Today was supposed to mark the launch of my new regular Wednesday series that follows in the footsteps of Skyrim Mondays and Fallout 4 Fridays…
But it’s the middle of the day and I still haven’t selected a game for it yet.
Part of this is because I just spent several hours playing Heroes of Incredible Tales on my phone.
Heroes of Incredible Tales (HIT) is an Unreal Engine 4-based action RPG from Nexon and NAT Games. It first came out all the way back in November of 2015, and I somehow missed it.
I vaguely remember seeing a trailer for it. It looked like every other mobile action RPG, and it had an art style that seemed riddled with fanservice.
Both of those things are kind of true…but the game is very good.
The basic gameplay template is almost identical to the more recent Nexon-produced game, Dynasty Warriors Unleashed. You select a pre-made character, and fight your way through quick stages in a single player campaign. As you play, you unlock more and more modes and loot and systems until your brain explodes with delight at all the buttons you get to click and meters you get to increase.
The action plays out from an isometric perspective, and it’s as well-animated as any modern console or PC game. You have different abilities on cooldown, and timing these abilities is important!
Or if you want…you can click a button and just let the whole game play itself.
I don’t know why you’d ever do that unless you were grinding out some upgrades, and even then I don’t think it’d be very fun, but I guess it’s nice they have this option.
Monetization has to come in somewhere…and here it comes in the form of a variety of different cards you get out of chests. That’s right, they have cards and chests. There’s both regular gear and cosmetic gear to unlock…and the cosmetic gear actually adds stat bonuses, which is awesome!
Honestly though, I was able to unlock enough good gear from the free bonuses that I haven’t yet felt like I absolutely must pay money to continue.
It’s a lot like DW Unleashed in that regard.
I love action RPGs. And it’s nice that you can finish a level in HIT in around 90 seconds, if not faster, depending on your character and skill. I don’t know if I’ll eventually lose interest in the game, but right now I want to at least play to the end of the surprisingly lengthy campaign.
Most of this is because of the graphics.
They’re exceptional. To the point where I find myself once again lamenting the relative fall of Unreal Engine. Last generation, Unreal Engine 3 was everywhere. Even most of the major companies that now use their own internal engines exclusively produced a UE3 game for the 360/PS3 era.
Unreal Engine 4 seems very capable even on the mobile platforms, and yet the number of games running on it is relatively sparse compared to the massive success of the last version.
I guess that’s just what happens with the flow of time.
The visuals nail a perfect balance between stylized cartoon fun and modern effects. It’s a better-looking game than the newer Dynasty Warriors Unleashed. And it runs/loads/plays a bit better, too.
So, if you missed this game like I did, it might be worth a look, particularly if you like action RPGs a la Diablo.
Also, in doing some random searching around for other mobile UE4 games, I came across Blade II…which also looks like it has very amazing visuals and a fanservicey art style. I’ll have to keep an eye on that one as well!
