Brave Heroes is an arcade style game where the player runs around an infinite field and attempts to survive for as long as possible. The game has some rogue-like upgrades as the player acquires experience. These upgrades occur during the game play by freezing the game and giving the player an opportunity to select one of several random upgrades. A starting player begins by choosing a character, a power, and a sidekick. Although each have descriptions, it is not clear what practical impact any of the choices have until actually playing a game. Once the game has started, it is not clear what the character is supposed to do other than run around trying not to be hit by enemies.
Brave Heroes has a few options for graphics and sound, and strangely, the sound and music are off by default. The graphics options are limited to screen settings, overall quality, and anti-aliasing. The game is played in an isometric, top-down 3D view. It appears to be intended to be played with a mouse only as there are no controls options. There is also no tutorial or instructions, the player is simply dropped into a playing field when starting a game. Through trial and error, the player will discover the game’s mechanics.
As the maneuvering is entirely with a mouse, it should be noted that it is awkward and fatiguing after a while. The mouse gives good precision for maneuver, but the running around occurs with the mouse button held down. This should probably be a toggle, as holding the mouse button down while maneuvering the entire game is fatiguing. The direction the character will travel is relative to where the cursor was on the screen when the mouse button was pressed. There is a circular indicator, but in the heat of the battle, with hundreds of enemies on the screen, this indicator sometimes gets lost in a corner somewhere. Also, if the mouse cursor is far away from where it was when the button was pressed down, maneuvering becomes a real problem.
The overall goal is only to survive as long as possible. There is no aiming (except with the swords power), selecting powers, or activating anything. The player auto-shoots in seemingly random directions. Enemies come from random directions, progressively adding up until the player is totally surrounded and overwhelmed. When enemies die, they drop some items; the player picks these up automatically. When a blue bar fills up, the game freezes and a choice of three powers comes up. Sometimes an upgrade of the players main attack will appear as an option, but often the choices are not related to attack power and are upgrades to running speed or entirely additional powers. Whatever choices are made, the player is inevitably doomed. There is no apparent way to win, only stave off death for a few more seconds. That said, it does have the appeal to try again and choose different upgrade paths. Brave Heroes is a reasonably well-made arcade style game, but needs some controls refinement, a tutorial, and maybe a difficulty option. [b]Brave Heroes is marginally recommended; expect very short game sessions lasting 3-7 minutes.[/b]
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Jacmac is an ancient gamer that loves open world, strategy, FPS, and tactical sims, but will play almost anything.
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