I was initially intrigued by Slime Heroes because it feels like recently—due in large part to games like Dragon Quest—the public perception of Slimes has definitely shifted. When once they were only seen as gelatinous cubes that would dissolve any adventurer foolish enough to cross paths with them, now they are adorable companions and sometimes even heroes.
Slime Heroes certainly had a solid premise behind it, and I was gearing up for a game that put the lovable blobs front and center. However, the game never really lives up to its potential in a lot of different ways and comes off as a fairly bog standard ARPG. It’s not really bad, but, like the Slime it’s based on, it could’ve been so much more.
Slime Heroes starts fairly simple. Players take on the role of a Slime, living in a quiet valley with their friend, who is an incredibly powerful dragon. However, things quickly take a turn when a terrible blight overruns their home, and it becomes filled with corrupted creatures. The dragon uses all of her power to transport the Slime to safety, only for it to discover the blight has spread across the land. The little Slime must free the Guardians, who are meant to protect the world but have also been corrupted by the bligh,t in order to restore peace to the land and maybe save their dragon friend.
It’s perfectly fine as far as plots go, but I can’t help but feel like it’s a little underdeveloped. So many games nowadays are concerned with some nebulous “blight” and lose the chance to have anything really interesting happening or to have any really memorable villains. Not only that—in something that will become a bit of a running theme in this review—the fact that the main character is a Slime is never utilized from an interesting narrative perspective. There are a few off-hand jokes about the fact that you are a Slime and how unlikely it is that one might save the world, but there were so many opportunities for interesting narrative perspectives that just go unused.
“Slime Heroes certainly had a solid premise behind it, and I was gearing up for a game that put the lovable blobs front and center.”
The gameplay doesn’t fare any better. It’s a fairly bog-standard Action RPG with some light Soulslike elements—specifically needing to open up save points that restore your health, allow you to level up and reset downed enemies. Slime Heroes also adopts a sort of open-world element with dungeons to explore that can grant abilities to the Slime or open new parts of the world for major quests.
However, the combat in Slime Heroes leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a pretty monotonous affair of slapping enemies with a pretty basic combo, with little room for strategy or nuance. Enemies simply rush towards you and attack—oftentimes not getting interrupted by your attacks—and it wasn’t long before I was mentally checked out, just repeating the same hit, hit dodge and blowing through every fight.
“My biggest issue with the Slime Heroes‘ gameplay, much like the story, is that the fact you’re a Slime never really comes into effect.”
Although Slime Heroes tries to mix up the combat with multiple weapons and magic abilities that can be gained from downed enemies, and don’t require any specific stats to equip. So there’s a little room for experimentation and creativity in this regard. However, the rest of the combat is so mindless that this doesn’t really change much.
My biggest issue with the Slime Heroes‘ gameplay, much like the story, is that the fact you’re a Slime never really comes into effect. It’s used as a kind of visual gag since weapons are replicated by the Slime, and your aerial ground smash has you turn into a fist or anvil, but that’s it. Being gelatinous is never factored into an exploration, there are no opportunities to slip through cracks or bars, and it’s not an aspect of puzzle-solving.
It doesn’t really factor into combat, either. You can’t absorb enemies and dissolve them into nothing or morph into different enemies, and all the abilities you get are just kind of generic magic attacks. There was so much potential in having your main character be a Slime that is just wasted. At the end of the day, it just ends up being another Kirby-esque cute character contrasted against a somewhat scary world and it’s a real shame.
Visually, Slime Heroes has a nice artistic aesthetic with a lot of colour and interesting areas, but it’s not overly special. Like I said, the Slime only takes on the form of a little blob; none of the monsters are particularly memorable, just kind of amorphous purple creatures. Some of the friendly NPCs are okay, but it’s all very plain. Audio doesn’t fare much better. There are a lot of breaking and weird audio glitches where certain attacks just don’t make sounds, and the music is good but not particularly memorable
Despite not really enjoying Slime Heroes, I will say it is a valiant first attempt by a new studio. Pancake Games wanted to swing big with an open-world Soulslike and that’s no easy task. I think younger or inexperienced gamers may end up enjoying its rudimentary combat and cute aesthetic,c but anyone looking for a challenge will probably be left wanting.
