Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar (PC) Review

By Eric Ace 19.10.2014

Review for Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar on PC

Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar is a light RPG and strategy mix that focuses heavily on an active time battle system that is controlled through position swapping and ability usage. Between battles, random events can be encountered, and a small crafting and ability tree can be changed. It had great promise, but it fails to live up to it.

Heroes Battle is nearly 90% of this game, with a small story, and extraneous stuff tacked on. The major problem with this approach is the battle system is only mediocre. Battles occur as follows: the three characters controlled are on the left side of the map, and they can swap freely with each other in position. On the right is one to three enemies, directly across from the character, and it is a simple slug match with character one battling enemy one, character two battling enemy two, and character three battling enemy three.

It is an ATB style game, meaning the faster a character's speed, the faster their 'turn' comes up, which is their character swinging their weapon, doing damage, and the time bar is reset. This occurs automatically, and it cannot be stopped. The only thing the player can do, is swap a new character in, or to use abilities. A problem with this approach beyond some basic abilities that are simple clicks once the cool down is gone, is that it is a 'sit and watch' game, as there is little to do.

Now, given how cluttered battle is, and everything going on, such as that items are equipped only in battle and level ups occur only in battle, it seems like it would be an engaging experience, but ultimately it simply falls into a pattern of clicking. Click an ability when ready, click the level up when able, click better item if present; it becomes automatic, and there is little feel that there is much 'strategy' present despite the game styling itself as such. Furthermore, battles take unnecessarily long, about five minutes of watching the characters slowly bouncing and taking cartoon swings, and when the story segments are ten lines or less each, the pacing becomes distracting.

Screenshot for Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar on PC

Heroes & Legends overall has a massive indie-feel to the whole experience. The graphics are passable but simplistic, the combat system works but feels shallow, and the world map barely functions, which is problematic when it is a game that costs money compared to free ones found online.

The world map sections are where larger problems occur. The story is nightmarish, successfully navigating the balance between being stereotypical, while somehow managing to also be confusing. Essentially there are the three characters - the hot-headed swordswoman, the reluctant mage, and the dutiful paladin - but they never escape from their tropes. For example, the swordswoman is still bragging how much she loves fighting all the way to the end. There is an artefact that releases ultimate evil, and has to be kept safe, but the bad guy gets it - this is the true extent of the story.

The world map has some cool ideas, but do not work so well. For example, there is a chance (based on the character's 'event' skill) an event may pop up. Most of these are good, such as 'you see a fairy, choose +1 strength or +1 defence;' however, exiting a menu resets this chance, meaning with patience - and not much is required - there is an endless pool of events. It is faster and more productive to grind these events than to actually play the game, which is highly problematic.

There is a 'crafting' section, but to call it that is a stretch, which again is a failed opportunity. Through the game materials are acquired, and can then be crafted into weapons, and despite there being about 50, they are all nearly the same; simple sword, sword +1, sword+2, etc. There are guns and maces, but they function identically. Different armours can also be crafted, which actually look different on the character, but unfortunately this has a very small effect as the choice might be something like +2 to strength or a different armour is +2 defence. For reference, at the end of the game stats are often in their 50s and the armour is only picked once. There is also a section to equip different skills, as each character can only uses five in battle but has more. The reality is there are a few goods one, and the rest are forgettable.

Screenshot for Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar on PC

Cubed3 Rating

5/10
Rated 5 out of 10

Average

Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar has all the feel of a free indie game, with the price tag of a 'real' game. There are many cool ideas present, ranging from a crafting system that could have been made meaningful, to the event system not being exploitable, to a battle system that actually presented true strategy compared to the simple 'who has higher attack and health?' system that is executed automatically with only occasional player interaction. The game has enough good things that it is not 'bad,' but likewise there is nothing special here.

Developer

Cuve

Publisher

Phoenix Online Publishing

Genre

Turn Based RPG

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  5/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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