Class of Heroes PSP Review - PAGE 1

Class of Heroes is a dungeon crawling RPG developed by Acquire and published by Atlus. The focus on old school gameplay helped to set it apart from the herd when it was originally released in 2009, though it wasn't received overly well by critics. Recently it has seen a major price drop on the Playstation Network thanks to the Atlus "ReVITAlized PSP Price Drop Event".

Gameplay

Class of Heroes starts off at Particus Academy which is a school designed to train adventurers to successfully explore the various labyrinths surrounding the countryside. Per the standard RPG fare, monsters and loot fill the labyrinths and it's up to adventurers to investigate them thoroughly. Each dungeon varies, and has many traps designed to exterminate any wandering parties foolish enough to traverse through the dark halls.

After a brief orientation put on by the Particus Academy teachers, you start off with a list of students which you can choose from to form a new "Class", otherwise known as a party. The weak orientation delivers more questions than answers, and fails to give you much in the way of a tutorial. Trying to maneuver through the halls of the academy is a haphazard affair, since what you're really navigating through is a series of menus.

Once in the dungeons the view changes to first-person. Making your way through the dark caverns one grid at a time is not only time consuming, but the plain dungeons and lackluster battles really leave much to be desired. It's dungeon crawling at its worst as you end up in one monotonous grind after another. Class of Heroes is relentless in its pursuit to mentally level grind you to death.

Not only is the overall gameplay boring, but the user interface is weak on the PSP. Instead of being able to tap the screen towards the direction you want to go like you'd find on the Nintendo DS, you have to use the O and X buttons to maneuver around the school grounds, while utilizing the directional pad for movement in the dungeons. It unnecessarily creates the need for a lot of user inputs.

Character Development

Though there's not a lot of character customization, there are still quite a few options to choose from. The roster includes 10 races to start off with, as well as 16 "Majors".  The majors actually represent your typical RPG character classes such as Warrior, Ninja, and Thief. Each character is given a few bonus points to assign to character traits such as wisdom, strength, and vitality. You can also determine if your moral alignment will be evil, good, or neutral.

All of these parameters tie into a complex social system which can make or break the balance of your party. Not all of your characters will get along which can penalize you on the battlefield. Unfortunately, there's no good way to tell ahead of time which characters will get along with each other the best other than trying to use some common sense. Obviously a team filled with evil and good persuasions won't get along nearly as well as a team focused on only one or the other.

The problem with having a team full of one moral alignment though is many of the job classes depend on the character having a specific moral nature, making the character creation system a royal pain. Because the menu for the majors doesn't open up until your character qualifies for at least one of them, there's no clear way of knowing which classes require a particular alignment without going through the hassle of assigning the appropriate bonus points to your character.

This wouldn't be a problem if you could tell what is needed beforehand, but as it stands it's just a guessing game until you essentially "unlock" the major menu. It can take quite a while to create the right character, and it feels like you're taking shots in the dark until you finally hit your target.

Once you've gone through the efforts to create the perfect team, you might find yourself a bit pissed when you learn characters can die and be removed from the game altogether. While this surely puts focus on you being cautious with your characters, it also leaves very little room to become attached to any of them as well. Since there's no story to speak of to begin with, it would have helped to have characters we can relate to and feel some sort of emotions when losing them. As it stands, the only emotion I portrayed when losing them was sheer frustration, and only because it meant I had to go through the character creation process all over again to replace what I just lost.

Combat System

Combat is turn based and sees monster sprites popping up directly in front of you. There is no real battle animation to speak of, but the screen does "shake" when initiating an attack. Any fun found here is quickly removed by having to mash the X button over and over and over again before any type of "action" takes place.

All of the character profiles are represented on cards lined up on either side of the screen. The cards on the left side of the screen represents the front row, while the right is the back row. Keeping your mages and archers in the rear is necessary in order to avoid them being mauled by monsters while your damage dealers best serve you when in the front. Again, this is a pretty typical turn-based RPG set-up and it performs like you'd expect from a decades old combat system.

Graphics and Sound

If generic 2D drawings float your boat, then Class of Heroes will fit the bill. While they aren't drawn poorly, there's no life to any of the environment drawings and the sprites are rather simple and plain. Most of the character models are recycled, and many times it's difficult to determine which one is which. It's not a huge factor overall, since all of the fighting is done from a first person perspective anyway and the characters are only displayed as portraits on cards. However, it's just a small step away from being a hand drawn tabletop RPG adventure you could play at your buddy's house.

The music is catchy, albeit annoying. There's nothing too serious found here, and the game suffers once again from rather mediocre sound clips. Still there were a couple songs I wouldn't mind having in my RPG music library, and there's a strong sense of nostalgia to be found if you listen carefully.

Final Thoughts

There's no doubt about it: Class of Heroes is a long winded grind of an RPG. Folks who appreciate RPGs for the sake of grinding are going to find a comfortable home here for a short time, while those with less patience will move onto the next flashy game coming up over the horizon. Considering the game is already three years old and plays like it's 20, it's not too difficult to overlook Class of Heroes altogether.

If you haven't played it by now, there really isn't much you're missing. The outdated graphics, repetitious gameplay, and lack of any emotional ties to the characters makes for an exhausting experience. My suggestion for hardcore dungeon crawling fans is to skip this dud and head straight to Etrian Odyssey III on the DS.