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Interesting real-time battles and strategy elements feel novel, but this isn’t a guaranteed home run
One of the genres that was really hot for quite a while but has never really come back to prominence is the real-time strategy game. Command and Conquer, Warcraft, and a few others were all extremely popular, but then the genre mostly disappeared from the mainstream. That said, there have been elements of that genre that will pop up every now and again, so at least pieces of that legacy survive, and that’s the case with Hero’s Hour.Somewhat taking a “best of both worlds” approach, Hero’s Hour is a combination of turn-based play on its main map, and then real-time action when you get down to combat. This mix seems to capitalize on the strengths of each, allowing everyone’s main moves to be strategic and well-considered, but then injecting some life and excitement into seeing units swarm one another on the battlefield. Whether playing against the AI or some friends, you’ll need to balance exploration, city building, and some periodically aggressive behavior to keep your faction building its resources, army, and power. Once you do join in conflict you’ll have the pleasure of watching your units swarm and attack their enemies, though granted often in a bit of a haphazard manner you have only limited control over. Your main benefit to your army will be casting spells to help buff your units or do damage to your enemies, but if you’re overmatched there’s only so much you’ll be able to do.The fact that there are loads of factions, heroes, and possible units to have at your disposal, mixed with the procedurally-generated maps, does help ensure that every time you play there’ll be new lessons to learn and opportunities to capitalize on. That said, in practice even though the details may change, I’ll admit that it doesn’t take long for sessions to still at least feel somewhat the same. Getting accustomed to how best to quickly and effectively power yourself up will take a little time, but regardless of your faction, once you get the hang of things the fundamentals only amount to details, in the big picture you can still feel like you’re simply going through the successful motions.In the end this feels like a real love letter to strategy fans, particularly ones who have fond memories of real-time strategy battles and having the fun of watching their armies overwhelm their enemies. That thrill can absolutely be present here, and I can’t say that almost any titles I’ve played on the Switch have harnessed that same energy. All the same, much of your time is spent in the overworld in turn-based mode, and while the details may be different there’s still more of a generic vibe to that phase of play that feels like at best it can match the competition, but really doesn’t succeed in surpassing it. The result absolutely has novel value for the right sort of strategy fan, but I’m not convinced that it has the ability to be a breakout success beyond that crowd.
Justin Nation, Score:Good [7.9]