Hero Emblems Review

Hero Emblems is a role playing game with match-three elements, not too unlike the classic Puzzle Quest series. Players go on quests in which they defeat monsters by swapping colored tiles - or "emblems" - to initiate specific actions. Although this type of gameplay still holds up to a certain extent, Hero Emblems could strike some players as a bit old hat.

Players begin Hero Emblems as a group of warriors-in-training that are quickly thrown into a world of chaos and called upon to save the kingdom. The warrior party consists of some familiar archetypes - namely a warrior, cleric, priest, and wizard - all of whom perform predictable actions when their set of tiles is broken (e.g. the priest heals, the warrior attacks, etc.). Although all of this may sound pretty rote, Hero Emblems has a combat system that is more complicated than it initially seems, which saves this game from being completely forgettable.

Instead of simply matching three tiles over and over again, Hero Emblems rewards players for purposefully setting up larger or more intricate matches by creating systems for powering up tiles and unlocking super move tiles. On the flipside, Hero Emblems also has systems in place for the enemies to obstruct or distract players from doing what they intended to do during their turn through the inclusion of poison tiles, locked tiles, and more. Considering most of Hero Emblems' gameplay resides in combat, the interplay and intricacy of these systems keeps things feeling fresh and enjoyable most of the time.

When outside of combat, however, Hero Emblems is about as mundane and predictable as possible. The cartoony art style is reminiscent of flash games, and the poorly written story bits and straightforward structure don't do much to help make it stand out. Honestly, if it weren't for the challenging combat there would be precious little to praise Hero Emblems for.

In the end, Hero Emblems presents some cool puzzle scenarios that are contextualized in a not-so-cool RPG shell. It may be worth picking up for players that haven't quite tired of match-three RPGs, but anyone that has moved on will probably find it to be a little too dull.