![]() Sword of Random Element +2’s are certainly nothing new, the usual fare of enchanted rings and magical helmets drop from the dead hands of your victims or turn up in the game’s main hub (which is, conveniently, a weapon’s shop!), and the bevy of stats and buffs are all to be found. If the multiplayer was the game’s saving grace, it’s the glee in which the game flaunts its Dungeons & Dragons license that solidifies it. As part of a team, it becomes less mindless and hopeful and more tactile and organised. Witches that have an annoying habit of vanishing whenever a melee combatant comes near, traceable only by the bloody footprints she leaves and the insane cackle she issues. When venom-spitting snakemen slither out from a verdant jungle, having a cleric handy with a heal status spell to back you up is a plus, as is the mage’s ability to snap seeking magic bolts at pagan witches inside the razed courtyard of a recently gutted castle. Especially when the larger version set themselves on fire and come lumbering after you with a surprising turn of speed. On your own, battling clockwork workers long gone mad inside the choked confines of a still functioning but long forgotten mine is suicide. Combine the two, though, and the fighter provides an ample meatshield, soaking up the physical abuse while the rogue can mop up the edges from afar, or get in close without the threat of instant slaughter. On your own, it’s all too easy for your lone fighter to be mobbed by excessive numbers of warrior orcs whilst bowman and mages wallop them from afar, and the distance between an arrow-slinging halfling and a horde of undead marauders is quickly closed, leaving her soft frame open to rusted sword strokes. Become sociable, and Heroes transforms completely. On your own, it’s tedious at best and redundant at worst, drowning the friendless player in a quagmire of repetitiveness that drones on endlessly. Then you wander through a dank cave interior, slaughtering skeletons and giant venom-spitting spiders through a button-mashy hack and slash style or through tidy bolts of magic or hailstorms of arrows. ![]() ![]() The first stage awakes your warriors from their crypt, the brief run down of the more evil resurrection offered up by the two nerdy dwarfs responsible for bringing you back. It’s quite unashamedly Xbox Gauntlet, but, under the right circumstances, this is largely a good thing. The final member, the lithe halfling rogue, has weak but fluid twin daggers plus the ability to plough half a dozen arrows into anything’s arse before it realises she’s there. The cleric is the world’s biggest dwarf, replete with ginger beard and hulking warhammer, who can’t match blow-for-blow with the fighter, but has a useful cache of holy magic under his belt. There’s hardly even a change from the original four characters: the fighter is a big burly guy with a huge sword and a brain the size of a pea, while the mage has the equivalent physical offence of a damp kitten, but can burn targets from afar with the power of her mind. It’s more what you would get if you took retro classic Gauntlet, right down to the option to have up to four players active on screen at any time, then beefed up the graphics and shoehorned in D&D stats and lore. This doesn’t, however, lead to an all out war between super-powered zombies. Taking a short break from charity work and group hugs, the people, not keen on another lifetime of enslavement, did the same to the very group of heroes that once slew this generic villain. Then, in an ill-advised bit of necromancy, an evil sect awoke the evil wizard and were somewhat surprised when they were effortlessly exterminated via evilness. This led to an era of peace bunnies roamed free over grassy knolls and the happy, simple people arranged weekend Morris dancing events with ribbons every colour of the rainbow. There was a big battle and everyone died, leaving the world without their quintet of protectors, but also sans evil warlord. There’s an evil wizard who terrorised everyone a millennia ago, only to be challenged by a rag-tag group of heroic archetypes. ![]() Just don’t be too surprised if you’re no longer friends come endgame."ĭungeons & Dragons: Heroes is hugely unapologetic about just how steeped it is in fantasy cliché. "Play this with a friend, or don’t play it at all. ![]()
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