RPG #17: Hero RPG Review

Hero RPG is the sequel to Athalina RPG in spirit, if not in practice. After all, the same author behind Athalina (Michael Neumann) produced Hero RPG. The graphic style will look extremely familiar to anyone who played Athalina, and the gameplay feels similar as well, though there are some key differences between the games.

Hero RPG's combat system is somewhat different, for starters. In order to attack, you must now hit the space bar, at which point your character will be locked in place and pivot to face your mouse. You then left-click to actually attack. You'll break out of combat mode when you move again. It is unclear exactly why the creator felt the need to implement this two-step process instead of the less complicated system from Athalina RPG, though I personally suspect that it may have been put in to make it easier to program enemy AI.

Although the Hero RPG combat system feels clunkier than the one in Athalina RPG, there are some improvements in other areas. The aforementioned AI actually is better--some enemies will exhibit behavior that looks almost like honest-to-goodness teamwork, with one enemy engaging you up close while the other whips out a bow and arrow and takes pot shots from a distance. Character models look somewhat nicer in this edition, with more fluid animations. And although the music was a weak point in the original, composer Matt Winkler has clearly honed his chops for this round, with some tunes that are actually pretty darn catchy.

In fact, with the exception of that one questionable change to the combat engine, just about everything in Hero RPG is like Athalina, only better. The bottom line: if you liked Athalina RPG, there's no good reason not to be playing Hero RPG right this instant!