Yes that's pretty much it. There are multiple paths. Some lead to extra loot or new areas (like a secret boss). There's usually one main path for your quest and the others are just extra. Luckily where you traversed is saved so you can always look at the map to see where you've explored. ---- I'm almost 5 hours in and this is definitely harder than HE1 for sure. You can especially tell since they've added a party swap mechanic and a revival mechanic. In HE1 you need to try to make it through a dungeon without losing anyone because it's so tough but here you're going to have members die constantly. Luckily there's lots of customization to help find different strategies. I see some people asked for a skip button and I think that's reasonable. However nearly 5 hours in and I've never needed a skip button. I haven't rewatched a single cutscene so I guess I'm not sure what to think of that. And forget GOTW, this is Game of the Year I can't think of anything else that could top this.
Reading this, I think you just oversimplified the battles. DP is defense points and basically damage reduction. The reason the shielder dies first his because he's protecting your allies from dying. That's what a tank is for. If he doesn't tank damage, your squishy units are going to die much faster. DP is incredibly important because without it you're taking massive damage. The shielder is the most important unit imo after playing HE1 and HE2. I always bought the best items for them first, no question. If he doesn't die first, he's not doing his job since he's supposed to be taking the majority of the damage for your team so the others can survive. You said there's no observable impact but I notice it pretty well. Once the tank is gone or the DP is gone, your units start taking huge damage. Card skills are just as important. They dictate what ability will occur when you match 4 or more tiles together (and receive a glowing tile with the special card ability). The first card slot is for a match 4 skill, and the second card slot is for anything higher. The second effect is much stronger but won't occur as often since you need better tile matches. I agree there should've been more of a tutorial for those but I'm sure some people would complain that they just want to play the game. As for "grind a bit and come back again", that sounds like every RPG ever. Also not sure if you're aware but equipment is really important. Since this game does have a fair bit of difficulty I recommend grinding for money then shopping for stronger equipment.
Interesting, I‘m also 4-5 hours in, and I find it quite a lot easier, since you can swap heroes. The single life bar of the first was harder to maintain for me. Not being able to skip cutscenes was already a bit annoying in the first one, they kept this and the slow map movement. You have to get into some kind of slow mood to play this gem
I agree. Protect the tank (Big Dog) and on the bosses use the 5 tile matches on it. I put it at the front. 7 hrs in now in 2 days.
Late to the show but been playing since this morning and loving it. I heartily endorse this product! GotY material for sure.
You guys can’t even enjoy cutscenes or wait for the map movement? It’s not like it takes 5 minutes to move from one end of a map to the other end. Or, maybe people are brainwashed with corporate propaganda? Growth! Efficiency! Profit! Optimization! Productivity!
Yep! That's my strategy, weasel in front and always use their ult. And I guess you're also like me.. in both HE1 and HE2, when I get the 5 match emblem, I ALWAYS use it on the shield skill. Blocking most damage for x amount of turns is the most useful ability. (Though in HE1 I got annoyed at having to keep using my ult skill on steal to get rare items. I hope they removed that from HE2...)
I believe they have been referring to unskippable cutscenes in case you die and have to replay the area. Which means you HAVE TO watch the same cutscene over and over. For me it's a design flaw. I'm fine watching a cutscene for the first time (even without having an option to skip it), but I should be either be able to skip it every next attempt or the cutscene shouldn't be replayed at all.
Well, just give it time. It's gonna happen eventually. To some of us it just happened sooner. I've never been a fan of "one difficulty" in games because it's incredibly hard to balance it out properly for the masses. But this is not the place for such discussion. So far I'm really enjoying Hero Emblems II despite the fact I've died a few times already. But I expected it and I'm fine with that going forward. That's the reason I understand the QoL improvement request in form of skippable cutscenes.
I most definitivly gonna give this a go once its on sale, in the mean time a couple of questions; I had a lot of fun with the first game, but it felt like it got to a point where the difficulty ramped up like crazy and I just couldnt get any further. Im pretty sure it was somewhere after you got the boat and travelled to the northwest island.. it just felt cheap at that point. I got super frustrated and uninstalled the game at that point. Im sure I was pretty far in the game. Anyway, Im afraid that the arrangement in this sequel will be exactly the same as in the first. Any comments about that? If it wouldnt be for that single concern I would have picked this one up already.
Doing ok, but just hit a small wall with the Spark Boss - I think I missed it, but didn’t see weakness and takes ages to get up to him to try! EDIT can’t figure out spoiler tags on mobile, so taken weakness guess out for now
There was no such thing as sudden increase in difficulty. It was increasing constantly at regular pace. If you experienced something similar to what you're referring to, you probably forgot to pick up a hero emblem along the way. It's too soon to tell. The game's out for 2 days officially. But I highly doubt there's anything like that implemented in the gameplay "on purpose". This is fully premium game so there's no need to apply some F2P mechanics just to force you to spend money on some unnecessary upgrades and whatnot.
Just hit that plus button with desired text selected and choose spoiler or simply put word SPOILER into tags manually, like> [ SPOILER ] without the spaces.
Thanks… follow up question… What do you mean you can see the map? When I’m in the middle of deciding to go right, left etc… I only see arrows. I get it is random but do we get to see a map of where we are headed during this part of the game? Sorry if I am missing something… I had the same issues in the original as I wasn’t sure where I should be going and just randomly selected up, down, left etc… thanks again, I have always followed your comments as you are a veteran gamer!
no plus button on mobile… AH! I was using < > brackets! Thanks ok - for the Spark Boss, Spoiler I’m guessing Earth/Rock is the weakness? - thought I’d tried that but didn’t see it land… any tips?
For the ‘map’, tap on the mini-map (line) at the very top of the screen. It’s a small area to tap (hit box is small) so you may need to tap around a bit. It should open a larger version where you can see potential paths that those arrows take you, and more will be revealed as you explore of course
If you tap on progress line at the top of the screen, you get an expanded map view that shows the branching paths and where you’ve explored. There’s actually a tutorial message that explains that, but it’s easy to miss.
I’m pretty sure I got all the emblems and all the items up to that point. I am usually one of those players that can grind an absurd amount of time just to get everything in a game I like. I dunno. Maybe I missed some of the games match mechanic or missed some important rule or whatnot..
