Hero Online Preview

In ancient Chinese lore, the Twelve Demons walked the realm, destroying the landscape and killing the people. The Buddhist monks gathered 10,000 demon hunters to attack the Twelve Demons, but all 10,000 were slain and not a demon fell.

When the land seems to enter the darkest of its days, an unnamed hero appeared. With 3,000 of his best soldiers, he laid a trap and lured the demons in. All 3,000 were killed, but the Twelve Demons also died.

The hero became known as the Great Dragon and for 20 years after, the land was at peace. And then, the Great Dragon was murdered, and the one responsible was his wife. The people were outraged and terrified at the same time. It was rumored that the Twelve Demons had returned. It was a time when a new hero must be found to step forward.

That is the backstory for Hero Online, a massively multiplayer online title from M-Game USA that just finished its first closed beta session.

If there is one game that Hero Online can best be equated to emulate, it would be Diablo II. The game is, by default, a third-person hack ‘n slash. It is easy to jump into and play, and it is rather entertaining.

Impressions after the first beta session are somewhat limited, as the game seems to be a work in progress and there is no telling just what the developers will be adding as the game moves toward release. There are only four characters available, at this stage – two male and two female. The males are a sword/bow and a heavy tank class, while the female are a melee and a healing class. Character customization is limited at best, but as players progress, they can begin to define their class. At level 10, or 1^st Dan, players can choose from one of four classes - warrior, physician, assassin and hunter.

In addition to acquiring a class at level 10, players will also have other gameplay elements open up – like being able to use player stores or trade with other players. Even a chat channel seemed to be tied to level.

As players hunt and level, quests open up. Mobs drop items which may be used by players or banked. Only three characters were available per account, but – and here is where the game gets clever – each time you log in, you can pick a moon (shard or server) and your characters are available on whichever server you log in to. Banks are also shared between all the characters on your account. If you have a certain class and find armor or a weapon that another can use, you will be able to drop the item into your account (or gold, for that matter) and log in another character to acquire it easily.

Those are both very sound features.

Most of the quests, at this point, involve killing X amount of a certain mob and collecting drops. Mobs are all color coded to show difficulty in killing them. Armor and weapons are also tied to class and level. You can collect items to give to the blacksmith for strengthening or imbuing your armor or weapons.

One of the problems of the game at this stage is that kill stealing is a problem. You can engage a mob and have someone run up, beat on it, take away your experience and the drops you may have gained. While that was a problem in the first days of the beta, as the days of the first closed session moved along, and players leveled, it seemed to be less of a problem.

Graphically the game is very nice. It does not have the high-end elements of an EverQuest II, but is rather lush and the martial arts-based combat movement is very nicely done. The musical score is superb at flavoring the game with the right tone.

Hero Online is a bit of a grind, sure, and there are load times between zones, but this game appears to have the makings of a very entertaining time. The point-and-click interface is not hard to use, the game is visually pleasing and the combat evolves and is rather fun.

This is definitely a game to keep an eye on as it progresses into the second closed beta session, moving ever closer to release.