{"id":19976,"date":"2020-03-09T00:01:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T00:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19976"},"modified":"2020-03-08T13:33:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T13:33:11","slug":"underhero-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/09\/underhero-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Underhero (PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In this game, you start out as a generic hero ready to storm the evil lord Mr. Stiches\u2019 castle.\u00a0 As you approach, a few weak minions prepare for the worst, but one of the minions decides to kill the hero by dropping a chandelier on him!\u00a0 After that, you take control of that minion!\u00a0 When you approach the defeated hero, a talking sword hilt says that now YOU\u2019RE the new hero!\u00a0 But you still work for the bad guy, who tasks you with returning three special stones to the bosses that the original hero defeated.\u00a0 But secretly, the sword hilt tells you to defeat those bosses again and get strong enough to battle your boss and become the Underhero.\u00a0 Underhero is an action RPG game that turns RPG archetypes on their ear, since you are sort of on the enemies\u2019 side!\u00a0 It\u2019s available to download on all current home consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

At first glance, you may think this is a straight up 2-D platformer, as you explore the world in sidescrolling fashion, jumping over obstacles and such.\u00a0 Explore every nook and cranny to find money, treasure and other secrets.\u00a0 Instead of towns, you\u2019ll visit monster lairs and hideouts to gather clues, save your game, and buy items.\u00a0 But when you encounter a monster in the wild, that\u2019s when things change.\u00a0 You\u2019ll start an RPG styled battle with them, but since you are on the same side, you can do a few different things.\u00a0 For starters, you can talk to the enemy and maybe get a few hints.\u00a0 If you have enough gold, you can also bribe your way out of the fight.\u00a0 But more often than not, you should battle the monsters to gain experience points and raise your level.<\/p>\n

The battles are where things get different.\u00a0 They appear turn-based, but they\u2019re really not.\u00a0 You can attack anytime, but you have a stamina meter that depletes with each attack, and if it runs out you won\u2019t be able to move for a while.\u00a0 So you\u2019ll want to keep that meter full.\u00a0 To do so, you must properly avoid enemy attacks by jumping, ducking, or reflecting projectiles with your shield.\u00a0 The enemy will telegraph their moves with special animations, and if you successfully avoid them, you\u2019ll refill your stamina meter and maybe even reflect back their attacks. \u00a0It\u2019s VERY similar to the Mario & Luigi handheld RPGs. The money you earn from these battles can buy healing potions and anvils to repair your shield if it gets broken, among other things.<\/p>\n

Really the only problems I had with this game is that the RPG battles kind of bog down the platforming, and travelling and backtracking though some of the maze-like areas can be a little tedious.\u00a0 And a few more frequent save points would\u2019ve been nice.\u00a0 But the game has nice pixel graphics and chiptune-y music, and is a pretty charming and competent action RPG.\u00a0 If you miss the Mario & Luigi games, you may want to check Underhero out since it may be a while before we get another Mario & Luigi RPG since the company who made them went out of business last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Underhero is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Violence.\u00a0 Aside from a few red pixel squares, I didn\u2019t notice too much blood.\u00a0 You do slash silly enemies with a sword and other attacks, but defeated characters just poof away.\u00a0 You do squash the hero with a chandelier, but there are no grisly death scenes or anything.\u00a0 I\u2019d be OK with kids younger than teens playing this, but strong reading skill is still required because of all the text.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this game, you start out as a generic hero ready to storm the evil lord Mr. Stiches\u2019 castle.\u00a0 As you approach, a few weak minions prepare for the worst, but one of the minions decides to kill the hero by dropping a chandelier on him!\u00a0 After that, you take control of that minion!\u00a0 When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19976"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19978,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19976\/revisions\/19978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}