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Hero's Journey E3 Review - Simutronics
This year we caught up with the folks at Simutronics who were kind enough to give us not one, but two walkthroughs when I returned with a few questions before awarding them the GameAmp Most Original title of E3 Award. This game has so many new features that have never before been seen in a game that it’s really hard to find a place to begin!

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Graphics

I’m going to break the graphics down into modeling and texturing. The modeling in Hero’s Journey looks great with a near infinitely variable system for character and monster models. The texturing however seemed to use an almost pastel color palette which would not be my preference. The shadows were also very slight and added to the pastel effect creating a look which seemed a bit pale. This may have been due to the screens being used though as the screenshots which are available for other areas of the game look fantastic without a trace of what I’m talking about :P

The iconography was excellent with clear graphics and even slots for weapons, skills, and armor were thoughtfully different shaped icons; very user friendly and extremely useful.

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Questing

There are a ton of different types of quests for Hero’s Journey and Simutronics seems to have invented them all on the fly (aside from the obvious). In the gameplay section you’ll read more about Wyr and what they are but know that the system allows for a near endless amount of quest possibilities from gaining items and wyr which can be acquired throughout the world and through a complex variety of means. Quests in Hero’s Journey may be gained through NPCs, items, wyr combinations, and just about everything else you can think of.

Questing will land you any number of rewards from Hero Points (another new system from Simutronics’ endless vault of new ideas) to weapons to armor, to wyr… There is a wide array of quests to suck you in to the world of Hero’s Journey.

Gameplay

I can’t rave enough about the gameplay. Simutronics has definitely gone to great lengths to make sure the combat isn’t just hack and slash and is much more geared towards strategy and planning. It starts at the skill level where virtually every spell has very specific instances of where and when it should be used. AoE skills give you the ability to define the size of your area and many other spells are similarly affected. There are also some very key crowd control spells which would allow you to funnel enemies into a targeted attack or even completely block off some mobs from getting to you for a certain period of time. This game is made for both the hardcore and casual gamer at the same time.

For the casual gamer, the game is still a ton of fun and doesn’t require that you spec your character a certain way to effectively level throughout the game. In addition there is a ton of lore to uncover through various means that will keep your interested for months if not years depending upon your play style. For the hardcore gamer, there is a near endless supply of customization that can be done which we’ll go into next.

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Character Progression

I’m going to straight up tell you it is possible to completely gimp your character in Hero’s Journey and you should take that as a huge positive. What it means is that there is so much customization and character progression that unless you pay attention to your character and learn the way you want to play you could very possibly choose an unintended path and spend valuable points raising stats you might not want to in the end game. This doesn’t mean you won’t be able to retrain these at a later stage in the game just that you should wisely choose which direction you would like your character to advance…

Now the pro side of this is that you can effectively create your own little niche character that is completely different from anyone else. Even if you and another player have the same primary and secondary classes, you can still fill a completely different role from the other player. This definitely lends itself to the immersion factor in the fact that you can actually feel as if your character is unique and a direct reflection of what you want him or her to be.

Gear

It goes without saying that Simutronics has included all the basic items (weapons, armor, etc…) into Hero’s Journey so I needn’t bore you with the generic details. Instead, for this review, I want to focus on the Wyr System. According to the Hero’s Journey lore, the artifacts of Elanthia’s heroes were shattered by the Arcanum-Gearsmith Wars sending fragments of magical items to the ends of the earth; some of which still held portions of the owner’s spirit. There are six main types of Wyr; Abundant, Plentiful, Common, Scarce, Rare, and Very Rare.

Each Wyr has a specific set of properties that will modify your character’s gear or even skills. Each piece of gear has a set amount of slots that you can add Wyr too. However different types of Wyr require more or less of the slots. Obviously, the more rare the Wyr, the more points or slots it will take up.

Screenshot Combining Wyr together can also have unique effects. Certain skills or attributes may only be available through combing Wyr in a certain pattern. Some Wyr will have downsides as well. For instance you may find a Wyr of Spider Slaying that will give you a +50% damage to Spiders. That Wyr may also give you a -25% damage to rats.

To top it all off, if you collect certain rare Wyr which all belonged to a certain person or were once equipped on a certain hero’s sword you may actually open up new areas not yet explored and only available through a Wyr combination. This new area might act as a hideout for you and the rest of your guildies or it may have new NPCs to purchase new gear from. It might even have new quests available only to you or your party members.

As you can see, the Wyr System is very in-depth and definitely worth reading more on.

Overall

Overall I give Simutronics a huge round of applause for the amount of creativity and effort they have put into the game. There are a ton more aspects of this game that have never been seen before and it is only because I am limited in my time to talk about Hero’s Journey (many other E3 reviews to write) that I stop here. This game looks to be one of if not THE most intriguing title at E3. It is so completely different than anything else I have ever seen that I can’t wait to get my hands on a beta account and start really learning just how deep this game goes with its ingenuity and creativity. I highly recommend visiting the GameAmp Hero’s Journey Site for more information on what to expect from this game at launch.
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