Before I offer my two cents, I want to say that I myself haven’t had the discipline to finish any project that runs to tens of thousands of words, and that people are happy to pay for. So, irrespective of what I’m about to say, I think the heroes series is an achievement. I’m saying what I’m saying in the spirit of constructive criticism, even though I have a habit of being a bit blunt.
That said, I thought there were some pretty serious shortcomings in this game, so e of which you guys have already touched on.
First problem: characters. The story is overpopulated, and the plethora of side characters suck up space that would have been better spent bringing the main players to life. Characters like Summit, the husband and wife hero pair, and Inherit are really just distractions, their contribution to the plot is negligible. But when you add up all the little scenes and sections dealing with minor characters like them, it gets to be quite a large chunk of the story.
Take Lucky, for example. Why is she attracted to the player? What motivates her to be a hero? How does she feel about the Meek, what are her views on sexuality? We don’t know. She’s just sort of there to provide a romantic option.
When love interests like Black Magic and Lucky feel so two dimensional, you don’t have time to waste on Mach Girl’s mother’s cooking or Wintry’s new haircut. They’ve just not important enough to the overall story to merit the attention they’re given.
The game skims over a broad range of characters and relationships but never really explores most of them in enough depth to get the reader invested in these people. This is a shame, as characters like The Crush and GG feel like missed opportunities.
Second problem: scenario. It hardly needs to be said, but this is a superhero game. So why does it feel like I spend more time playing reality show politics and managing my social life than saving people from burning buildings or defeating supervillains?
Choosing which super-clique I want to belong to? Deciding where to cast my vote? Sucking up to judges? Who cares! I want to play a superhero, not Leona Lewis!
Third problem: mechanics. The game explicitly states that to be successful you need to pick a play style and stick to it throughout. There are a couple of problems with this that really undermine Hero Projects credibility as interactive fiction.
If you’re required to stick rigidly to a pre-defined script to be successful, resolving a situation becomes less about finding an interesting solution or roleplaying your character, and more about guessing which option is supposed to be the ‘heroic’ or the ‘pragmatic’ choice. When it’s easy to tell which option you need to pick, the game feels like a railroad, and when it’s not obvious, it just feels like guesswork. In either case it doesn’t work.
Yes, players can play against type if they want to. But it’s not a real choice if you penalise the player every time they choose something that doesn’t fit into the author’s vision of a ‘correct’ way to play a heroic character. CoG is supposed to be all about choice, but there’s surprisingly little of it except for fluff decisions and a few key dilemmas.
Lastly, the themes of the story. Which brings me onto the sensitive part of my review.
I found the author’s handling of issues like bigotry, sexuality and gender to be… Clumsy.
I get that the author wants to address social issues in their game. That’s good, a lot of the best stories incorporate real world problems to make the narrative more grounded and relatable.
However, having your characters take time out from saving the country from megalomaniacal super villains to attend a political debate is jarring. It comes across as a contrived way for the author to make a point about dogma and discrimination.
Likewise, hitting pause on the main plot line, apropos of nothing, so a collection of your characters can get on their soapbox and start arguing with each other about sexuality and gender is about as subtle as a brick to the head.
It’s fine for the authorial voice to come through, but when it’s too obvious it feels like preaching rather than a genuine issue the characters have to contend with.
I bought and enjoyed Heroes Rise (though that had its flaws too), and despite everything I just said I did enjoy Hero Project. There are a lot of fun, novel ideas sloshing around in this series.
But the execution leaves something to be desired. Come the next instalment, I’d like to see deeper characters, more of a focus on actual superhero-ing, better accommodation of player choice, and a much lighter touch when it comes to social commentary.
Sorry for the wall of text.
