Playing Hero U, I'm enjoying it alot, better than the Quest for Glory games, Quest for Infamy and Heroine Quest? Nope, but is it a bad game? Nope. Depends on the expectations, I expected a massive train wreck of a game, NumaNuma style, and I got a competent and fun adventure game instead, certainly it isn't a new Quest for Glory 4 but it is a pretty cool starting game on a new adventure game series if the game sells enough, if they ever make a new game, I will check it out.
Some will complain they expected more after 5 years of wait BUT, and a big BUT, this isn't a NumaNuma kinda of case, on NumaNuma, Inxile aimed at the Planescape Torment, but miss both the spirit and quality of the game, being hopeless shovelware garbage, what isn't the case here, this is a game pretty much inspired by the Quest for Glory games, having the same qualities, it just don't have the same amount of content. You can only have 1 class, instead of choosing between 4 classes, there aren't the same amount of puzzles with different solutions, you don't go exploring alot of different places, staying on the same school hallways that can get repetitive after a certain time.
There are a few questionable design decisions, I would like the game alot more if I didn't waste so much time grinding skill points and more time solving puzzles for example, I would like if the reputation system was more developed with more consequences if a character liked you or not and be more than just grinding reputation by saying what the characters like, I would like they developed the character system more but I can't criticize them too much here, this isn't a full RPG and the game passed through development hell enough already.
The game is basically a school simulator for thieves, it is an strange concept but works really well on a game that has a fable inspired aesthetics and writing. You go around training your skills, building your reputation with people, killing monsters on dungeons and doing chores. Imagine Harry Potter for thieves + a Persona game but without weird and crazy jap writing. The writing has a really cool charm to it with alot of humour an gratuitous puns everywhere when you click on things like any game claiming Sierra heritage should have.
The strongest quality of the game is on the writing, not that the story and setting are the most original edgy thing ever, it is just generic fantasy BUT if you play a game like Pillars of Eternity, NumaNuma or Divinity Original Sin 2 written by a writing commitee, on the case of Divine Divinity 2 with alot of writers, all games with big high concepts for stories and world building without a single writer that was competent enough to turn all those high concepts on something that is actually entertaining to read, here, you have all cliches on Fantasy but written by people ( Corey,Josh Mandel and Lori Cole) with their own style that are actually doing what they love instead of assembly lining a product to grab the money from us losers with the least possible effort.
