[This is a guest review by Melly. If you’re interested in writing an article for TIGSource, please go here.]
Hero Core is the latest game from Daniel Remar, creator of the original Hero, Iji, and Garden Gnome Carnage, among others. Hero Core is a direct sequel to Hero, though you shouldn’t expect much in terms of story. There is a story here though, and while very simple, Daniel delivers it in a satisfying way.
The name of the game here is exploring the inner caves of an asteroid taken over by the war machines of Cruiser Tetron, who you must find and destroy once more, hopefully for good. The game manages to nail a Metroid-like feel with its open world and areas that can only be reached with certain upgrades (unless you know a few dirty tricks ;) ), and is surprisingly atmospheric for a game with such a low resolution and only black and white as colors. As well as the well-crafted graphics there’s also the great soundtrack by Brother Android that further nails the feeling of playing one of the old classics.
Controls here are very simple. You move with the arrows keys, fire left with Z and right with X (both keys configurable), and new to the Hero games is an autofire toggle on the spacebar, which is certainly appreciated. While you’ll only start seeing bullet-hell-level difficulty if you play on Hard mode, Normal still offers a decent challenge and should kill the average gamer at least a couple of times. The game’s open nature and the ability to easily warp to any savepoints on the map encourages trying new paths if a certain room or boss is giving you too much trouble, hopefully to return with more upgrades.
There are very few criticisms I could give this game. The difficulty of some bosses and areas seems a little unbalanced compared to what you find after and before them, in higher dificulties not dying to certain rooms seems to be partially a matter of luck (though generous ammounts of skill certainly help even the odds), and the two-color palette lets you sometimes lose your Hero in the middle of all the madness enemies can unleash.
Thankfully none of those issues felt game-breaking and the game is perfectly beatable in all difficulties. Harder difficulties actually give you new maps to explore and differed enemy bullet patterns, which makes replaying the game a fair bit more enjoyable than it would normally be.
All in all, Hero Core costs the sexy price of 0 dollars and comes jam-packed of retro action, nice music, awesome boss fights, unlockables and a good few secrets. There’s no reason not to try this game.
TIGdb: Entry for Hero Core