I enjoy this current trend of games that are easy to pick up and play, but also present a challenge. And really, Swap Heroes hits a lot of my buttons. It’s built for short sessions, winds up being challenging and highly replayable, and oh, it has pixel art. It’s perfect for quick sessions, but delivers a challenge that demands practice to get better at it, though randomness does wind up hurting the experience a bit.
The game is simple enough to pick up on and start out playing: it’s turn-based, with heroes and enemies attacking on each turn, and enemies advancing forward based on their characteristics. Players must swap any two of their four heroes each turn, swapping from the back to front row to use that character’s special ability. The game gets to be challenging even at levels 3 and 4, with levels 5 and 6 ruining players who don’t play smartly. Swap Heroes is a strategic game, and each move has to be considered for its effects in relation to where the enemies are and where the heroes are. Making the right move is key. Because one character’s death means game over, it makes this a surprisingly brutal experience despite being very casual and pick-up-and-play friendly!
The heroes wind up being balanced pretty well to where each hero has their advantages and drawbacks, and play into certain strategies. For example, there are two different heroes with healing abilities, a couple focused on long-range attacks, and a few short-range bruisers. Essentially, it’s worth playing around with all of them to figure out which ones are viable for the strategy of choice, as only 4 of the 8 characters can be brought into battle. Each of the special abilities has its benefits and drawbacks, but the ones that involve randomness are ones I prefer to avoid, like the wizard’s meteor, which seems to always hit an enemy one of my other characters has just killed. I wish the main menu had a way of showing the stats for each character, just as a refresher.
I take issue with the mid-game upgrade system here. After each level (each world has 2 levels), there are four randomly-chosen upgrades to choose from. This means that if you wish to upgrade a specific statistic, you need to hope that it pops up when you need it – and then that you have the cash for it. I’d prefer having the ability to choose specifically from what I wanted to upgrade, to make this game much more about skill. The game just gets to a point where any one slip-up could be game over, so I’d like to be able to go in with my most ideal build.
Swap Heroes boasts no IAP, though it clearly wasn’t built for it as there are only the 4 unlockable characters and they’re all pretty trivial to unlock after a few rounds, and there’s no way to boost the coins earned mid-game. Swap Heroes is limited in scope, but that’s perfectly fine for a game that’s only $0.99 at launch and not boasting any IAP.
And really, that’s the way to look at it: this is a fun bite-size experience that actually delivers a lot of wallop in giving its players a mighty challenge to conquer. It’s easy to get your money’s worth out of this one, and it’s perfect to just pick up and play whenever.
