False Hero

[h1]FALSE HERO — ANOTHER SOULSLIKE FOR PEOPLE DESPERATE TO FEEL SKILLED[/h1] False Hero is yet another Soulslike trying to convince everyone that copying the Dark Souls formula becomes original as long as you add one gimmick. This time, you steal enemy attacks and equip them so you can chain them into combos, which is admittedly a decent idea, but people are already acting like this solo developer discovered combat itself. [strike]Maybe I should applaud every game that lets me borrow an enemy move.[/strike] No. I have standards. The game openly focuses more on skill mastery and combat than traditional leveling, gear grinding, or stat management, which sounds great until you realize that means the entire experience has to live or die by how good the combat feels. If the fights stop being interesting, there is not a mountain of build variety or progression systems waiting to save it. [u]One interesting mechanic does not automatically make an entire game deep.[/u] The Steam reception is already very positive, because of course it is. Soulslike fans see stamina, bosses, dark fantasy, and a dodge button and immediately prepare a ten-paragraph speech about how the game “understands what made Dark Souls special.” [spoiler]Sometimes the answer is just that they really wanted another Dark Souls game.[/spoiler] I will give False Hero credit for having an actual identity compared with the endless pile of bargain-bin Souls clones, and the attack-stealing system is genuinely more interesting than most gimmicks in this genre. But I am not going to start worshipping a game simply because it successfully clears the extremely low bar of not being a complete FromSoftware imitation. [b][u]5/10 — NOT RECOMMENDED[/u][/b] Interesting combat gimmick, cool atmosphere, and far more personality than most Soulslikes, but the praise is already getting ridiculous. If this review stopped you from blindly buying another game because somebody called it “the next hidden Soulslike gem,” leave me a Steam Award. As usual, I did the thinking so casual frauds would not have to.