Hero Academy - Handheld strategy at its finest
Hero Academy is a dangerous game. It’s charming, contains impressively vast strategic possibilities and fits in your pocket. All this comes together in a way that actively forces you drop whatever your doing every time your phone vibrates. Just one more turn. And another one...and another one. Civ players can probably relate.
Robot Entertainment, the makers of Orcs Must Die, has crafted a streamlined online competitive turn-based strategy game for iPhone and iPad, set in a light and fun fantasy world where humans, dark elves and dwarves meet to do battle.The board consists of a nine by five square field and the two teams start from opposite sides. Your goal is to either break your opponents two crystals which are spread out one the board and can withstand a considerable amount of damage, or kill all his troops. Each turn gives you five moves to place characters and distribute power ups, and each team has five different units to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
All this might sound very simple and straight forward but as we all know, looks can be deceiving. The combination of characters, buffs and power up squares add up to a surprising level of strategic depth. Put bluntly: it’s chess, only silly and fun. Characters have different amounts of health, abilities, ranges and patterns of attack and using them strategically is usually the difference between winning and losing. For instance, the Necromancer can resurrect fallen allies and foes as phanoms who can be buffed up by eating other fallen characters, and the Knight is a good melee fighter who shoves characters one space back when attacking, pushing them of power up squares.
The in app purchases are also implemented well. The game is free and you start out with the human team going by the name of The Council. Dark Elves, Dwarves and the just released orc-like Tribe, can be bought for two dollars each. Avatar pictures, custom colors and taunts can also be bought but are in no way necessary to enjoy the game. They only feel like a good way to support the developers if you feel like it, which you probably will. It’s also impressive that the developers seem to actively update the game with balance changes to perfect the already well balanced gameplay.
One small annoyance about the game is the way you need to exit the board and reload the list of active games just to update the board with your opponents latest move. A simple button to update the board would be a welcome addition. This doesn’t detract at all from the general experience though.
Hero Academy is an impressively accessible strategy game, without losing the magic of figuring out interesting strategies and adapting to your opponent´s play style. To me that’s the most important part of a good strategy game, and the reason I can’t recommend Hero Academy enough.