Slime Heroes is a slime orientated isometric souls-like action game.

The premise is you are the last slime alive after a genocide and have become the only one left can save your home from the corruption consuming it.

The game boasts 6 guardians to defeat, co-op play allowing you both to find different weapons, and dynamically create your own magical abilities based on what you find.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, the developers have added in a number of options under its own tab which include crouch toggle, camera shake, outline colours, outline players, cameras sway and timed puzzle. Button remapping and a small selection of subtitle options also exist alongside a great selection of difficulty options, like world damage, enemy attack speed and boss damage. Audio options are basic however, so those with auditory issues may struggle.

Gameplay

When people here Souls-like, they instantly think of hard battles with lots of deaths as a given. So it was intriguing when I saw Slime Heroes and its premise to be a more softer and approachable game. This is clearly been designed for the younger audience but I believe still be appreciate as an adult.

You start as often with Souls-like games, in the Character creator section, which is immensely delightful. Here there is a variety of cute customizations that allow you to really get the unique look of your slime down to a T. From there the story is narrated on how you and the world around came to be.

Your species was almost wiped out but the corruption that came, but thankfully you and you alone survived. With a little luck you met a good friend, a dragon, who protected you and allowed you both to live together in the forest. Unfortunately, the corruption spread during your seclusion, and finally made its way to you across home. With your friends last strength, they teleported you to safety at the cost of their own, and thus begins your story.

It's at this point the standard dark souls formular returns, with the premise is for your character to explore the world killing enemies and finally deal with the boss of the zone in question before moving on. Thankfully from the beginning, your slime isn’t as helpless as it looks. With the ability to form a sword using its slime, it can do heavy and light attacks with combos aplenty.

Different weapons are unlocked as you progress from defeating the big zone bosses, with each one having positive and negative traits. The swords is fast and has moderate damage, whilst the spear deals less damage but has a much longer reach, with the hammer dealing huge damage but needs you to be close to connect. And because you can change on the fly, you can choose which weapon depending on the enemy you are facing is the best option.

Now whilst there is no parry system, there is a very good double dodge, which recharges once used. This combination of attacks and dodges will make up the majority of your arsenal, however, the biggest and best attacks will be from your Spells and Buffs. Spells are dropped by enemies, and then allocated to a slot, represented by a button, which means there is a limited number of buttons for you to use. They also need mana to use, which like the main currency of the game, are dropped by attacking and killing enemies.

The real game changer though is the ability to combine them with other abilities to completely change their attack or increase it somewhat. So for example, the Tornado spell on its own, creates one tornado doing some damage. Combine it with say a meteors spell and it produces multiple smaller tornadoes. Or if you combine a tornado skill with another tornado spell, it will double its size and strength. As long as you have found two of the same skill or another spell, you can combine anything to your hearts content. Its this combination of spells that makes the game fun to experiment with and explore further.

On top of that you can give all of your spells elemental and unique buffs. So that multiple tornados spell I mentioned earlier, well how about we buff it with fire, and now it makes into a whirling arena of fiery death. As you progress a vast network of different spells and buffs will be unlocked from decoys, ice, grappling hooks, speed boost, breath and familiars are all there to explore and experiment with.

Whilst you make your way through a vast selection of enemies, you will soon realise that in one very important aspect, this isn’t like dark souls. There is no healing flasks, instead you have heart bars that once gone, means you will respawn at the latest campfire to restart again. To combat that, there is a choice of ‘hats’ which you find, that will give your character a permanent skill or buff whilst wearing it. Some of these provide extra health, triple dodge, more damage, health, mana or even drop more shards etc.

Shards I hear you say, isn’t that like dark souls for levelling up? Yes, its exactly that and just like most dark souls, once you die, you do get the chance to recapture those lost shards if you don’t die before you reclaim them. Whilst the campfires provide the perfect place to upgrade, your spells damage, mana, and weapon damage and dodge speed, the only way to increase your characters health, is by completing Dungeons placed around the zones.

They come in three types, boss fights, battle arenas and puzzle zones. Boss fights is replaying the zones boss fight when ever you want, whilst battle arenas is defeating waves of enemies. Puzzle zones expect you to get to the end of a maze solving problems often needing specific spells to complete. Completing these provides you with Tombs that you pass onto a NPC which after a set number, will in turn provide you with another heart to survive longer with.

The combat I found to be very smooth with you darting in and out to ensure you get the best hits. Enemy pattern recognition is also well needed as each enemy has a variety of specific attacks that you will need to watch out for. This combined with the spells, ensures that no matter your progression, you need to see what’s around each corner is often greater than the foe you face. Now whilst there is co-op I didn’t have the ability to test it, but from what I hear that can be a little rough at the moment due to connection issues which I have heard the development team is looking into.

Graphics

Visually this game looks vibrant, bright and colourful, which is quite different from most Soul-like. The overall map is a pretty decent with a variety of biomes, that opens up with each successful boss attempt. But just like all Souls-like, its interwoven with paths that allow easy access back to different areas depending on your progression. They are also a plenty areas hidden needing specific spells or weapons in order to uncover the secrets hidden among the various biomes.

Speaking of which the biomes vary from dense jungles, dark caves, cold mountains and red hot lava rivers to name a few. Exploring these areas are not fun, but key in gaining a bigger selection of spells to combine and experiment with. For example, the tornado spell is only dropped by one specific enemy type and killing this bad boy often is needed to ensure the best combination possible. Enemy variation is also tied to the particular biome you inhabit, which ensures a nice variety from flying types, ground burrowing types to heavy brutes. I never felt bored exploring the biomes, and this was hugely due to the diverse enemy variation on offer.

Boss types are also enjoyable monstrosities that push you to understand their pattern recognition like the smaller types, but with more emphasise on correctly using spells to your advantage. A good combination of spells can be devasting to the boss types, but which one is all about you experimenting with.

The games UI is also clear and bright, that again helps the player understand what everything is and what they need to do and when, which is perfect when you are tailoring your slime to your specific style. The game also promotes a nice amount of customization when it come to character development, which I was surprised with when I first started the game up.

The camera view is set in an isometric location allowing you to see the a good amount of the map at any one go, however, this is still limited and will often hide enemies just out of view who can attack you at a moments notice. This means rushing through the map isn’t as ideal as it may appear, so slowly and careful exploration is key in surviving the longest.

Overall framerate and stability was superb in all of my gameplay, and even with various effects happening at once, I didn’t see any tearing or pop ins.

Sound

When it comes to music in this game, the game embraces the cutesy style with upbeat scores based in flutes and chimes alongside drums to give it a more rural feel. It really does give the game a boost that regardless of enemy type provides you with epic battle scores ensuring you are always pushed to move forward. With regards to voice acting the game protagonist is a collection of cute blurb sounds, whilst the guardians and npcs themselves are fully voiced. The actors provide a great connection with their characters and do give the game a much more prominent feel about it as you explore and engage.

The games sound effects, showcase depth, with each weapon type and spells oozing a fun but in-depth collection of sounds. Battles combined with the music become a sonnet of light flighty music with hard hitting attacks that make you smile as you boink enemies left and right. In terms of environmental sounds, the is some but its clear the developers wanted the music scores to really sell the games intent which I think was the right move.

My recommendation here would be a good quality soundbar to really enjoy the vibrant scores against the hard hitting attacks.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Slime Heroes is a ‘’Great Purchase’’.

This vibrant cutesy game oozes fun and enjoyment, and whilst older souls player may scoff at this, it is a perfect title to get many a younger audience into the genre. But don’t let the graphical style fool you, with the options to ramp up the damage, this can be as brutal as you want it to be and worth a go for even the hardened souls player.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £24.99 or approx. $30 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 15+ hours worth of gameplay to understand the games mechanics and explore the biomes thoroughly. There is multiplayer so you can add on as many hours as you want there, but I suspect this would make the game quicker rather than slower in terms of progression.

It really is a great game to recommend and for those entering the genre, or want to experience it with the options to scale it up how they choose, this is the perfect game for them. Because of the difficulty scaling this also ensures the more battle hardened soul players too can enjoy this vibrant take of the genre, and I think its defiantly something most should try!

Slime Heroes Review on Xbox