Unruly Heroes

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local) 2-4 Competitive (Local, Online)

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Review:

Unruly Heroes is an Action-Platformer based loosely on the classic Chinese story, The Journey West (the same story that Dragon Ball started out also loosely based on), placing you in the role of the story’s four heroes.

The presentation here is phenomenal, with detailed characters and environments and wonderful animation. This is a game that looks great, with a lot of personality flowing through it.

In fact, I kinda’ wish the game actually gave us a bit more time to appreciate its great visuals. Given that this is a game based on a classic, beloved story, it’s kinda’ surprising how much that story is glossed over here. Our heroes don’t even really get an introduction – you start with all four, which you can swap between at will, and aren’t given any idea what their individual stories are, and only the most bare bones “save the world” style plot compelling them forward. At the very least, the narration here is witty and delivered well, even if the story being narrated doesn’t feel all that special.

The lack of proper introduction to the heroes also hurts the gameplay, as you’re not really given a reason to see these four as anything but interchangeable lives, save for the few special abilities each has, some of which only come into play in context-specific points. Beyond that, two can float and two have a double jump. One can bus through tough walls. But as for how they move and fight? They certainly look different, but the combat is so button-mashy that it doesn’t seem to make a difference who you choose.

That’s not to say the gameplay here is bad. While the combat can get repetitive at times, the platforming gameplay here is very good, and you’ll want to push forward just to see more of the wonderful-looking world. In fact, my only other complaint here is that the four heroes make the game a bit too easy – since you need specific heroes to get past some obstacles, when one of them dies, they’re usually back pretty quickly, meaning that if you die a few times in a spot, you just need to wait a moment to restock your heroes and try again.

While there are certainly ways Unruly Heroes could have been improved, in the end it is still a solid action-platformer that’s a visual treat. Those looking for another game in the genre will find this to be an excellent choice.

tl;dr – Unruly Heroes is an action-platformer based loosely on the classic Chinese tale Journey West, having you control four heroes as they fight through some really gorgeous levels. This game isn’t without its problems, but overall it is a solid, great-looking game that’s really fun to play.

Grade: B

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