Hero’s Hour

Genre: Strategy / RPG

Players: 1-7 Competitive (Local Alternating)

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Review:

Hero’s Hour, released in 2022 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2024, is a game that combines Turn-Based Strategy, Real-Time Strategy, and RPG elements in a blend of gameplay that many have compared to the classic PC game Heroes of Might and Magic. In this game, players start out with a hero leading an army fighting nearby monsters and gathering resources to build up their kingdom and gradually gain the strength needed to overpower competing kingdoms.

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War Hero

The Turn-Based Strategy comes in the form of the overworld map, where a player’s hero (or later, heroes) can perform a number of actions limited by an energy bar that drops with each step taken and map feature interacted with. As you explore, you uncover more of the map, and will have to choose between various enticing options like gathering resources, claiming helpful structures, heading back to your capitol city to bolster your army’s numbers, and engaging in combat with enemies.

Once you do pick a fight with an enemy, the gameplay changes to something more akin to Real-Time Strategy, with your troops and your enemy’s forces swarming the battlefield. In this part of the game, your control is more passive as you watch the battle unfold. You do have some agency here, as you can use spells to turn the tide of battle or direct a specific unit to move in a specific direction, but most of the battle happens without your direct input.

As with many Strategy games, your kingdom’s abilities grow as you gather resources and build up your facilities, but your heroes also grow over time, with each of them having their own stats, equipment, abilities, magic spells, and ability trees. These ability tree options can affect how the hero personally performs in battle, energize their army, or they can boost the kingdom’s production in some way, making players weigh the hero’s individual growth against the growth of the kingdom as a whole.

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Everyday Hero

When it comes to multiplayer, Hero’s Hour sadly lacks online and local wireless multiplayer, though this is probably understandable, as the turn-based nature of the game means everyone else will be waiting as you take your turn. However, Hero’s Hour does have a single-system “hotseat”-style multiplayer, allowing players to pass around one Nintendo Switch system to the next player when their turn is over, preserving the limited view each player has of their own corner of the map. This is an excellent use of the Nintendo Switch’s unique potential as a handheld, though unfortunately it’s the only real use of the Nintendo Switch’s unique features – touchscreen input would have been great to have here, but sadly there’s no use of the feature.

In terms of presentation, Hero’s Hour uses simple, colorful 2D pixel art visuals that are delightful to look at, and can even be impressive when the massive numbers of units engage in battle, looking like a frenetic swarm of activity, though this swarm of activity has the downside of being at times difficult to parse. These visuals are backed by a fantasy RPG-style chiptune soundtrack that works well for the game.

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Tragic Hero

When it comes to complaints, I think my main issue with Hero’s Hour pertains progression and pacing. Making progress in Hero’s Hour is extremely time-consuming, and even on a small to moderate-sized map where players aren’t dragging their feet agonizing over every decision, a full session of Hero’s Hour can take multiple hours to play through.

This is because of multiple factors, but a major one is that your ability to grow and empower your army is limited not only by resources, but time. The game’s turn-based map is measured in days (turns) where players can take multiple actions, but only one new facility can be built in your town each day even if you have the resources for more, limiting your kingdom’s growth.

What’s more, new units are only generated by your city at the beginning of each in-game week, meaning that you may be left killing time trying to find things to do until you can get enough units to overpower nearby enemies to make some progress in the game. This also acts as a deterrent to raising up multiple heroes, as building an army capable of getting anything done means pouring all of your troops into one unit rather than splitting them up among multiple units.

On that note, most enemies are stationary, waiting until you come to them. Unfortunately, this is because most resources and structures you find are being guarded by these enemies, meaning that combat is usually required to progress, and as combat naturally whittles down your forces, this can further contribute to mid-to-late week leaving you with an army that’s not powerful enough to do anything.

Another issue I have with the enemies dotting the land is the way their power is scaled to be progressively difficult, which seems like a sensible choice to provide consistent challenge as you power up, but once again this means that your growth is often gated by enemies blocking your path that are currently too powerful to challenge. Even worse, some of the toughest enemies to take on are the literal gates separating your kingdom from the other kingdoms, preventing any jockeying for territory or resources, as well as any early “Zerg rush”-style invasions, and making your competition with the opposing kingdoms a nebulous and opaque affair for much of the game – you could easily play for an hour before you even see the forces of your rivals, let alone get the chance to engage them.

Another issue I have is with the game’s combat. I understand that making it mostly hands-off is a creative choice, but if the game was going to go that route, why does it only sometimes offer the choice to skip combat and see the results, even when the battle is judged to be an easy one? Also, while you can direct units, they seem to be compelled to defy your orders – tell a damaged unit to move away from danger so they won’t die, and you’ll have to keep directing them to do so, as they will immediately turn around and head right back into danger after getting where you tell them to go.

Also, since I’m mentioning complaints, I’ll say that the control scheme and interface here takes some getting used to, and the utility of different kingdom-building and skill tree options isn’t exactly clear. This game definitely has a lot of depth, but that depth can easily be confusing.

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Working Class Hero

Despite my complaints about Hero’s Hour, and as you can see I have a lot of complaints about this game… I still found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. The interesting procedurally-generated world to explore, the wealth of options to upgrade your kingdom, the visceral thrill of seeing the massive armies duking it out… while I was frequently frustrated during my time playing Hero’s Hour, there was rarely any point where I wasn’t still enjoying myself. As Strategy games go, this is a messy and highly-flawed experience, but it is nevertheless a compelling experience that more patient fans of the genre would do well to check out.

tl;dr – Hero’s Hour is a game that combines Turn-Based Strategy, Real-Time Strategy, and RPG elements, with players guiding armies to gather resources and build up their kingdom to compete with other kingdoms. This game has a multitude of problems, from its progression and pacing issues, control and interface issues, and its odd hands-off battles, yet for all of its many frustrations, this is nevertheless a compelling and enjoyable experience, and Strategy fans with the patience for long game sessions will likely find this to be worth a look.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Strategy Game

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