HELLO HERO Review

There are a ton of combat games on the App Store that mix in other familiar elements. HELLO HERO, the latest and greatest of these turn-based battle sims, mixes in collectable cards, team building, social elements, and tops its off with a freemium model that teeters on pay-to-win. It's an innocent looking game that tries its hardest to reach into the player's soul and wallet the longer they play.

HELLO HERO is a game that does a great job at sucking players into it, much like a Siren luring sailors into the rocky coast. That's not to say it isn't worth one's time - this game is bucket loads of fun at first. Amazingly, players won't realize the dangers of a title that mixes fun with a pay-to-win style until much later.

There are a lot of games that users will think HELLO HERO resembles, but that doesn't mean it's an instant bore. Battling and team assembling is the core of the game with battles happening on a turn-based schedule, though it appears to happen in a more real-time style. The heroes a player chooses to assemble come with their own unique abilities and attacks, which can bring some frustrations. For one, the cooldown effect on one ability - no matter how many a player has to choose from - applies to all of them. Therefore, players are unable to use multiple special effects or attacks simultaneously. Players can queue up these special effects however, which automatically happen once the cooldown has ended.

This game also has a metric ton of different heroes to choose from. Anything from the typical knight to a cactus playing a guitar. Users have a variety to choose from, making this roster probably one of the more expansive ones for any collection-style game. Much like a game of Pokemon, the heroes in HELLO HERO can only be unlocked or found in certain areas of the game. The player does have the choice to unlock premium heroes by paying for them, however.

PvP combat and one-on-one arena combat are some of the other awesome features HELLO HERO offers to players, though this is where the pay-to-win element really becomes noticeable. Without having the means to upgrade heroes or get the high level rare ones, most casual players will be left at a massive disadvantage. The regular single player mode is where they will have a much more enjoyable experience.

HELLO HERO is a pretty decent collectable turn-based social battle sim. It may not be the next blockbuster game in the US as this title uses game mechanics more popular in Eastern mobile titles, but its still sure to win many people over. While HELLO HERO does have a couple of quirks and annoyances - such as cooldowns and weird people chatting - it's one of the better attempts and blending so many different styles together and turns out to be a great recipe.