No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either!

Traditionally, NHA games have been about taking the role of a god of destruction who aims for world domination by building complex underground ecosystems of demons that will be eventually unleashed on the earth. This game however, is a free­to­play “match 3” puzzle game dressed up in the robes of the previous entries.

As in previous games, your goal is to fend off the invading parties of Heroes that attack your lair to slay your armies and kidnap your right hand man/dark sorcerer aptly named “Badman”. However instead of building up a devious dungeon full of wild monsters and demons to cause mayhem and destruction, you’ll find yourself matching blocks in a frenzied attempt to stop some sort of Japanese role playing game home invasion scenario. Each successful match brings a new monster to life and brings stronger monster blocks into play. Match these as fast as you can to damage your enemies and stop them from tearing down that new upholstery you just had put up.

The game becomes somewhat interesting as the enemies attack back and render some pieces in play useless as rocks but the game feels too simple for its own good and each round is depressingly short. Following in the footsteps of candy crush and other games of this type, you’ll find a very low barrier to entry (see: free), and in true free­to­play fashion the main game is accompanied by various side activities meant to give you interventions jolts of pleasure with miniscule rewards. Not surprisingly, the game and the side activities are severely crippled in order to make you funnel money to play more or proceed faster. That said, the immense charm and humor normal to this game series are still very much intact and I found myself really enjoying the time I spent on it. On the other hand, the crippled nature of this game makes me second­guess it’s long lasting appeal. Upon exhausting my free play coins and thus being forced to wait an ungodly time to play more, I thought to myself how much better this game could have been as an actual product I only had to pay once to enjoy fully. Then I went to the Playstation store and bought the previous games instead. If you like these types of free puzzle games or are somewhat curious in the free­to­play craze there is no reason not to spend 10 minutes on it, if only for the humor and charm alone. As for me, I’ll probably stick to the other games and I recommend you give those a try instead.