Unsung Heroes is an unapologetically Western RPG. Most of you probably know but for those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, it was the OG of computer RPGs. They are traditionally low fantasy, highly technical games that often take place in a medieval Britain-like setting. These games were the computerized RPGs back in the 1980s until JRPGs like Final Fantasy stole the show. It's a niche genre that still has a dedicated fan base and if you fall into that target audience, you'll definitely want to check this game out.
I myself am mixed on this genre. If I get into one of these games, it's extraordinarily rewarding. But it can often times be difficult to get there. Unsung Heroes thankfully falls a little on the lighter side. While it has all of the hallmarks of a classical Western RPG, it's not nearly as overly technical as some. You don't have to decide exactly what part of the body (head, arms, legs, torso etc) to attack and there isn't an overly complicated magic system that requires I have purchased or sought out 2 grams of sulfur and a salamander scale in order to cast a Burning Hands spell or something. I also don't have to go through overly tedious activities like ensure that I have food for the road, make sure all my weapons have their blades sharpened or keep tabs on my stock of arrows, crossbow darts and other projectiles I may need.
There's still a lot of crunch to sift through, though. Most skills, including your basic attacks, do several things and you'll spend a lot of time figuring out which skills to use when. The game starts out with a group of five characters that all have an attack and an extra skill or two and these skills are often complex. Add this buff, recover HP or defense, inflict this de-buff, raise such and such stats, do more damage depending in the state or level of health your enemies have etc. Unfortunately, these initial battles are just part of the story and you won't be keeping these characters for long. Then the true game starts and you'll soon get a brand new set of 5 characters which all have a new set of skills to learn. Like I said before, this type of game requires a higher level of investment on the part of the player.
Now that's all well and good. I agreed to review this game as part of a Secret Santa thing we have going on in the forums so at the very least, I will spend an hour playing the game as that's the amount of time that the official judges of ICMC 2017 will spend during their own review process.
To start out, I will list the positives from my time the game. First of all, it looks really nice. The choice of the Medieval tileset, characters and monsters are absolutely perfect for a Western RPG. The mapping and dialog are equally fitting and stay well within the theme. The world map is absolutely gorgeous. The battle system has some intriguing ideas in it. Your characters have a both a health bar and another bar that represents your defenses that usually have to be exhausted before you start losing health. Different skills tactically play into this mechanic. Say a skill allows you recover health, it won't do you any good to use it until your defenses are down and you've lost some actual health so you'll want to save those until later in the battle.
Unfortunately, I ran into some issues that put a damper on the experience. Some of them were minor like how the NPCs didn't react to events that happened in-game. These NPCs in the first town guide you to the king and your squire and after doing this, they don't adjust. It's nowhere near game breaking but it's a relatively simple task to have NPCs not tell you that your squire wants to see you when he's currently standing right next to you or that the king needs to talk to you after you've already talked to him. It breaks immersion and that's an import thing for this genre.
But I can forgive that especially considering the time constraints involved in a game jam. I hit some other problems that were worse. The first one was the battle tutorial in the starting town. A Knight who is training some squires or something offers to explain the battle system and offers a practice sparing match. This is kind of unnecessary as you have to fight 3 battles before you actually take the role of the main protagonist but I still read the explanations anyway and then tried out a test battle. I got absolutely murdered during the sparing match. The reason this happened is because the game apparently assumed that I would have my whole party together before doing this even though I'm guaranteed to come across this first. Thankfully, you don't actually die when you lose this battle but it does take you down to 0 defense and 1 HP, and there doesn't seem to be any way to rest or recover your lost health. I thought that maybe since there was no Inn and I couldn't rest in the bed I woke up in, that the game would just be nice and restore my health when I ventured out of town. It was not that forgiving. As soon as I left town, I was greeted with a set battle and my main character is rockin' 1 HP and 0 defense at the start of my first battle that matters. Surprisingly, I was still able to overcome this even though poor Sir Gaelin got struck down before ever getting a chance to draw his sword.
I then search around the foggy forest and see another enemy. I try to run but get distracted by a shiny object nearby. I pick up said object but that gives my undead pursuers the chance to catch up to me while the message boxes are up and I fight another battle. I'm happy to see that my main character isn't on his deathbed any longer as the whole party seems to heal after encounters. Sweet! But after I win the battle, this enemy isn't removed from the map and it immediately fights me again ... and again ... and again. A costly little mistake that forces me to reload to a previous save. Avoid the eastern part of this first area. Head north towards the bridge.
So I ended up reloading an earlier save and making sure I avoided this encounter. I get to a story driven encounter that introduces me to 3-4 new characters who all join my group. It goes a lot better after that as I continue on and end up with two more characters in my party in short order.
So I have about 10 people in my party now, am probably about an hour forty minutes in (not counting restarts) and don't really feel like I've gotten very far but again, that's par for the course for this type of game. Short of the previously mentioned oversights, which can be fixed very easily, it's not a bad game. I will keep tabs with the progress on this one and will probably come back to it at some point. I'd like to see how it develops because there is a lot of good stuff here and I am starting to get into it. But I have a feeling that a lot more work is going to go into this one and there's probably a point where it's going to cut off due to the short time frame required to make these IGMC games. As with most games in this genre, it's an odd choice for the short 1 hour format but would make for a really fun game if you're willing to spend 20-70 hours with it when completed.
There's a lot of potential here for those who want that level of commitment. For those who just want to casually play a fun little game for an hour and get the whole experience, this isn't the title you're looking for. All and all, though, great work! This game is going to scratch an itch that few game do when you're finished with it.