract from the game that much.
Similarly, the sound is pretty average. All of the sounds that you’d expect to be there are: the clanking of steel on steel, the thunk of an arrow hitting home, the growls of hostile creatures. It all does a good job of supporting the gameplay, though nothing really stands out. The voice acting is on the reasonably good side. I didn’t notice anything stellar, but I also didn’t cringe when any of the characters talked. The music is good, if a bit forgettable. It succeeds in setting the adventurous tone well, but it isn’t one of those rare few game soundtracks that I find myself humming while not playing the game.
Final Word: This is a thoroughly enjoyable, if somewhat flawed, hack-and-slash. With four very different playable characters, it has a good amount of replay value, and the multiplayer mayhem is a blast. If you want a game with a good story or strong RPG elements, though, this game may not be for you.
