Heroes Rise: The Hero Project

While the first game in the series was painfully railroaded with little to no choices that greatly impacted the narrative, at least it had an interesting story where you can try your best to help others, stop the bad guys, or have fun in other ways. This game, however, plays like a reality show where it’s impossible to decipher what the choices will do beforehand. At numerous points did I pick something that I believed would do one thing, only for something else to happen, ruining the experience.

Unless you accidentally select the intended route, you’ll not have a good time, and since I apparently picked the wrong option every chance I got, I hated the experience.

I’ve played through the game previously and enjoyed it. However, back then, I played as a goody-two-shoes, and the suitable choices meshed with the intended route much better than my current playthrough did. As such, how railroaded the story is was hidden to a greater degree. (1/10)

This is a sequel, I didn't know that until I had bought the sequel and spin off series in its entirety. Regardless of the huge lore drop at the start I experienced, this and the rest of the series is great. Your character's main adversaries, and the other characters no doubt had lots of banter and relationship building in the previous game but even without it these characters are some of the best I have seen. Each has their own opinions and goals, they actually feel like people, and the overall premise is believable. This was my favorite series of the ones I have purchased from these devs and the whole series really is my favorite. Enjoy :)

I will probably try to play this game again but as it is, it seems rushed and poorly written.

I don't know if any of you have had a childhood crush, but you don't immediately want to date them upon finding them again over a decade latter. In general the Hero Rises series has a very... limited sense of choices but it felt so much worse in this game. Additionally, in order to finish the game you need to take a specific path and aren't allowed mobility to get there really. It was very frustrating to lose and be punished by losing my Fame because the developer didn't want to include a proper save function.

Additionally, your main "Romantic Lead" from the first game completely changes character. It seemed before like Black Magic was a lonely person wearing a mask and trying to just get through it. Black Magic, however, despite proclaiming how they want you to accept them will be stringent with any choice you make outside of their expectation and break up with you. It's very frustrating. I don't think I will finish this game, despite having read over a dozen other CoG and HG games. I am kind of annoyed, honestly, especially because the overall plot just seems so... disjointed, from the prequel.

This was an infuriating story, without counting the “on rails” feeling that still exists from the previous book. I feel like half the time I have no control. There are feelings I want to convey to characters that I just cannot because it’s never dialogue option. Your MC getting in arguments with characters and immediately losing them when the person they were talking to just walks away from the conversation. Characters spitting out witty remarks to you and your character just lets it happen. Hell, the challenges feel so completely bogus, you can’t really make out how the scoring works half the time even with explanations. It still bugs me that my character is happy about things I MYSELF am very disappointed about!

Spoiler Warning

I really want to profess that the hero project made people who you thought were friends and love ones, be the most selfish people ever. Jenny, Black Magic, and Lucky were characters that I wanted to understand and get along with, but this stupid hero project brought the worse in them.
Jenny was someone I thought was supposed to be your friend but is instead constantly forcing you to participate in her stupid investigation or you lose opinion on her and without trying to understand where you are coming from (needing the money and trying to help your grandma) she says its her way or the highway. What a completely unbelievable way of thinking when you know the MC got into this thing to help make life better for themselves and she is just becoming more direct competition while outright telling you to basically screw your dreams and leave the project because her job is much more important.

Black Magic has completely changed, all she cares about is winning, she’s hardly there for romance and when she is there, its only because you decided to listen to her and join her team, any other time its her focus that she wins and you’re just some side character for her to mess around with when you do good. For a good portion of the story I just wanted to explain to her how upset I was about everything but my stupid character keeps saying and thinking things that do not relate to me at all.

Lucky felt manipulative, she left a note that I think was supposed to trigger black magic, but you can’t even investigate that note further, your character just accepts its existence and goes on. How am I supposed to trust and care about lucky when she is clearly trying to manipulate, she even had the audacity to guilt trip me about how she has nothing. Am I supposed to care after feeling like she gives no care about my feelings? Its so stupid, I feel like I cannot like anyone in this damn story because they only care about themselves. Grandma is probably the only likable character, even after lying to your face about your powers last book.

I kind of liked the story premise but find it so frustrating when I feel many things are out of my control and I am so sick and tired of jury and everyone always have the upper hand due to plot armor without any room for me to breath and get an advantageous lead. It just seems like I do good one time and then I get slammed down 80% of the time. It’s like I’m some sort of side character for everyone else.

The ending didn’t feel up to par with all the annoyances I went through but the very final epilogue scene was very interesting. I still can’t recommend this game at all.

Its alright, the kind of game i used to play on my phone until i fell asleep. I picked up the hero series after choice of robots buts its appeal can be repetitive after the third or so playthrough.

The branching in this series is okay, some things feel shoe-horned, especially if you had a good run from the game directly before this one. But most events you navigate through will have thresholds of effort you build upon, the game does not take kindly to the situational thinker who presents many behaviours, its bad for the press. Stick to lone wolf or team player, kind hero or ruthless hero and your fame/legend score will rise quickly.

I don't know. I kinda quite the game in the middle. It felt like every choice i made was just bad. It felt like pick this choice or something bad happens. Like the previous game it feels like there is one path that leads to good results but if you stray from that path your ass i gonna get kicked and everybody hates you. I tried playing the good guy but most of the heroes and other characters are just their to screw you over for no particular reason. And a save system or a checkpoint system would really help. If you make one mistake (miss clicking or misinterpreted a choice) you really screw yourself or have to restart the game and hope you remember all the choices you made. I understand that they do this because every choice you make matters but restarting the game because 1 mistake is really annoying. Couldn't they made it optional to activate saves or something. Also i just hated that you couldn't catch a break in the prequel and in this game. Everybody just hates you even if you played the absolute hero type. It's part of the story so okay but they just rub it in your face every single time you talk to someone. I also played fallen hero rebirth and i must say i really enjoyed that game more because it was a little more forgiving and because you actually felt powerful but you had to be careful for your weaknesses. This game is not bad but i really started to get annoyed because i had a feeling they forced you to go 1 specific road. It didn't feel like i really had a choice more like pick this or get screwed over. Not bad but too frustrating for me personally.

A well-written, engaging game, as was the first in the trilogy (The Prodigy). My one criticism is that in this installment there were rather more characters, some rather sketchily-defined, and this made it hard to keep straight who was who. This confusion affected my ability to make choices consistent with a chosen strategy throughout the game. I think The Hero Project could benefit from a non-spoilery "Quick Who's Who" link accessible from any point in the game.

I don't even know how to start this. I'm leaving this same review on each of the Trilogy pages because it's an across the board review of 5 out of 5 or 108 out of 100 or A++ or whatever you can think of.
This has been one of the most emotional, roller-coastering rides of my life, and it happened in a videogame. One that's entirely text-based. You start off as a little hero still trying to figure out who you are and you end as a big one, no matter what path you take, knowing exactly who you are. You'll go through so many ups and downs and surprises and disappointments and happiness and sadness and successes and failures, you'll get into all the great beat em up action that comes with being a hero and all the baggage and consequences, too. But if you stick to who you are, just like in life, you'll pull through and make the right calls, and become a legend. The fate of the world is in your hands. The fate of your world is in your hands. Now get to it. And buy this trilogy.

Basically, the whole Heroes Rise Trilogy is a clichéd, cartoonish and somewhat poorly written imitation of Choose Your Own Adventure game. It had a potenital to be a lot better, but unfortunately the myriad of missed opportunities and obvious "plot twists" bog it down to be a passable game, 3/5 in my book.

If you are into teenage superhero fantasy, than you might actually like this one.
However, if like me you prefer something more mature and serious, than I suggest you buy "Choice of Robots" by the same developer instead. A far better experience, as far as I am concerned.

So, after my disappointment with The Prodigy, I was set to never touch this series again - once I had gone back and finished it, of course. A family member assured me I was wrong and that the series got better in The Hero Project - to their credit, they were right.

However, even in that case, THP barely struggles to make *average*. The writing style continues to be quite sophomoric and not in the entertaining sense of being young. It's sophomoric in the sense of awkward phrasing, juvenile handling of sex and bizarre, immersion-shattering rants about correct gender pronouns. It's immature and banal. Look, I get that more games should deal with sex and gender, and I get that interactive fiction is one of the best genres for it, but Zachary Sergi needs to handle it with a bit more deftness. Credit for attempting it.

To Sergi's additional credit, there are some interesting choices in this game. I thought many of the ones relating to Null and Lucky were quite good and hard to choose from. Unfortunately, much like the previous entry in the series, THP suffers from the stark feeling of being stuck on rails with an author that's waiting to jump out and go 'aha!' at you for not picking the right choice (while giving you no indication of what might be the right choice unless you *pay for it as an in-game app store-esque purchase*. THP, however, seems to have less of those ridiculous options like The Prodigy had (infilrating and forgetting to take off your hero costume, anyone?) - so, that's some improvement. But it's still not embracing the strength of an interactive medium because good IF rewards choices and does its best to disguise the rails (eg; Choice of Robots).

Much of the worldbuilding and setting continues to be a bit on the nose - again, it's very sophomorric. The fact that Sergi continues to interject 'slugger' into so many sentences as a catch all term that seems to be a general epithet, noun, verb, adjective and so on is lazy. Honestly, if there is one thing I could remove from this whole trilogy, it's this word. As a whole, the world feels very derivative of superhero comics and doesn't offer much in the way of originality.

For a simple premise (superhero reality TV) the plot has too many characters (of course, expecting you to remember/care about all of them) and a slow development where things just seem to happen. I'm not sure how much control over my story I actually had, thanks to the aforementioned of feeling like I'm on rails. What's worse, is that the characters aren't particularly likeable - again, due to the writing style.

So, what's good about it? Well, there's a fair bit of customisation. If you're looking to feel like you're in a superhero story and you want a bit of a self-insert fantasy where you can craft your dreamworld to exacting specifications then this is for you. If you want something that advances the medium of IF, offers interesting, branching choices with clever writing and wit - avoid. As someone who looks for the latter, I cannot recommend THP.

Additionally, I ran into a bug near the end that caused me to need to restart my entire story. I won't mark the game down for that but it was quite unfortunate.

10/10
The best one within heroes rise trilogy
To me, it has the most lengthy story ( 5 hours for one playthrough comparing to 3 hours for the other two
The most difficult choice to make ( where you have to choose between dream and friendship
And the best conflict in the whole game
It's not as good as the Prodigal, it's better

Do you like choose your own adventure stories? Feel like every storyline is the same in every game, Ever? Then its time to bring back the past and nostalgia, and pick up this game! Sure, it had no visuals or audio, but the story and the choices themselves offer quite a bit of entertainment for those willing to read a little (okay, more then a little. Its like a novel!) This is definitely a game to pick up if youve been looking for a new book or adventure to read, without having to sink all your attention and time into something. I thoroughly enjoyed the series, and would reccomend it to any reader or enjoyee of literature.

For a text-based game it's quite good, the writing's solid and it took me about 4 hours to finish, which is a fair length for a game this cheap, I mean, some of the more modern Call Of Duty titles have shorter singleplayer campaigns. Some people may point to the fact that the game is linear and that occasionally your choices may make you feel "Boxed In", however, the choices presented to you are great enough and of a large enough depth that you may deviate from the main story arc and play the kind of hero you may want to play, however you will soak the fallout for whatever decisions you might choose.

In short; the game is good, and gives you more entertainment than expected of a game with such a small pricetag.
Oh, and if you have the few extra units of whatever currency you possess, buy the bundle or the perfect legend guide + warning system. They help in the long run.

Here are my thoughts and feelings about Heroes Rise: The Hero Project. (Spoilers ahoy)

The Good
The story is even better than the last one, with twists and turns that will keep you guessing on your first time playthrough. It has a feeling to it that really gets you tense and pumped up for what happens in the story.

The characters have varying types of personalities and most have semi-realistic personalities.

The Bad
Even though the story is better this time round it has even more problems than the last one. While the first one felt linear it wasn't glaringly obvious, unlike in this one. Never before have I felt that the choices I made had no impact to the game. Everything I did just felt like poking a wall, it changed nothing. No matter what you do you will ALWAYS get as far as the final eliminations and all that changes is how the ending starts off.

Although I said most characters feel semi-realistic it is not the MAIN characters that feel that way, tis the side characters. Jenny has a "My way or the high way" attitude and she will force you to leave the competion just so she can do her investigation, even though she clearly states that you are also apart of it and can continue it without her. However you never can and don't even get the option to look into it YOURSELF!

Black Magic has a complete personaltiy reversal! In the first game he/she is kind, caring and can be a bit forceful in her methods. But overall she/he is a good person. In this story she becomes narcisitic, confrontational, manipulative and even cruel. She/he goes out of her way to stay in the competition and will pit you against another potential love interest, even if you say that you aren't interested in her/him.

Rexford is played like an butthole like ALL the obvious bad guys are, its like the writer didn't even try to hide the fact he's the bad guy. His stat is useless and changes nothing so don't even try to pander to him.

The Ugly
In the last review I said that the choices were biast to one specific style of play, going for the "Correct" options. For example saving a reporter or your Sidekick, saving the reporter was seen as only wanting fame and saving your Sidekick was the "Hero" way. In this story its even worse, as the types of play actually have catergories now! Which makes them even more narrow minded than before! It makes it feel like you are meant to play the game ONE way and if you try to do it another way prepare for so many penalties you'll feal like Oliver Twist asking for more food. "CHOICES?! How dare you ask to be different and do things your way! GET BACK TO MY WAY OR GET OUT!". Why can't you get the teams to work together to get Culic or save the people in the Tunnel? Why is stoping Culic, a Leader of super-Terrorists, consider pandering to fame when stoping him there might stop the current attack AND save lives!? Why do you always get low scores when you actually perform the best you can actually do at a trial?! The max points you can get is 90 when doing a team training trial and even if you get perfect scores for each you will always be at the bottom! So you are forced into the situation of either leaving the finals or outing your friend to get further in the competition. Why can't I actually get past this with good points?! Even though I got my Gold key at the near the start I still come at the bottom, exactly the same outcome if you take the longer "Correct" way! What the hell is this?!

There's also the fact that most of the statistics for stats and relationships don't matter for most of the characters it shows! Rebellion's stat does nothing, Rexford's Stat does nothing, and Grandma's stat does NOTHING! Why are they even there if it changes nothing story wise, gameplay wise, or even freaking conversation wise?! What's the point of the Control and Unleash guage when going either way does NOTHING! Being in complete control of your powers does nothing, so if you think it means that when you use you Infini powers it isn't as bad as if you didn't. You will ALWAYS fail at evacuating everyone at the Castle with infini powers.

Conclusions
This is meant to be a Text adventure GAME, but it really just feels like a story with slight variations in what happen. If you have played text games you should now that it has much more freedom in what you can do and actually feel like you choices matter. Here its just a story with fake options that do nearly nothing.

Overall even though this game is better than the last it has even more problems that nearly negate every gain it has made. Even though I reccommend this game I still caution you on buying it. If you like it when most of the control you get does nothing and only want to see a story play out then by all means buy this. But if you want a Text adventure GAME than I'm afraid this isn't up to snuff yet.

Personal score: 6/10

This was so painful to read. As a fan of "Choose your own adventure" books... This was just too painful. There is no true depth in the choices you make or the story. There were a lot of "OH by the way this happened because of a random person whom hasnt had a proper introduction to the story decided to mess up your day," "oh and this person just so happens to be an arch nemesis, oh this one too, man people really dont like you"

Considering the price (I got it for 4 euros), I really enjoyed this. Actually, I paid 4 euros for "The Hero Project" and "The Prodigy", but I had mistaken the order and played "The Hero Project" first.

It took me around 4 hours or so to finish, but it was quite a nice 4 hours. It's definitely not an A-list story, I'd expected a bit more and it did end rather abruptly, but it's quite a nice little thing.

I've wasted more money on A-list games that provided less entertainment. If you want a nice little distraction, get it. If you're hard to please, go write your own damn book.

Heroes Rise: The Hero Project is an entertaining story, and it is bigger than its predecessor, but I found it to be a weaker entry overall.

While Heroes Rise: The Prodigy deals with the protagonist starting his career as a hero and most of the choices revolve around how the hero uses their powers, Heroes Rise: The Hero Project moves the protagonist onto a super-powered reality TV show. While the writing is still fun, and I still like the characters, suddenly the story branching points are less about the actual heroing and more about the petty politics of a Survivor style reality TV show. Presumably, this story is more mutable by the player as a result, but I found the choices to be less exciting.

Ultimately, I would still recommend this title because it is an entertaining super-powered romp with a really, really fun climax. It also gives the (presumably) upcoming third instalment a really good kick-off.

Buy it, and impress all your friends by not only reading books without pictures, but by also playing games without graphics.

If you liked the first Heroes Rise, you'll love the sequel, thats really all there is to it. The game follows a reality TV concept that is really interesting, as it constantly puts you in situations where its impossible to please everyone, the story, like the first game is still quite linear, but it makes you feel like you've made a difference anyway, quite similar to Telltales The Walking Dead game. This game is almost twice as long as the previous game, and its writing quality has only improved, as well as being more in depth too, there are a bunch of relationships in this game, and favouring one will displease the other, trying to please everyone is an incredibly hard path to take and may earn you more enemies than anything else

Fantastic game at a really good price, if you're a fan of the first, definitely check it out, if you thought the first game was lacking somewhat, then this one might change your mind on the series since its better in practically everyway. As should be obvious, if you dislike reading, then this isnt a game for you, and if you're looking for big epic storytelling or Game of Thrones level intruige, then once again this probably isnt the game for you. But if you want to sit down for a few hours, and just have fun with a story, then I wholeheartedly reccomend it.

The main problem with this game is that instead of selecting choices that you want to make, you have to look at the wordings of the choice and try to GUESS what the developer think of those choices. Even worst, if you guess wrongly, you lose the game.

I guess it is really like a reality game where you have to guess the preference of the judges, but it does not feel super hero worthy at all.

Unlike the first game where I get the feeling of actually giving my super hero a personality, this one seems to be about making random choice with unknown consequence again and again.

Fittingly for a sequel, this is pretty much the same as Heroes Rise: The Prodigy. If you've played that and liked it, you'll like this one. If you didn't, then you won't like this one either. Both are too linear for my tastes, though to be fair the writing in this one has improved somewhat.