Underhero

Genre: Platformer / RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Anti Hero Bundle along with Nefarious and Reverse Crawl.)

Underhero is a family-friendly game that combines the Platformer and RPG genres, originally released on PC in 2018 and ported to multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch in 2020. This is a game that puts players in the role of a nameless minion in a typical fantasy RPG setting who actually manages to kill the hero… and finds this isn’t exactly a great thing for him, and hurriedly takes up the hero’s talking hilt and scrambles to secretly become the new hero while still maintaining appearances with his evil master.

Yeah, the story and characters are one of the big draws of this game, which is clearly taking a very tongue-in-cheek look at typical fantasy tropes in a charming way that actually reminds me a lot of the sort of sense of humor you’d see in the Paper Mario games, with enemies acting very much like employees in a day job, with the game’s save points even being a classic-style punch-clock.

The visuals here use a pixel art style that has a good amount of personality to it and a colorful palette that really makes the game delightful to look at, even though on a technical level there’s nothing impressive here. This is paired with a whimsical chiptune-heavy soundtrack with some catchy tunes like Overture, Forest Feud, and The Moth Queen.

As for the gameplay, it’s not just the story here that reminds me of the Paper Mario games. This game’s RPG-style battles play out in a way that has some similarities to Paper Mario’s, where players must time button presses and take other actions to improve their attack and defense. It’s all cleverly implemented in a way that makes each new enemy type a bit of a puzzle of sorts, trying to figure out not only the best method to attack them, but also their timing. Plus, the fact that you’re nominally one of their crew makes for the fun bonus of being able to converse with them before trouncing them.

However, the other half here, outside of these battles, is the platforming, and this is somewhat less successful ,with floaty controls and slapdash level design. I frequently found myself frustrated at the lack of a map you carry with you (there are map stations, but that’s not the same thing), and often the game seems to want you to make precision jumps when the platforming controls simply weren’t built for that sort of thing. The thing is, you can certainly see some real creativity in the game’s boss fights, which actually combine the platforming and RPG-style battles in some really inventive ways. Sadly, this creativity doesn’t seem to extend to the rest of the game.

While Underhero’s platforming doesn’t live up to the rest of the game, I still highly recommend this game as a wonderful RPG with a great sense of humor, fun story, solid combat, and some good music. Fans of the Paper Mario games in particular should give this game a look – even though it’s not quite the same thing, Underhero definitely has some similarities, and it’s overall a solid RPG well worth playing.

tl;dr – Underhero is a game that combines RPG and Platformer elements with a story that casts you as a minion who manages to kill the story’s hero and must now scramble to secretly become the new hero. This game has a fun story, excellent characters, a great sense of humor and a good soundtrack, and the excellent RPG combat takes a few ideas from the Paper Mario games. Unfortunately, the platforming isn’t so great, but everything else here is so good I’d still highly recommend it to RPG fans.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best RPG/Action-RPG

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