Heroes Battle Awakening is a firmly winking nod to Plants Vs Zombies as it follows its tower defense gameplay almost exactly yet simplified. Five lanes. Tile based. A new tower or enemy type is introduced at every stage. Comical tone. It is a budget, straightforward, tower defense title that mostly achieves its goals.
This TD title only costs five bucks so it isn’t fair to expect higher production values. Visually, the presentation is totally fine. The cartoony aspect is humorous, and each tower/enemy type is easily identifiable. At the same time, the presentation has been stripped of everything else which can be a bit confusing at first. Meaning, the game starts simple enough, only with a couple towers, but then starts to grow in complexity over time. Thing is, each new tower/enemy type is introduced to the player by a single sentence at the beginning of each new stage. However, when playing on Xbox, the “achievement unlocked” pop up covers this hint text exactly and also hangs on the screen for the same amount of time. In my personal experience, I was stuck on level 3 for the longest time because I missed the part that the one barricade tower generates money… I couldn’t read this text because of the Achievement pop up. It wasn’t until I started from the beginning that I was able to see this text which completely changed my approach. Just one of those little things that is easy to overlook but can cause mega problems. There is also no summary screen or tutorial that explains the behaviors of each tower and enemy. So good luck trying to remember how to play if you come back a week or two later.
Also, this is a console game that uses the analog stick like a mouse pointer, and to gather the gold that appears on-screen, you need to mouse-over it. In the heat of battle, this is tedious because you might need to swing all the way to the bottom right to pick up the coin, then back to the upper left to select a tower, but then you accidentally missed your target in haste, and wasted time, causing trouble on the battlefield. There is an adjustable cursor speed option on the main menu, but it never feels quite right. Clearly this was designed as a PC game first, then shoehorned onto a console experience. Plus, the player is simply tasked with placing turrets in the correct position; there is no option to sell or upgrade which keeps the experience straightforward, simple, and somewhat troublesome if you accidentally place a tower in the wrong position.
The difficulty spikes are also very real. In total, there are 40 stages that are never overly long, but there is a pretty steep challenge increase right around the halfway point. Not only will these stages require trial and error, but the player also needs to be quick on the draw with the slippery mouse controls. I wish there was an easy option, perhaps where the amount and placement of enemies remained the same, only you start with a bunch of cash to buy more turrets faster. As is, expect to run into some frustration along the way.
Heroes Battle Awakening doesn’t have the same charm or polish as Plants Vs Zombies: Replanted, but it does cost a fraction of the price. At the same time, I feel like there has been a draught of classic-style tower defense titles so this five-dollar digital download is something to put on your wishlist even if the control scheme isn’t ideal, the difficulty spikes can anger, and the Achievement pop-ups get in the way.
SCORE: 7/10
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
X/Twitter: @ZackGaz
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