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Review of Hero Survivors - The Monster-Slaying Hero by Vietnamese Studio
Hero Survivors is a mobile survival game amidst a horde of monsters, currently available on Android and iOS. The game is developed by IMBA studio based in Vietnam.IMBA isn't an unfamiliar name, having a long tradition of creating mobile games. Their products span various hot and trending genres such as Auto Chess, Idle games, Racing Games, Puzzle Games... Hero Survivors, known as Anh Hùng Bất Tử in Vietnamese, follows the trend of survival games amidst monsters, which has been quite popular in recent years. Overall, this product utilizes 2D graphics and employs a cash shop mechanism coupled with ad viewing for player benefits. This approach is almost customary with games released on Google Play nowadays to optimize profit. So, what about the deep-seated quality of this product? Let's find out!
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Basic Gameplay
Like many other games in the same genre, Hero Survivors lacks a storyline, and players are thrown directly into the gameplay in the first match. The producer only provides a brief story description on the game download page as follows:
“Evil monsters are invading the world! As summoned heroes to this world, the salvation mission is entrusted to you. You are a legendary knight with limitless potential, ready to wield weapons and fight against the horde of evil monsters. With a large number of monsters, every mistake can lead to disastrous consequences.”
The gameplay of Hero Survivors is basic, including battling monsters on the main screen with some combat skills and a system for upgrading the strength of both skills and internal attributes of heroes. This genre also has a rogue-lite aspect, so players can collect some items during the game such as money, equipment, and seasonal rewards.
Money will be used to upgrade equipment, purchase internal skill points, and level up the hero you are using. The game allows you to collect various heroes with unique skill sets to change the atmosphere and avoid monotony.
Hero Survivors also has a flexible dungeon system where each challenge provides different resources and requires different conditions to overcome. Some challenges involve direct combat with a powerful boss, while others only require dodging bullets and destroying additional branches created by the boss.
The hero's internal enhancement system is a classic skill tree of mobile games, but personally, I find it the most boring system as you have to exchange resources for minimal stat bonuses at exorbitant prices. Valuable enhancements are sold with a limited type of gem rewarded very sparingly. Other survival games replace this outdated system with more flexible alternatives.
Overall, Hero Survivors' basic gameplay falls into the average category as it has not been expanded or varied to create excitement for the product. The number of skills is limited, and none are particularly outstanding. Perhaps you need to delve deep into the endgame to find excitement, but if the early stages are not engaging enough, not many will play until the end. You are allowed to use many different characters, but initially, you only have 2, and the rest can only be unlocked by collecting fragments whose origins are unclear, and another option is to purchase them with money at a price... over 1 million dong.
Bugs and Game Progression
What made my experience during the trial days strange is the game bugs and the pace of content change through IMBA updates. This is a complete and released game, but there are still some quite 'surface' bugs that are most easily noticed in the game's notification section.
In mobile games, there is an unwritten rule that a red dot means there are unclaimed rewards. But the red dot in Hero Survivors doesn't disappear after you claim the reward. You have to turn off the function for it to update. Similarly, with the 'upgrade' arrow meaning 'upgrade' in the hero's equipment page. You've upgraded everything, but the arrow is still there, not sure where else to upgrade.
However, the highlight here is that IMBA is very diligent in fixing bugs. The bug where the map name was repeated has been fixed in just one quick update. After that, the gameplay part was also continuously updated. Initially, each level would allow you to go through and be rewarded based on the number of minutes you survived until the end of the level. Now, the level is calculated as a percentage, and you will be taken out every time you complete a 20% stage of the level.
According to the manufacturer's announcement, they will divide the levels into smaller parts to make it easier for players to experience. But at the same time, they also cut off the experience of a survival game when every 20% of the level is released outside. If they let players choose to continue or pause, it would be better.
Advertisement for Benefits
IMBA has used two functions simultaneously: cash recharge to buy gems and the function of watching ads to get rewards. Although not too aggressive in forcing players to watch ads for other products, this exploitation is quite annoying.
Firstly, the ad section when opening chests is prioritized over unlocking with keys. Reward chests will be opened with keys you collect, and once a day, there is an opportunity to open them with ads without needing a key. However, the ad section instead of the key section makes you want to open with keys, forcing you to watch an ad to 'use up' the other part first.
Inviting to use ads in battles is also quite annoying when the two biggest benefits, buffing the master and a companion to help fight, both require ads to activate. After that, if you game over, you can also choose to watch ads to revive. These two major benefits highlighted make players feel that without ads, they have lost a lot when entering this game. Playing a game that's overly monetized isn't fun anymore.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Hero Survivors is a Vietnamese game above average. The producer has made certain efforts in building a smoothly operating gameplay system. However, the mixing of various elements of this system has not been properly done, making the player's experience not elevated and not stimulating enough to play more. Most of your benefits come not from battle grinds but from daily mission rewards, which is quite unreasonable and a bit... greedy.
In general, you can participate and actively click on ads to support the Vietnamese producer. The game is not too bad either because it gives you quite a lot of energy every day to play comfortably. Moreover, the bosses are very well-made, making the experience of fighting them very interesting, as long as you don't pay too much attention to the power progression part.
Game download link: Read more: Review of God of Weapons - Vietnamese Game for You to Carry Your 'Goods' to Fight Monsters
