HeroWarz: Slug N' Slash

So today I'm going to start something I've been wanting to do with this blog since its most humble inception several months back, namely, write video game reviews! I'm going to keep this as short and informative as I possibly can. A more in-depth look may come later.

I've decided to split the review into three sections: light summary, impressions, and a conclusion; broken down into three critera: aesthetics (graphics, music, sound effects), gameplay, and meta (bugs, end-game (if relevant), longevity, replayability, community, etc.). My rating system is going to be a simple binary: Play It or Don't Play It, with supporting reasoning in the conclusion. So without further ado

Today I'm starting with a game I've been diving into the last couple days and which has taken me entirely by surprise: HeroWarz

HeroWarz is, at the time I'm writing this article, the newest in a long line of South Korean titles localized for the West. Much like Lineage, Maple Story, Dungeon Fighter Online, Ragnarok, Rappelz, Blade & Soul, and a bevy of other games from South Korea, this game is meant to be played exclusively online. For reasons as of yet unknown to me, South  Korea produces and consumes almost entirely online-only titles. 

While earlier South Korean titles came with some kind of price tag attached, HeroWarz, like its more contemporary brethren, is free to play. For those of you not familiar with the business model of most modern F2P titles, I won't give the full run down here. Suffice it to say that the more reputable F2P game makes money by selling cosmetic and convenience items; things that won't create an imbalance of player power through the introduction of real money transactions. I will give more attention to this aspect of the game in the Meta section of the analysis.

The game can be broadly described as a Hack 'n Slash, similar to the Diablo series or Path of Exile. You can adventure alone or with a party of up to 4. Initially, you play through a main story/Campaign. Once you've completed that, you move on to level up and acquire more powerful equipment through a series of procedurally generated maps. However, what sets it apart is how it approaches the tried and true combat of the genre in a way which is both compelling and necessary for said Genre's growth.

Embedded below is one of the trailers for the game, so you can get a feel for how the game plays.

My Impressions

So I originally planned to write this review when I first got a character to level 60. That isn't the cap (which is 200 at the moment), but seemed to be decently far through the game witthout potentially being overly drugerous should the game become rotten & stale prematurely. 

But then along came Jerry

Jerry is the newest addition the colorful cast of playable characters Herowarz currently has on offer (which stands at 8 released, out of 15 revealed). She was released along with the game, which went live on July 20th. Since Jerry was the new kid on the block, KOGgames (the publishers) were running an event that gave you free cosmetic items if you achieved certain level milestones with her during the event period. Now Jerry isn't the kind of character I'd usually play in a game, nor the kind I would expect to find in a dungeon crawler.

Jerry is some kind of teenage Sports-God from an alternate universe. She wields a baseball bat and features an entirely sports themed moveset. She is, in short, quite a ridiculous character.

So I told myself, "If I can stand getting good ol' Jerry here to level 60, then I'll probably give the game a positive review." That, and I'd have some nice cosmetic items for the characters that actually did look interesting, like the female version of the lord of the underworld, Hades, who wields a chain-ball-spike weapon that looks simply incredible.Well, I'm currently sitting at Level 88 on Jerry. And while I do plan to play the other characters eventually, I'll be continuing to gear her up to tackle end-game challenges.

The sheer physicality of Jerry's moveset is part of why she's so much fun to play. The attack speed, animations, sense of impact; all of it just feels great. You get the sense that Jerry has achieved the height of human physical prowess, and it shows in her abilities. Ever attack and skill was made in such a way as to emphasize both her speed and power.

There's also the fact that Many of her abilities are hilarious implementations of rather mundane sports equipment & players, the combination of which can cause serious on-screen havok. Her primary mana recovery ability, pictured left, is one of my favorites. She summons a massive Football player to rush and grapple enemies in his path. Not only is it ridiculous and satisfying, but it can also be integrated into many different ability combo's.



Conclusion

Aesthetics

Despite HeroWarz being both a F2P title and possessing a lighter atmosphere/tone of the title relative to its competitors and predecessors, it manages to impress both visually and aurally. The game is very light weight when it comes to system requirements, and will run very well even on older machines. Unfortunately, graphics tuning options are limited at the moment to resolution, v-sync, and anti-aliasing levels, with no real option to turn the setting up or down. the game works very well with the assets it has though.

It would seem that A. Storm (the developers) took a page out of Blizzards book when approaching how to give the game visual fidelity while keeping the minimum specs required to play as low as possible: It's all about effective and efficient use of textures, shading, and particles. If you do try the game, I highly recommend spending a little time in the Dimensional Terminal. The music and ambiance in there is amazing.

The soundtrack for the game is expansive and impressively mastered. There's some overdone wubadubstep in there, but it's by and large very nice to listen to while working through the main story.

The character and level design is largely modern, with some fantasy and sci-fi elements thrown into the mix. The different locales players travel to are varied and fun. You go from subterrainin totalitarian dystopia's to the planes of Africa (Parfrica in the game) to a continent created, both literally and metaphorically, from Fairy Tales.





Gameplay

HeroWarz borrows elements from both the fighter and brawler genres. The ability for characters to combo, aerial juggle, and play with physics is a welcomed addition to standard Hack N Slash combat formula and is probably the most compelling reason to give the game a download (that, and it's free).

It would be no exaggeration to say that the combat in HeroWarz is the tightest of any HnS I've ever played. The transition between movement and attack is seemless and when combined with the physics enabled combat, gives your actions a serious sense of weight.



Meta

At the moment, variety and depth of endgame content is limited to: Player Training, which is your standard randomized dungeon running; Third World (not quite what it sounds like), which is a series of difficult challenges in which standard recovery items are disabled. These are very enjoyable, but relatively limited at the moment. Third World is also the place where you go to acquire and rank up your sidekicks. Sidekicks add a great deal of longevity and depth to the game in the form of summonable support characters that possess a variety of powerful skills and attacks.

The community is still in its nascent stages, but from what I've seen, it tends to be on the younger side, at least at the moment. As is the inevitable question with all smaller F2P titles: does this game have enough people playing it to justify settling in and perhaps spending some dough? Personally, I would hold off for the next big update to put down any cash, as its unclear what kind of release schedule the publisher has planned in the coming weeks/months. If in the future the game is well tended and flush with  content, it will certainly be worth the time/money spent.


My conclusion: Definitely worth playing.

I've very much enjoyed my time spent with HeroWarz and will be spending some more time with it in the final lull before WoW's demon invasion/demon hunter come out next week (which will subsequently be the topic of my next post). I recommend you give the game a DL and find out for yourself. You may not stick around for the long run, but I can almost guarantee you will enjoy yourself.

Wait For The Wheel (Working Title)

This is the first part of the first chapter of a new long form science fiction story I'm hoping to get written. There's more waiting in the wings - half-written/outlined - so stay tuned.

Mars. Fourth primary satellite from Sol. Desert Planet.

The light is cold - distant. Deserts are supposed to be warm, hot even. Not this one. Not this planet.

You stumble across the sand. Your footing is loose - the ground seeks to give way as you slowly parse through it. 
Like a half-remembered song/Like a memory which is about to fade: it gives way. Too often, your footing falters, and you slip. Your knee buckles and you throw your hand down to support yourself. Close to the sand your position is stable - unyielding. But you cannot move. It is that stability that holds you there, frozen under that cold star. In order to live, you must let go. You must fall:

Each step you have ever taken is a controlled fall, a minor submission to gravity's pull. The only way to move forward is to stop ourselves before it's too late. Before we fall, we must rise again - and again.

You can see the cliffs now. They loom above; Lonely ramparts in this bleak landscape.

The wind: It scours us, it sets about setting us back into the sand. If it had its way, we would still be at the bottom of that ravine - forgotten. But we rose up. Against all odds, we started moving again.

You can still hear that voice - like a half-forgotten song. That sweet melody burns us more than this cold star ever could. It pushes us down more than this planet ever will. It screams,

“Come back.”

“Don’t leave.”

And we whisper:
But we can’t.

But we must.

The wind, it gusts again and we are face down in the sand. Blood-red, they say. They’re wrong. You feel a warm ooze trickling from our nose.

It drips down your face, falling into the faded iron crushed between your fingers. Only now does it take on the tinge of life. Like a parasite, the ground sips the blood from us. But we cannot stop. If you stop - you die.

You kept that lesson close.

An Eternity of walking and sleeping. Waking, Walking, sleeping. You make your way through a repeated succession of valleys, fjords and plains, with only the occasional shrub or brush or vermin to remind me of how this place came to be. The initial terraforming of this landscape. 

That was an incredible time. Truly - You should have been there. The sight of the capital ships of the various conglomerates from orbit was breathtaking. To see the embodiment of millennia of your people’s societal and technological progress - cast in steel and set to float amongst the stars - was a singular experience. Had you been there, had you felt what I felt, what most of us felt, you would understand the path you’re on now. Maybe one day when the connection between us is cemented and I can show you my memories - you will. But you don’t care, do you?

You need to keep moving.

You have no specific destination, but you know how to get where you're going. Down to the equator, then either east or west, it doesn’t matter which. The old domes are all there - drinking in the Sun's rays and harvesting what geothermal energy they can - and the old domes are all that are left.

How long were we in the wilderness before we saw the artificial geometry of that first dome? It couldn’t have been more than six months - the absolute upper limit on your current operational capacity at the outset of our journey. I spent so much of that time hibernating, trying to conserve every joule and calorie of available energy, that I was unable to keep accurate measure of the intervals between my conscious cycles.
Without that ancient exosuit I unearthed, you wouldn’t have made it a tenth of that time. You know that, right?

As its shape becomes more defined and you start discerning its edges of its height and circumference I feel your mind starting to reassert itself. Long dormant sectors of your mind fire up. Exterior entry codes, cultural specificity's of particular habitats, differences and commonalities of architecture, all of it comes flooding back. You know these people. Or at least, you did.

You round the perimeter of the primary structure and find the anterior entrance. The massive plated doors stand one hundred feet tall and more than double that across. They bear a badly worn identifier on the left door plate the first world is unintelligible, but the rest of the calligraphy reads, “Heavy Industries”. You immediately recall a number of habitats founded by the various industrial powerhouses of Mars, but there is no way to tell which one this is at the moment.

You approach the deprecated structure and slowly pace across the right door plate with your hand pressed lightly to the surface, disturbing a layer of sand and grit as you go. Eventually your hand catches on a small latch, which you depress with your middle and index finger. A pneumatic plate pops up and slides aside, revealing an interface which stands at odds with the decrepitude of everything that surrounded it. It's crisp and clean, clearly well protected from the weathering of the elements. Unlike the rest of the surface of the dome, which had become a sandy beige, the metal surrounding the console was a sharp white. You grunt slightly as you flip over an actuator that was meant to resist any unintentional activation from weathering. A monochrome green and a black hologram about the size of your hand sputters to life.

Welcome to Tsunkatse Heavy Industries

Are you a resident?

A prompt appears and you click no.

What is the reason for your visit?

Another prompt appears asking whether your visit is for work, pleasure or both. You stare at it blankly for a time.

Just hit work - I highly doubt we'll have any time for pleasure during our time here.
You comply.

Please present your identification. If you do not possess a form of identification, one will be implanted before clearing customs, courtesy of the Tsunkatse Port Authority.

A small scanner drops from the console. You place your gloved right wrist under the unit and the holographic console flashes momentarily before retracting back into the smooth surface of the panel.

Uex Quel: Your visa is in good standing. Your last visit was: four hundred and sixty three years ago. Please inform customs as to any changes in citizenship, ethnicity or gender since your last visit.  Thank you, and we hope you enjoy your stay.

You close the panel and draw back from the massive door as it slowly groans to life, heaving its mass across the dirt. When it has opened enough, you pass through and into the darkness that lies beyond.

Certain Doom and Resolve:The True Power of the Superhero Myth

I just finished watching a pair of episodes from the 2001 Justice League cartoon, which is what inspired me to write this piece. The duology, entitled “Legends”, is from the series first season and is the first time the series creates a true emotional resonance with the audience, or at least the first time it did that to me. This story and its denouement  reminded me why I fell in love with superheroes in the first place by engendering in me feel a sense of wonder and admiration for what human being are capable of achieving and Being.

I suppose taking the time to explain the story preceding the affecting moment would be prudent, as the arc as a whole is quite outstanding. This two part story, which was the format for nearly every episode of the show before it was re-branded as Justice League Unlimited and followed a much more understandable one-shot format from then on, begins in-situ with a bog-standard battle between the Justice League and a rampaging robot being remote-controlled by Lex Luthor. This ill-fated machine is destroyed by the JL, but not before it sucks The Martian Manhunter, Flash, John Stewart and Hawkgirl into an alternate dimension in the resulting explosion. It is there that they meet and briefly confront, before finally hugging it out with - The Justice Guild of America. Their world is a representation of an idealized 1950’s America replete with self-enforcing sexism and casual racism. One of the Guild's members, Tom Turbine (voiced by Ted McGinley), a hero who utilizes a miniature dynamo on his belt to generate electricity which he then channels through his fists, delivers a cliche-defining one-liner before engaging Green Lantern and Flash,

“Perhaps you haven’t heard, but in Seaboard City - crime doesn’t pay.”

This innocuous and unabashedly cheesy introduction will become important later.

Now Mirror, Mirror story arcs are a dime a dozen these days, which makes sense, as they allow writers to play around with characters whose ideologies and personal characteristics are more or less set in stone. But this particular romp to an alternate earth takes a slightly different approach. While the characters our heroes meet are in some ways mirrors of characters we’re familiar with - The Streak to The Flash, Green Guardian to the Green Lantern, Catman to Batman - they aren’t meant to operate as direct parallels that serve to examine and deconstruct core parts of those characters personalities and mythos (such as The Crime Syndicate) but rather as a self-reflexive exercise mostly for the audience.

We find out fairly early on in the arc that John Stewart enjoyed lazy afternoons during his youth perusing comic stacks with his uncle, and that the Justice Guild was his favorite group of fictional superheroes. What’s more, the fictional forays of the Justice Guild played a large part in inspiring him to become a good man, and ultimately, a hero himself. Fancy that. The explanation is proffered that these characters, rather than being the result of a comic-writers overactive imagination, were instead real people with real lives and with whom the writer was able to connect on a psychic level, turning their reality into his worlds fantasy. This concept of psychic inception should be familiar enough to most of you, but it's not something I want to go into here - suffice it to say that’s a different topic for a different time.

If having a fictional world full of superheroes nestled inside yet another fictional world full of superheroes wasn’t feeling groovy enough, the end of the first episode introduces yet another interesting twist - the marked graves of Tom Turbine, Green Guardian and the rest of the Justice Guild, indicating that whoever our heroes have been interacting with are doppelgangers of some kind.
Near the end of the second episode the JGA’s plucky underage companion, Ray Thompson, is revealed to be an extremely powerful mutant who created the Justice Guild’s doppelgangers and the idyllic reality in which they currently inhabit, the originals having been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust some 40 years earlier. Despite the JGA being nothing more than figments of a fractured and despondent psyche, their autonomy, individuality, and personalities remain - and so they are faced with a choice. Do they remain steadfast in the ideals they have long sworn to uphold, and in doing so, erase themselves and the city they were sworn to protect from reality? Or do they retreat back into the fantasy world which they had so comfortably inhabited until that point to play an egotistically satisfying game of cat and mouse with their villainous counterparts?

Unsurprisingly, the choose the former - they are heroes after all. But it isn’t this choice which created this poignant emotional resonance in my mind, rather it is Tom Turbine’s delivery of the aforementioned quote as he is about to confront his creator, but this time without any of the cheese or flair of the prior utterance, but rather with a simple and stalwart solemnity,

“In Seaboard City - crime doesn’t pay.”

McGinley’s subtle gravitas in that moment is worth a thousand super-powered throw downs and ideal-ridden monologues. He has realized and come to terms with who and what he is, and in the face of utter desolation, he hold true to what he believes - that good will overcome evil, no matter the personal cost. And in doing so, he truly felt exactly what that utterance is supposed to mean for the first time since his reincarnation.

It is in those rare moments that these stories gain their power. The power to move us as well as the power to inspire us.

To be better, and to do better.
Perhaps the reason I was moved by this relatively brief moment in a cartoon that's over a decade old is due to a personal affinity for fiction which evokes pathos through its utilization of a theory of mind. It shows through means subtle and obvious what is going on in a character's head, why they act and feel the way they do, and does so without cheapening it through unnecessary melodrama or overt explanation. While it may just be me, I think this observation is of a quality all good stories share, and plays a large part in what makes a story and its characters truly worthwhile to a given audience. Had Tom Turbine stopped to explain that he had steeled himself against total obliteration in words, rather than showing it to the audience, I believe that moment would have lost all of its poignancy. It's not satisfying to hear such determinations. We need to see and feel them viscerally.