Heroes of Destiny Review

Heroes of Destiny is a loot-driven action rpg from Glu Games that mixes real-time strategy game elements with MMO-like raid party mechanics (think World of Warcraft). Players control up to four heroes as they adventure across the land slaying ogres, saving villages, and plundering mines for loot and treasure in this free to play game. Although the game features many of the typical free to play tropes like a dual-currency system, ads, and cooldown timers that prevent players from blazing through all its content free of charge, Heroes of Destiny's core gameplay is so solid that it doesn't really matter.

In the beginning of the game, players are immediately given access to three heroes: an archer, a knight, and a healer. These characters behave much like their counterparts in fantasy-themed MMOs, and players are tasked with strategically using their strengths to save a town. After completing this task, a world map opens up allowing players to pick from multiple missions with varying difficulties to level up their characters, get loot, and fight bigger and badder enemies.

Almost every stage in the game is setup the exact same way. The heroes find themselves in a rectangular field of battle as enemies rush on screen. After players tap and slide to attack, change targets, and use special abilities to dispatch the opposition, loot drops for collection and the heroes gather into formation where they run to the next patch of rectangular landscape to fight more baddies. Most stages contain somewhere between 3 and 4 of these fields of battle. This may sound monotonous, but the transitions between each field of battle give players a chance to reset character placements and serve to slightly change up the scenery, making progress through each stage feel fresh. Also, while the heroes are running to the next battle, players can tap to pick up bags of coins and elements as a sort of mini game.

After each battle, experience points are totaled and loot is displayed, and players can choose which management menu they wish to go to. This is a convenient and time saving feature, as Heroes of Destiny does suffer slightly from long load times. This, combined with the aforementioned cooldown timers that are applied to players' ability to replay missions, train their heroes, and collect resources from conquered territory can make progress in the game very slow and grind-y. However, the game constantly reminds you that you can always pay to get around these issues if you want.

For me, playing without paying for Destiny of Heroes was still a fun time. The core game is fun, and I was only mildly irritated by ads that would pop up when booting the game. If you're morally opposed to being subjected to free to play tropes, I'd avoid Heroes of Destiny, but otherwise, it's worth checking out.