By Jeffrey Kerkdijk (Hyarume), OnRPG Journalist
Hero online is an MMORPG, based upon the story of some Chinese writers. It is a free to play game developed by Mgame and published by Mgame.
Story
A legend tells a story of a hero “Quin Shi Huagdi”, who was known for putting an end to the age of chaos. He called himself the “Son of the Sky” and dreamed to become immortal someday, a great dream.
He was an emperor, he was so ambitious to become immortal that he sent five hundred young boys and girls to Trinity Mountain as sacrifices, along with hundreds of Taoist mystics throughout the land to ascertain the hidden secrets of immortality. Tired, Huagdi went to seek out a way to become a god, mercilessly killing everyone in his path.
As goes the way of all mortal things, Huagdi couldn’t prevent his death and the fall of his dynasty. Along with his death the glory and wealth vanished from the world. His own palace was burned down to the ground after his death.
Many years later the sun disappeared and darkness spread throughout the heavens and the earth. From the depth of this darkness twelve men, “demons”, appeared and they brought the world into chaos and reigned by means of destruction. The appearance of the demons was also the cause of the fall of many famed houses. Tae-San Pa of San-Dong, Gun-Pa of Hae-Nam, Bok-Gun, Kwang-Dong, Myo-Gang, Sa-Chun, Ok-Mun Guan, Dae-Mak, and San Suh all fell under the hands of the twelve Demons.
In the darkest days a hero suddenly appeared and brought hope to the people. Along with great skill in combat, he had a plan. He lured the twelve demons into a trap where three thousand of the hero’s best soldiers were waiting. After ten days of continuous combat, all of the twelve Demons where slain at the cost of three thousand men.
Our hero started a house, and people called him “The Great Dragon”. On a strange day “The Great Dragon” he was murdered. They discovered it was his wife’s doing. After his death it was rumored that his wife cradled his dead body, mumbling “They are back. The twelve have returned “. Chaos covered the land once again. Could it be? Could the Twelve demons have returned? If this was true and the twelve Demons had truly returned, we would all be in grave danger, unless… a new hero would arise.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Hero Online starts with the creation of your own hero. You have a few classes to choose from, and a few customization options. You start of at level 1 kyu, and every ten levels you get a dan, imagine if your level was 3dan5kyu that would be the same as level 35. Basically hero online is a big grind, there is a story behind it but only if you care to read the wall of text in the quests. There is little to do besides grinding.
At 1dan you can pick get job class, at 5dan you can get a promotion to the job class you choose at level 1dan. These give you some extra skills to grind for but in the game there really isn’t much else to do other than grinding. And even if you do find something to do besides leveling it is more confusing than fun. The game gives you the bare minimum information and presents you with weird names of items to collect, that you often wouldn’t recognize even if it is right in front of you.
At level 1dan you can also get a pet. Pets are very handy, since you can use them as mounts, as companion, extra storage or just for combat. Hunters are the only ones who have the ability to tame them; everyone else needs to buy them.
Fortunately there also is a lot of PvP in the game which provides great diversion! There are PvP servers with their own rules such as bonus experience for your kills, but you also lose more with your death. On these servers PvP is everywhere, and Hero Online has just the job system for those who love PvP.
In Hero Online you can pick which skills you would like to be stronger by distributing skill points. This offers a variety of options for character development. The game also has stat distribution, but it is easy to mess up. In later levels this can be a lot of work to correct, or perhaps you even need a stat reset potion from the cash shop.
Graphics & Sound
Hero Online doesn’t stand out when it comes to graphics; to be honest the graphics are pretty bad. The world doesn’t have much detail; even the characters don’t have much to see. Overall the sound is good. Nothing to say about that further
Personal recommendation
Hero online isn’t exactly a great game, it doesn’t offer more than most of the other MMORPGs out there, but what it does have is a good PvP system. Another thing that Hero Online does best is potion spamming. I seriously dislike this in MMORPGs. It really isn’t fun to keep spamming potions to stay alive.
Hero does have some other systems such as enchanting and crafting but it isn’t even worth it half of the time, due it being too expensive or just useless. There are also movement skills in the game, like flying over buildings, and walking on water that kind of stuff. These are handy for travel and look great in the game. In fact all of the animations that the game has look great
The biggest surprise for me was that the game still has many mistranslations, that haven’t been corrected since launch. If you are someone who likes to grind and loves to PvP, only then you should check out Hero Online.
Pros:
– The combat is allright
– The animations
– Job classes
– Character development.
Cons:
– The grind.. Everything is a grind in Hero
– Potion spamming
– The graphics
– The interesting storyline that has been forgotten in the game
– The mindless boring quests.
– Character customization
– Sometimes more confusing than fun.
