Hero's Hour

Hero's hour is a jumbled fantasy strategy that hides a detailed realm of tiny rioters

Interesting real-time battles and strategy elements feel novel, but this isn’t a guaranteed home run

It’s hard to evaluate Hero’s Hour as a standalone title; its acknowledged inspiration from Heroes of Might and Magic is obvious from a mile away. The easy difficulty and fast pace appeal to casual gamers, while the references to the old-school classic are more likely to resonate with an older generation of players who gained their first gaming experiences around the turn of the century. If you’re feeling nostalgic, miss Heroes, but don’t have much time or strong nerves, you definitely won’t go wrong with this one.

Hero’s Hour may look like a simple game, and truthfully it can be if that’s what you want, but dig a little deeper and you’ll discover some surprising details. And while it definitely deserves the comparisons it receives to Heroes of Might and Magic, Hero’s Hour unfolds into something all on its own if you let it speak for itself. Whether you want a casual or complex experience, Hero’s Hour provides both — wrapped up in a glorious pixel art turn-based strategy RPG.

It is sad to give a rating this low to a game with this much potential. The UI in Hero's Hour is often problematic, and the graphics are just too basic to understand what is happening. Furthermore, there is a very heavy 'rush' element to the game rather than the more plodding pace of older games. If the graphics were better, some balance problems ironed out, and the UI was fixed, this would be an easy game to recommend to strategy players by a wide margin.

Hero's Hour mixes RPG, roguelike, real time strategy and auto battler elements in one convincing bundle, portrayed with a nice use of pixel art and an impressive number of units on screen. The gameplay loop, however, tends to be a bit repetitive and the lack of a singleplayer campaign doesn't help. Still worth it for its price, though.

Hero’s Hour shows how compelling and fun the Heroes of Might & Magic formula can be when a developer gets the core mechanics right. It takes a little time to get used to the real-time battles and the limited direct control, but the formula works well and delivers interesting choices and solid challenges. There’s a lot of variety when it comes to both maps and setup options, while the AI knows how to play to win.

Hero’s Hour takes what is great about the Heroes of Might & Magic formula, adds some extra spice of chaos and the end result is a great turn based / real time strategy RPG hybrid that doesn’t take itself seriously but at the same time, knows its audience. It does fall short in certain areas such as map generation, but this will be fixed in due time. A great game to spend an evening with.

Hero's Hour is an all-around incredible time, taking its classic 90s inspirations to our modern age by keeping all the strategic bits intact and serving a plate of immediate turn-based strategic gameplay, that is endlessly entertaining.

There are tons of strategies in Hero’s Hour and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I really enjoy watching armies battle it out despite its steep learning curve at the beginning. But you’ll get the hang of it after hours of playing it. This is one of those games that I can plug in during my streams if I just want to chill and play some solo strategy. I would consider getting this for my phone, to be honest. If the devs can figure out how to port this on mobile, with the right attention, I can see it perform well in the long term.