Community College Hero: Trial by Fire

It was a tough decision, but I eventually decided to give the first installment of Community College Hero a neutral review with a negative mark. Some things I will describe below will most probably sound quite subjective, but I still feel that they warrant the thumbs down. [u]But one important note first:[/u] I do not think that Trial by Fire is a bad game per se. It is just noticeably lacking compared to its sequel, Knowledge is Power. You can read my review for it [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/futabatian/recommended/847290/]here[/url] Now, get ready for a lot of rambling – because man do I have some things to say today! [h1]Yay (a.k.a. Pros)[/h1] Let’s start with the pros, shall we? Not everything is gloom and doom here, after all, and I am actually looking to get you interested in the series instead of giving up on it completely. First, I definitely put characters on the plus side. There are some problems with them due to the quality of writing (which I will talk about later), but overall, it was interesting to learn more about them. Somewhat subdued at first, you fellow heroes get more time to shine in the second part of the game. And if you spend enough extra time with them, you can learn some interesting secrets too. I would also like to complement the teaching stuff. There was a good range of interesting abilities and attitudes, as well as a major conspiracy caused by them. I smell some delicious backstabbing in the future! The battles were well-written. I felt that my skills were actually useful and they helped me defeat several opponents quite neatly – even if it was just during the exams. Another nice thing is that our protagonist can have several distinct archetypes that affect your stats and provide unique equipment. In addition, you also have to manage your persona – how other people see you, what kind of hero you are striving to be. Some choices were outright hilarious, which added a really good sparkle to more serious interactions. And yeah, growling at people can be as much fun as being a college clown. The last thing that I want to mention is the story itself. The first book lays a solid base for the really engaging trilogy about superheroes and supervillains, while keeping you hooked along the whole read. The genre is heavily overused these days, so it was nice to see that the author was able to give some originality to their work. Community College Hero series definitely has its own special flair that helps it stand out among similar stories. [h1]Ouch (a.k.a. Cons)[/h1] Ooooh, here it comes! Take cover, dear readers, because I am going on a rampage! My main gripe with the whole game is its writing. Trial by Fire makes the same mistake as several other titles I wrote about, the main culprit being The Keeper series. Both have this style that reminds of notebook entries rather than one continuous story. You are jumping from event to event in quick succession while getting barely any descriptions of things that happen between them. One moment you are just entering the school, another – you are in the middle of a training, next – an exam, then an exam again, and one more, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a study group, and this goes on and on until you get hit by another sequence of exams. And the same with character introductions. You meet the main group quickly one after another, but get very little interactions with many of them – not to mention that some mutually exclude each other. Moreover, the people you do communicate with have not got enough depth right away and look more like cardboard cutouts of cliché personalities from popular movies. This is mostly because how little attention some of them get in the very beginning and the middle of the story. [spoiler]How am I supposed to built any kind of relationship with Uni if I meet her only during orientation – for just several seconds, - and then she literally disappears until exams?![/spoiler] You are also supposed to somehow develop an opinion about these people during these short interaction – and more often than not, you need to do it fast. I honestly do not like it when I am being rushed; even more so if it happens in games. But even this does not infuriate me as much as shallow romance. And not only shallow, but a rushed one again! Mind you, it does not happen in all routes, but is definitely the case with several bolder individuals. What am I talking about and why does it make me mad? So, hear me out: you meet a guy/gal during your first day at college. You hit it off and flirt, quickly enough to develop some kind of mutual interest. Your romantic interest asks you out. Let’s say you come to their place, drink/eat something, snuggle on the sofa and decide to watch a movie. And then the person in question immediately proposes to move from just Netflix right to chill. Of course, you can say no, but depending on how you do it, your relationship with the guy/gal either gets a major hit or nets you only half of possible relationship points. If you want all bonuses, get ready for some horizontal mambo, friend. [b]What the f*ck?![/b] Why am I forced to do it to build a proper base for future interactions? I have read many CoG and HoG titles than never punished you like this unless you choose some outright rude options. I understand that Trial by Fire was written back in 2015, when the topic of consent was not as much discussed as it is now, but come on! And by the way, all future romantic interactions will be mostly as short and flat as this one, so do not get your hopes up. Oh, but you, my summer child, think that THIS is bad? Oh no, no, no, it is just the tip of the iceberg. The most infuriating part is provided by our handsome professor, The Hedonist. If you want to get a B or A mark during his first exam, you have only two options: 1) choose the Soldier/Acrobat archetype and train the right skills, or…2) pleasure him. [b]WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. F*CK?![/b] I was stunned, completely shell-shocked when the situation came to this. My character, who was a Detective, could not get anything but D because she simply did not know how to block a marble bull rushing at her in a small room. But if she wants to get her sweet C, B or A, she had to literally suck it up. And I think you are smart enough to understand what “it” refers to. OK, my rage aside, it is fair to say that such things happen in real life too. Very often, sadly. But why does the game treat this topic in such a light way? There are barely any consequences for The Hedonist; moreover, it is heavily implied that you are not the only one to be forced to do it. Maybe I am just a boring prude, but this whole scene and its implications just rub me the wrong way. Oh, but you know what is even better? If you sleep with Professor Hedonist, his own secretary admonishes YOU for doing it the very moment you leave his office. Woman, are you for real?! Take your “your parents must be proud of you” and shove it up your arse. I am done with this college… [h1]The Conclusion[/h1] As you can see, Trial by Fire has its issues. Yes, my complaints will probably sound subjective to some, but I stand by my opinion that the game needs better writing. At the same time, the setting, the story and the lore are competent and memorable. It is interesting to explore different archetypes and personalities, choosing new options or routes, learning more about people. I cannot say that I was ever bored while reading – just annoyed at times because of the unnecessary fast pace. And that…scene. In the end, it is up to you whether you are ready to overlook the issues I mentioned. If you are, you should definitely buy the sequel as it has greatly improved the writing and brought many new characters to the fray. [h1][url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/32296668-Casual-Game-Reviews/] More reviews on our Curator Page[/url][/h1]

There are two main issues here: the first being that the writing is somewhat puerile at times. Trying to be a jokester feels almost impossible because of how inappropriate and just downright lame you have to be. On top of that the dialogue seems to split 50/50 between your choice is completely ignored, and there being a definitive "correct" way to answer. Which is kinda killer for any game like this. Second is just how absolutely pointless everything feels. Your choices rarely amount to anything and often fail when they do. It's not uncommon to be put into a situation where there is nothing your character archetype can do. Ultimately it comes down to: do you want to be the dead weight being carried by your team? Do you want to continually fail and feel like a worthless piece of garbage? The other factors in this game are nowhere near enough to justify these shortcomings. Ultimately, it's just unsatisfying to play.

Its an OK story, for sure. But as I got into it, I really started to see what some were saying about your character and decisions being pointless. First of all, the story has a way of taking your decision and then cutting you off, so that it didn't matter. So you want to do this? Ok-Nope. Wait. Story has decided that before your character can even blink, you're going to do what the story wants you to do instead. Silly peon, choices aren't real. Next, the uselessness of your character becomes a real pain. You start to wish you HAD superpowers, because most of the time what skill you do have always fails and you just end up a wart on your fellow peers toes. Really, I played a sharpshooter and EVERY time I tried to attack ranged, the game either made me fail miserably, cut my off before I could even try, or at one point flat out put my character in a no-ranged combat situation...for a grade. Then said teacher tries to solicit my character for sex for a better grade? Seriously? This could have really been a promising COG, but in the end, while its an ok read, it really feels to on-rails to be a choice game. Maybe more just a straight novel.

The pacing is awkward (huge time-skips), the writing is mediocre at best and - the most important - your character doesn't affect a single thing in this story. The game looked promising in the beginning - opened with an action scene from the future (which hasn't happened yet, because the third part of the series is yet unwritten - keep that in mind!), you could design your own superhero, including their persona. I always wanted to be the snarky one, and luckily there was such an option. Well, if you're fond of kindergarden sense of humor and jokes like "I'm doing your mom" - direct quote. The rest I summed up above. There are also the tests. Just the thing when you're trying to relax, playing the story-based game, amirite? The tests on all subjects you'd better pass. They require not only attending the lessons and pay attention, they require extacurricular activity to pass. And you can't choose extra lessons on all the subjects, you have to choose. The tests themselves, or, rather, te test in law, depend only on the above and not on your decisions. You must attend the extra lessons or you'll fail and fail and fail... well, not that it matters in the end. The plot progresses on its own and doesn't need you anyway.

This is an NPC simulator. Your choices mean nothing throughout the course of this installment. I am massively disappointed by this game, given how well it is apparently received by so many others. Community College Hero is banal game that, for the amount of substance it really has, contains too many words between beginning and end. My playtime appears very short because I played in offline mode. Look at my achievements and you'll know I suffered through this game in its entirety. The biggest thing that bothers me is the dialogue writing. It isn't simply amateur, which would have been forgivable. Instead, too many dialogues looked like they came out of some kid's Keenspace "animu style" webcomic from 2007. No nuance and all bluster. There was unforgivable abuse of the exclamation point in the dialogues. There was an attempt to demonstrate an "interesting, colourful" cast that instead came across as lazy and laboured. You get to choose how your superhero persona is portrayed, using the cringiest representation of each generic personality. See, there isn't always a problem with generic personalities. Generic personalities can be used to allow readers/players to better insert themselves into the character. But this game doesn't do that. It [i]thinks[/i] that's what it's doing, anyway. Some of the cringiest dialogue options were the jokester/heroic options, followed by all other personality dialogue you're presented with. I ended the game with no romanced characters because I hated everyone equally. The only one I tolerated wasn't even human and was not a romance option. The concept of zeniths and how their superhuman abilities came about has a lot of promise, and what drew me in initially. The execution ruined it. The terminology used for stats, however, were really very cute, and exams being entirely up to you to pass or fail was cool; That much I honestly enjoyed. If for some reason this game ends up in your library, play through it once to learn about zeniths, because that's pretty much the coolest part in the game. If it isn't already in your library, you're not missing out on much at all.

I am not a fan of this the MC feels damn useless and kind of annoying plus it all feels kind of pointless i just never felt any kind of connection to the MC plus the story i will be really really honest it is boring very very boring in my opinion so damn boring that i would rather watch paint dry.

The worst COG for me. Really, all I have played was somehow interesting but this one just meh. Was thinking about refund but decided to pull myself together and finish it.. Totally regret it. This game is so immature. From the given choices and character's action I assumed that the age of MC (and all other "heroes") is 12. I like funny options usually but in this game they are the worst: inappropriate, lame, strange. Story is not interesting (and, of course, not finished). Not recommend.

[h1][b]College Hero: Trial by Fire[/b][/h1] Esse é um que me deixou dividido, por um lado é interessante mas por outro é um pouco confuso. A história em si é interessante, você é um humano comum em um mundo aonde há pessoas com poderes e você é passa em um programa lhe permitindo estudar em uma escola para super heróis, essa primeira parte se passa praticamente dentro da escola com uma interações com outros estudantes, você enfrenta alguns vilões mas a maior parte da história fica para o próximo jogo. A história é bem escrita, mas acho que faltou algo mais, está incompleta e não digo isso por ser a parte 1, está incompleta para ser a parte 1. Os personagens são bem caricatos e interessantes, cada um é único e de acordo com suas escolhas eles tem reações de acordo com suas personalidades sempre de forma caricata. Um ponto legal é que através das interações com os personagens você consegue descobrir segredos dos personagens que deixam a história do personagem mais interessante. As estatísticas são bem confusas, algumas tem algumas porcentagens mais não te dão uma ideia se aqueles números são bons ou nãos, a mesma coisa para os relacionamentos, você pode fazer diversas e os números não te dão uma ideia se a relação é boa ou não, e o pior de todos são as habilidades que são representadas por onomatopeias como pow, whoosh, zap, hmmm, shhh, até dá pra entender que pow deve ser força, mas que diabos é yay? Você é obrigado a ficar procurando o que isso quer dizer durante o jogo todo e pode acabar ficando um pouco chato. Agora o pior ponto é o fato de que suas escolhas parecem não fazer diferença nenhuma a não ser para mudar as estatísticas do seu personagem, em diversos momentos algumas escolhas são interrompidas antes mesmo de acontecerem, você faz uma escolha e na página seguinte outra coisa completamente diferente acontece e a sua escolha não interfere em nada e grande parte das escolhas são perguntas feitas diretamente a você e sua opinião e não escolhas sobra sua próxima ação no jogo o que acaba tornando o jogo um pouco frustrante no sentido de aventura em texto, é mais a leitura de uma história. Como disse a história é boa e interessante, porém o jogo se perde e deixa de ser uma aventura em texto, senti que estava apenas lendo uma história e não [u]“escolhendo a minha aventura”[/u]. Acho que vale a pena jogar e espero sinceramente que a continuação seja melhor e pois a história tem potencial só falta aflorar a essência de uma aventura em texto. [b]Nota: [u]7/10[/u][/b]

Absolutely amazing one, if you like well written hero stories you will love this and its sequal. I highly reccomend picking up both as of right now. I cant wait for the third!

A great game