Live A Hero

Today I am talking about Live A Hero which is a free to play mobile Gacha style game. Hey, before you say “nope” and go away. Let me tell you, this does have some pretty neat ideas and I ended up putting a few hours into it. I basically play a game like this as much as I can until I get to the point where I need to wait for like 24 hours to do something or I have to pay real money to speed things up, unlock a certain character, or any other kind of progression. I get why stuff like this makes people mad, but to be fair, the game is free and you can walk away at any time.

A Series Of What Ifs?

The premise of the story in Live A Hero is actually really awesome. It deals with alternate universes. The “gimmick” is the theory that you are walking along and decide to go right instead of left, but what if you went left? How different would your life be? The idea is that there are alternate versions of characters out there and the game takes place on a world where pretty much anything goes. I love the idea of this as a story trope and I wish they leaned into it more as I truly think that they had something cool here.

A Pretty Crazy Universe!

The universe that Live A Hero takes place in is kind of crazy. This is the “Earth of the future” and here it is not just humans that call this Earth home. We have beasts, aliens, mechanical beings, and pretty much everything in between. However, bad aliens show up one day and they need to be put in their place! Using the power of the “what ifs” the regular people on this Earth can get superpowers to try and fight off the alien horde. While I think that the premise of the game is great, I do think that the execution needed some work, to be fair, it could be a translation issue.

To Be Fair…

I have played a ton of games of this style and I have to say that if you are looking for a fun free to play turn based combat RPG style experience, Live A Hero is not bad. The game is fun, there are tons of characters and the core gameplay is challenging but it does make you think and strategize a bit. As a game, I really like this, but the real selling point of the game is adding these interesting characters to your ranks and the Gacha system here is quite brutal. It is all down to luck in regards to what characters you will get when you get the chance to get one and I looked into it and the math saving up for a “spark” a form of getting what you want would take you several months!

What Brought Me To The Dance

While I have played a lot of Gacha and mobile games, Live A Hero pulled me in because of the designs of some of the characters. I was scrolling along free to play games and it was the character, Monosuma who is this badass robot wolf looking dude that caught my eye and made me take an interest in the game. The character designs in this game are truly fantastic, honestly, I would take some action figures of these in a heartbeat! While the character designs are great, the menus and the game in general is a bit clunky. Even during the battles, it is like there is far too much stuff on the screen at a time and it can be quite hard to look at or even know what you are supposed to click.

Pros:

• The game does boast some very cool character designs
• I got a kick out of the “what if” premise of the story
• They have some neat ideas in general for the game
• The combat is challenging and pretty fun

Cons:

• The Gacha and free to play monetization are pretty crazy and borderline unfair
• I found myself losing interest quite quickly and I have never had a desire to go back