Welcome to our review of Heroland, a game where you are a part-time hero or are you just a tour guide?
Part-time heroes wanted for a retro RPG adventure! You’re invited to a magical resort where anyone can be a hero—except for you. You just work there! Luckily, it’s on an island where dreams come true…for a price. As a tour guide, your job is to lead “heroes” safely through the theme park’s dungeons. Customize strategies, repair weapons, and manage items to survive!
Recruit over 20 quirky characters, including upright knights, phantom thieves, high school girls, and one casually nihilistic otter/man. Meet and defeat a colorful cast of coworkers such as monstrous mascots, cute li’l slugs, selfie-loving skeletons, and magical broccoli!
Behold the splendor of 2D sprites that have been turned, alchemy-like, into 3D models who bend and stretch through THE THIRD DIMENSION! Conjured from your 16-bit dreams by the legends of retro Japanese RPGs, this whimsical tale of princes and part-timers guarantees excitement that cannot be forgotten.
Heroland is a strange game that tries very hard to captivate your attention. Sporting several gaming mechanics all aimed to get you playing, an interesting storyline and the question of whether or not you really are a hero. More than supporting the actual players, including a prince, is not done at first. It is your guidance that either wins or loses a classical RPG battle. Everything appears to be linear, making it easy to understand. Despite the amount of reading to get you into the game, the story is either a hit or a miss.
In real Role playing fashion, you free up more and more options along the way and this goes without saying, so does Heroland. I was able to buy items in the store starting the second level. Getting back the healing items I spent in the previous battle, where I was playing support. Deciding whether to let my tour attack or to heal them. The options are all right there, be they a bit chaotical. A lot of reading to get things going and I did wonder if it negatively influenced my gameplay. Well, gameplay, not much you do really.
On a linear stage, you mix battles and treasure and storyline under guise of a tour for the guests of Heroland. I must say it felt novel at first, but I did seem to lose my interest along the way. I mostly felt a connection to the music and graphics than the story and I guess that tells it all. Failure to click with a storyline does happen and despite my initial positive impression, I still can’t but shake the idea like I missed out on just about everything in this game.
In conclusion, the charming art and its music could not save my gameplay from becoming boring. I regret saying this but I may have had higher hopes going in that this would be a great game, but in the end, it ended up being a mediocre experience, to say the least. Many other games on Switch that provide a better experience right now…
