Sadly yes. I have. I saw the little screen of Shawn with his bag over his shoulder sadly looking at the castle. I'm THAT guy. I always forgot to change out my armor. I would just get in the groove of running off to do something and sometimes you spawn right next to him and BAM 20 Ds. Yep. I did it. :-)

Hey Cap'n

I think you make a lot of good points. I haven't reached the end so I'm not sure I can totally relate, but I believe you are correct. It seems the game guides the player to always be upright, which is a little disappointing. When I first started the game I was always sarcastic cause that's kinda who I am, but it seemed like I was being punished for that so I stopped.

In that regard, I feel like the game should be called Paladin-U. I always kind liked the fact that you could be a Thief and a Hero. I mean QFG allowed you to steal with indifference: from an old woman, two good Sheriffs (1&4), a Lonely old man with a dead wife, even take money from a hard working street musician in QG3. In QG4 the Chief Thief makes a comment about how sometimes the two occupations are mutually exclusive. I liked the contemplation of that duality. Clearly QG gave you the option to be a full on Thief at times as all of those actions are pretty heartless. I liked the hard question that it asked. Is a Thief a hero?

So if what you say about the Rep system plays out as you say it does. It begs the question was that guy we all role played in QG just a jerk? But rant aside I agree that you need to be allowed to chose Win/Lose outcomes to make it meaningful. I just happened to let Joel die because I was more concerned with finding Emily's tomb and I don't really care that much. He was kind of a little weasel like the Polonius of their world. So will letting that fish monger die screw up my ending? Maybe. I don't know. But either way, I agree from what I've seen so far the relationship system doesn't possess as meaningful an execution as perhaps it could have. I guess I'll know more when my play through is done.

I don't think so. I just think all the characters, other than Terk and Sosi, want to do what is noble. Their interests end up aligning. There isn't a lot of room for conflict.
In the QFG games the hero doesn't have to have to pick between the Simbani or the Leapordmen. He finds a win/win for them, too. I guess what I'm saying is reputation was almost unneccesary, because you are a hero, or a thief/hero that is never caught. The pattern was for most people to have benign or even hostile skepticism (leapordmen) and then you earn their respect, unless they are a villain in which case they were never going to like you anyway.

I totally agree. It wasn't necessary in QFG, I guess what I'm trying to ascertain is is it necessary in HU? I haven't finished my first play-thru yet. (Mostly cause I'm hung on of the decision of re-load to save Joel's stupid self or just plow through. I'd raher Joel die cause he's a weasel, but I'm sure that's wrong in the eyes of the game, plus I don't wanna miss the wraith boss fight
that I'm assuming is a thing.) but as a mechanic its so far forgettable. I used to glance at it while I was deciding between Esme and Katie, but once I chose Esme. I haven't really cared since, but if its going to determine if my ending is good or bad than than I'll be disappointed with it as a mechanic. I mean are all Hero's Liked? Is the goal to be popular? I don't know. Again, I really can't weight in too much on this issue until I finish the game.

There are absolutely dialogue tree's where you can get in trouble with one relationship in order to please another, but they are admittedly rare. Esme is an adventurer rogue, Katie is much less adventurous except where the treasure is concerned and she has a pretty non-adventurer use to put the treasure to, Thomas is the only truly noble spirit while Joel is more of a true "thief" IMO. Sossi unfortunately sort of disappears from the game outside of being in class once Joel is saved. Would have liked to see more antagonistic interactions with him in the late game.

Point is that, while yes many of your classmates have aligning goals, their motives are different if you spend the time to learn them.

While I can understand the criticisms here if the game is played and enjoyed on it's own merits as opposed to a comparison with QFG it stands quite well. If you try to compare it to expectations based on QFG I think you will feel much the same as many Bioware fans when they played Neverwinter Nights expecting it to have the story elements of Baldur's Gate. While NWN was a fantastic achievement for the (STILL GOING) persistent worlds and the many great single player modules released, the official module released in the game wasn't ever going to please players expecting a rich story. By the same token, Hero-U is a really good story that certainly has a few flaws. However, it's unfair to expect developers to simply remake a game they already made very well nearly 30 years ago.

Hey Chad,

As I've gotten into the last 3rd of this game I've been trying to enjoy it in a vacuum, and I do applaud the fact that they tried to do something different. I think its strengths lie in the new combat system and the more in-depth dungeon crawling. A few of the side quests have been fun as well, but I still think the pacing feels a bit off, especially in the first 13 days when you wait for the "Not-Meep" to show up and steal apple. I don't there's much to do that really cements the player's interests into the story. There's no mini-games, very little variety in the one dungeon available at that time. The characters aren't as eccentric and interesting, at least, they're not at the time.

On the contrary, If I had been playing this game in a vacuum, and forgot that I backed two kicker-starters, and knew it was set in the same world as one of my favorite franchises of all time, and did judge it on its own merits I don't know if I would have made it over that hump of that first ten days. I know there's a couple reviews on the purchase page from people that said they did stop playing in that time.

Does it succeed as an overall product. Yes. Its a very good slow burn, but I think the pacing is just off a times. To compare it to a contemporary game that did a better job of what H-U was trying to do with relationships between friends was A NIGHT IN THE WOODS, where a girl comes from from college to rediscover her home town and discovers strange happenings. This game also had a slow burn where things are happening at first and also made you make choices who you had time to spend time with, but the adventures you embark on are more organic than. Here's the Esme dungeon, here's the Katie Dungeon, Here's the Joel Dungeon. And it provided mini games you could play with the friends, and even a rogue-lite hack and slash you could play in your in-game computer at night. All this provided an immersion that handing out apples and roses and flirting with everyone you see did not, at least for my tastes.

Like I said the Game Play of Hero-U does grow on you, and the addition of having an elective adds a nice wrinkle to character dev but I think a few of the other systems that the game play relies on could have been done with less tedium and more fun.

I would agree on the pacing. It's a difficult thing to get right because if you rush it there will be many players that miss the various hints and thus miss much of the plot. I suppose making things start a bit slow is the safer route to allow players more time to figure things out. Unfortunately, it does confuse players when they have the right answer, but can't solve it simply because they are on the wrong day.

I personally think a better approach could have been found by looking at QFG2. You can capture the elementals the same day they first appear in the various plaza's. If it takes you 3 days to figure things out that's fine, but on the fourth it's game over... If you do solve the puzzle on the first day you basically just have three days of 'nothing new' which in the context of HU:RtR would mean more time to develop relationships, train skills and explore!

Could there have been some better implementations of certain things (like pacing/giving more free time in the early-mid game)? Absolutely. However, I think some of the criticisms in the first page of this thread are perhaps a bit too heavy and seem to me as more of a gripe that the game is not QFG6. This game was never advertised to be QFG6 and overall I'm very happy with the execution... First game in a very long time that I played to completion without ever growing tired of it and taking a break. Not to say I didn't get bored for short periods where I was trying to crack a safe in the Sea Caves (which by the way, the loot was simply not good enough for how difficult the lock was! :P ), part of the pacing issue you describe is absolutely that. However, aside from one random chest which had nothing in it that would have had any effect had I walked away I never felt I had to grind stats and yet still finished with 100's in everything except Luck, Charm and Moxie (Luck and Charm were low 60's and Moxie was low 70's).

In any case, none of this is meant to tell people how they should play a game or how it should make them feel...Each of us is going to find enjoyment in different things about a game. I only meant to point out that the good and the bad things about HU:RtR should really be about how things work in relation to itself, not in comparison to how things were done in QFG series. Certainly things can be learned to make the next game better (and the ones after that, cross my fingers!) I just don't think it would work out well if the Coles simply went on to try and remake QFG since those games are fantastic as they are. Remaking them would not likely do them justice and I imagine would not be nearly as satisfying as creating new stories as they have done with this game.

HA! I know exactly what chest you're talking about because I thought the same thing. It was the one chest in the Dungeon that you to grind & grind & grind and when you opened it was like 14 Lyra and fine dagger and something else you already had and I was WTF really. Ha ha. So funny. I didn't expect anyone else to pick up on that. I totally thought that thing was going to have a Paladin Sword in it with how high you had to be to open it.

I agree with the QFG 2 use of time analogy. I think I that would have help in some instances.

But I can't argue with your points about the unfairness of wanting QFG 6. I'll be the first to admit that I was overly harsh when I was stuck in those first ten days. It IS hard to not think about the first time you stepped outside of Spielburg and discovered the Antwerp or Eramus's castle or the Kolbold fight. Especially when you go onto the roof of Hero U and see the beautiful sprawling city that you have no access to. At the end of the day, I know you're right, and I'm glad its it's own thing but as I said its very difficult to not draw those parallels.

But I hope for more of these Games as well.

The way I look at it is this. They now already have all of the art for the university and they have an engine they can reuse, perhaps upgrade. So assuming HU:RtR does well enough to keep the doors open perhaps we will get to see a section or two of the city in Wizards Way. The first of any game takes longer because you are building and testing everything while writing the story and scripting it in to the engine. The second game at least has a lot of the base resources which can be reused (unless you go the Ultima route and use a new engine for every game...) This is why Dragon Age: Origins took seemingly forever to release while the 2nd and 3rd followed within a couple years.

Yeah, you're right. Hopefull if they Crowd fun they can get more backers as well. The game did seem to have to prioritize where some aspects are beautifully done and others are just lacking. I hope the GAMING skill gets dumped for actual games. There's just nothing fun about looking at Post Cards of Shawn playing games. SO I ignored it. Then late game you find out about the Minotaur and the chess set. I'd rather actually just get to play some cleverly designed Chess variant than suffer through tedium training to be rewarded later. Also the ghost fetch quests feel very tacked on. Three of the answers were literally on display in the SAME ROOM. Myswell have had APU from the Simpsons handing out fetch quest items Kwike mart sytle. "Yeah give me 2 Knights Lumi and one dog Happy Items." But I digress. It would be good if more time could be spent to make the tedium fun and the simplistic a little more indepth.

Yeah one of these I will try Dragon Age. I had a hard with the RTS combat in a 3D setting. I know after years of Baldurs gate and Ice Wind Dale it should feel natural but it always felt clunky. One day, I'll give it another go.

I just finished my first play through, and while I see your point on some things (the combat in particular could use some more tutorializing) I still really enoyed the game. I do think that Shawn being not that great in combat, even at the end of the game, was good choice as it really empasized that he is someone who gets by on his wits, more than his skills.

Something that I really liked is that most (all? not sure) of the "boss" encounters could be solved by a puzzle instead of combat. i.e. getting help, negotiating, etc. That said, I just COULD NOT get my friends to help me, even when (once a given task was accomplished) I had the option of giving them credit. What's the point of being BFF with a paladin if I can't get her to help me in a hard boss fight?

That said, I think my biggest diapointment in the game is Thomas. Without wishing to spoil, I'll just say that his secret was really jarring when most of his characterization was about deciing who he really was.

I was never given the impression that the paladin would be of particular help against any enemies except the undead. And yes, she will help you against the undead, but first you have to find out where they are and then tell her. (That may mean retreating from combat, which Urwald would consider the wiser course of action.) I'd say that "deciding who he really was" remains a major theme for him even after Shawn finds out about his secret, or maybe especially after; only the scope of that decision has changed.

Supposedly the later games will open up the town, and forest around the university.