There's nothing inherently wrong with the
freemium model in theory.
A player can pick up the game for no cost,
and if the gameplay is rewarding enough, the
hooks will sink in, and the player wont mind
shelling out a few dollars to stream-line
their experience... or at least the pay walls
won't be obtrusive enough to annoy the player
away.
Sadly Hereos Call by Defiant has not struck
upon this balance, offering an intriguing
hack and slash Diablo-esque experience, saturated
by a choice between pay walls, grinding, and
just waiting for a game timer to tick down.
The core game is a dungeon crawler, where
you travel from room to room, attacking foes,
smashing scenery and collecting loot to upgrade
your monster slaying abilities.
The control method is timed taps on the screen
to unleash combos, or swipes to use unique
character abilities (with a selection of two
characters available to play now, and more
to unlock in the future).
Each level up allows you to place points in
new abilities, but the level up system is
a good place to start at where things just
go terribly wrong.
Each level is a small mission situated in
a small dungeon.
You run through, and collect your loot.
It's only at the end when you're about to
head back to town that the experience is tallied
and new abilities are assigned.
This disconnect removes the satisfying feeling
you get in other hack and slash games when
you level up during a battle, and then can
take the time immediately after to revel in
your increased power.
After leveling, the town presents another
problem.
Most loot you receive needs to be identified.
You can buy identify scrolls through in-app
purchases, or use the appraiser.
Here's the catch though, the appraiser only
has one slot to identify items (the others
needing to be unlocked through more in-app
purchases).
Placing an item to be identified will start
a timer of at least a few minutes, so you
need to wait around needlessly to see if you
have a worthwhile item to use or sell.
The best way is to place an item to be identified
and go questing again, but guess what, there's
a timer till you can go out on another mission.
To speed up the process, it takes gems (the
in-app purchase currency).
You get a couple from your missions, and this
can be used to at least continue playing the
game, but after a couple levels, with the
upgrading and identifying being made separate
from your fighting and looting, you begin
to wonder what the point is.
Heroes Call's problems all come down to its
design around the worst aspects of the freemium
model.
If leveling up, identifying and questing were
integrated back into the system and not so
disconnected it would go a long way to this
being a better experience.
As it stands, it's kind of a fun hack and
slash, and the tapping combos makes combat
fluid, if not a little repetitive due to the
slow unveiling of new abilities.
It's just bogged down by its own systems,
and thus makes it quite hard to recommend
that players give this a go, regardless of
its free price tag.
