Next Up Hero

TLDR: This could be an extremely nice and rewarding game, but it is extremely buggy and poorly synchronised instead, what kinda kills the whole purpose and makes it an annoying bugfest. I hope the developers will get their stuff together and fix this game, because at this state it is completely worthless. Details: Poor to almost no synchronisation between players: - objectives (task panel sticks on screen even between levels, on timer levels the timer shows different remaining times) - skins (no chosen player skin is synched in coop mode, other player is displayed with default skin) - monsters (monsters are not always displayed correctly for helper - displayed at one place and dies at an other place-, also rubber banding and dissapears, phantom [non-existent] monsters appear for one of the players) - drops and loots are not displayed at the same place and in same quantity - player health is not synched between players, often showing the maximum amount even when players have almost no HP left - the ONLY heal in the game does not always work -the heal what a helper player can give- (the button is enabled, but upon activating, the recipient player gets no health increase) - a great bunch of other synchronisation issues Level editor fail: - created level is displayed "unavailable", even though all the resources got deducted for it after creating - timer started for unplayable level - no option to delete / cancel unplayable level - no option to create another level before this one expires - created level is not searchable - absolutely no info on why the level is not playable Serious balancing issues: - on "falling skies" maps, meteors only focus on the main player and not on the helper - the meteors are not generated evenly distributed on terrain/level, but instead e.g. in narrow passages, the same number of meteors generated as on an open plains - a large bunch of other balancing issues throughout the game (not going to list them all) Very poorly designed menu layout: - quite often no menu control objects (buttons, arrows, etc...) are present - e.g. level browsing and other places which makes navigating through menus quite troublesome and annoying - no timed / right click tooltips in game which makes some of the menu options and displayed icons confusing - the complete menu is a mess and should get a full rework And sadly, the list could go on... Pros: - nice graphics - good idea - somewhat cute monsters - good performance (not hard to achieve good performance without synchronisation though) My only relief is that I bought this game in a sale for peanuts. This whole thing is just deeply saddening... It could be such a good game. 3/10

In singleplayer mode, had the tutorial level softlock at the end, and then was disconnected while trying an easy level. Has some issues that need to be worked out - not sure why I'm having my runs interrupted while playing solo. Was initially interested but am turned off now.

don't buy

I was a bit shocked that with all of the negative reviews I would like the game as much as I did. I have been enjoying it quite a bit and have unlocked a bunch of heroes and created my own stages and so on. It is fairly enjoyable, I also enjoy the boss pushing mechanic as well. It is weird in that you are kinda supposed to die and build on your own defeat. The same goes for other people. If you have friends that play the game it does become way more fun as you can tackle dungeons in co op and also have more echos to use faster as your friends die playing your stages. I had no problem with it. The bosses have a lot of health but in roughly 4 tries if you know their mechanics you can take down their full health bar. The last time I tried I did it in 2. Edit: I want to address some of the other negative reviews. First I will admit the game is a bit grindy but its kind of a get what you put into it kinda thing. If a game is fun then the grind should be fun... which it is which is why I'm hooked on the game. To me it became WAAAAAY better once I unlocked all the heroes. Just for the simple reason that you can spend the primary currency "Prestige" to make better stages or have more rare enemies to get the rare enemy tokens. Also to address another negative review, there are attack accessories, defense accessories, and misc accessories. Those have small benefits like +1 to damage, etc. Then you have enemy tokens which you can rank up. Those have good abilities like summon an echo on attack with a 15% chance, echo's doe 60% more damage, summons do more damage, melee attacks do AOE, ranged attacks fire like a shotgun, etc. You can have up to 2 of them at a time. You will figure out what you like but I liked mixtape with AOE and spreadshot. I would drag the enemies from the entire stage and go to town with his basic attack and he held his own.

no local multi, no solo... NO GO

The game markets itself as an RPG and co-op. It's not really either of those. You can play a "co-op" game but it's more like parallel play. Once you join a friend, you have to search the game they joined or made to do this, you will either "help" or "heal" them. Then if they die, you'll be aided by them if they choose to. Randoms can join you and do the same. There's no private games, no actual story that seems obvious from the gameplay. No real reason to join these random games. God forbid you go versus the Madcap boss first, you'll regret ever playing. Good luck and don't buy this unfinished mess. There's more than a few glitches that are immediately obvious, but it is cross platform.... so there's that.

Next Up Hero is one of those 'hardcore for the sake of hardcore' type of games. It doesn't do itself any favors with other elements of the core experience being dull, repetitive, or grind locked to inflate the meager amount of content either. I reached my limit just short of 3 hours in after telling myself repeatedly around the first hour marker that I would give this a real fair shake. As someone with a tolerance for this sort of gameplay loop, Next Up Hero has to be one of the worst experiences that I can recall in recent memory. It's a hard pass from me.

杉果13元入 很遗憾，我网络条件堪忧以至于我根本玩不了 给不了任何有价值的评价 无休止的“与服务器断开连接”以及重连，玩不得 以上

[h1][b]Not Recommended[/b][/h1]

Initially got the game for free via Epic Games, but enjoyed the game enough to buy it on Steam and leave a review. Game is a fun coop or single player game that is great for either just playing a brief session with friends or farming up the best abilities and gear. Nice character development mechanics, although game seems more based on skill than gear for the most part allowing new players to delve pretty deep if they can dodge and target enemies well while upgrades still feel meaningful.