Review 88 Heroes | Bitmap Bureau brings us 88 heroes, a chaotic platformer with 88 levels that you need to complete within 88 seconds in order to defeat dr. H8. Seen enough numbers 8 already? There’s more where that came from, at least 88 more. Let’s look beyond the number 8 and see what else this game offers.
THE GOOD
- The 88 heroes offers a very original approach to traditional platform gaming. All 88 heroes are designed, not randomly generated and each has their own unique movement and attack abilities. Some even completely lack attacks but may have a strange skill like stopping time or reversing gravity. With every new level of hero death a new hero spawns in making this a fun but chaotic experience indeed.
- Many of the heroes will likely remind you of something, the references and nods are all over the place and pretty funny. You can even play what is basically Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice. Yes, you play them both as one hero.
- The graphics are crisp and good looking for a retro style title. Once you get to know the 88 heroes better they are instantly recognizable when they spawn in.
- The sound track is great and really fits the game. Most heroes have their own voice lines and sound bites or effects some of which are funny are awesome even. Yes I’m talking about you Batbot.
MIXED FEELINGS
- With the frequency at which you will be starting levels, the lines your enemy uses in game , while funny, are recurring all too often and can get annoying during a longer play session.
- The enemy in the foreground and his robot minions add flavor and add a nice touch, but the robots moving about block the bottom part of the level frequently which has made me lose a hero on a couple of occasions.
- Some hero and level combinations are super easy allowing you to fly to the end via a shortcut for instance; others are very difficult, maybe even impossible.
- Some of the later levels offer a nice challenge, but sometimes in a way that forces you to go by trial and error, losing more heroes along the way.
THE BAD
- The game makes it very easy to burn through your available heroes leaving you with just one of your heroes. When that happens the game loses its unique sense of variety and feels more like a grind. When you are really unlucky and one of the worst heroes is your last one, it even becomes all but impossible to continue, taking the fun out of it.
- The UI is confusing when you start out. Nothing is explained. You can do training but only with Gonan but no other choices. It looks like you should be able to start with solo mode, but you need to do 88 heroes first. Then, when you go back to training you can suddenly train with all 88 heroes. As well as unlocking The Magnificent 8 mode. The game doesn’t tell you how or when this happens exactly. It would be so much better to tell the player how to unlock the different modes.
Score: 80% | 88 Heroes is a somewhat traditional, yet very original 2D platform game at the same time. The different heroes offer a lot of variety, but only when they are still available in your pool of heroes, once you burn through most of them, the game loses some of its appeal. The levels are mostly well designed offering a reasonable challenge. All in all, the unique 88 heroes approach makes this an interesting platformer that fans of the genre should definitely give a try.
Patrick spent more than 8.88 hours on the game before writing the review, earning 670 Gamerscore. Thanks to Rising Star Games for providing the review code.
