Hero's Way Brings Classic Side-Scrolling RPG Gaming To iOS
Hero's Way (Free) by Lakoo is a fairly generic RPG that’s saved by its massive amount of content, including a large variety of items and absolutely nail-biting bosses. That being said, some of the lighter gameplay moments can be tedious indeed, making Hero’s Way a genuinely mixed bag.
For all intents and purposes, Hero’s Way is a standard, side-scrolling RPG like any other. Users choose between three different classes, including a warrior, a mage, and a rogue. Each of these relies on strength, intellect, and agility to get by, a formula that will sound familiar to any fan of the genre.
From there, the action heats up a bit, as players start entering combat and destroying baddies. Levels are short, and feature only a handful of monsters to defeat. Combat is mostly automatic, as the characters themselves do all the swinging, no button mashing required.
Hero’s Way does introduce a cool drag-and-drop mechanic which allows players to literally pluck their characters out of battle and drop them to a more strategic location. This is a unique concept, and one of the few innovations in the game.
Perhaps the best feature is its massive number of items. Hero’s Way comes with over 300 fully customizable items and weapons for the player to earn, adding an immense amount of incentive to keep playing. The drive to unlock one more piece of gear is eerily addictive, and perhaps the sole reason fans of the game keep going.
I say the sole reason, as the game itself can be quite boring. Since the characters do all the fighting, I often felt like I was really just watching a prizefight.
The drag mechanic is neat, but I never found much need to move my players about. In a similar manner, I never much needed to worry about strategy: My warrior held the front, my rogue shot from the back, and the mage did very little to help anyone.
However, it’s a rewarding experience to deck out your characters with cool looking gear, making Hero’s Way at least worth a look. Not to mention the boss fights, which are uncharacteristically challenging, but easily worth the time it takes to get to them.
Best of all, Hero’s Way is completely free in the App Store, and comes as a universal offering. If you're a side-scrolling RPG fan, you’ll find a lot to love here, even if it is a bit tedious, and all too familiar.
