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For Games Ranked 8–5
8.
Zero: Secret Pasts Collide
by
Buni
Release Type:
Re-release
Fuzzy Description:
Mages are the targets of homicidal prejudice in the town where our mage heroine grows up. Even though she’s willing to take her chances among the paranoid, her friends convince her it’s safer to vacate the town before its steward discovers her magic secret and makes her pay. Thus, her journey through a Final Fantasy-familiar landscape begins.
Average Score:
Total Voters:
Highest Rating:
7
Lowest Rating:
2
Achievements
Achievement
Final Fantasy Award
-Zero: Secret Pasts Collide uses Final Fantasy graphics to tell its tale.
Achievement
Epic Introduction
-Every game’s introduction should orient the player to its world for better context of the conflict ahead. Zero: Secret Pasts Collide wants the player really well-oriented.
Achievement
Epic In-production
-Zero: Secret Pasts Collide is credited to have a 13-year development cycle between its last release and its current one.
Achievement
Most Dramatic
-Zero: Secret Pasts Collide tells a more serious story than the typical globetrotting RPG, or at least more serious than the ones in this year’s Heart of the OHR.
Audience Consensus:
Ripped graphics, bad portraits, and a long-winded introduction where everything is thrown at the player makes the game difficult to dive into, but character and town development help save the game for the long haul. Pacing takes some getting used to. Nothing that more love can’t fix.
7.
The Pumpkin Warriors
by
Froginator
Release Type:
Original Release
Fuzzy Description:
Your frog goes missing, and you set out on a grand adventure to find it. Soon, you find yourself traveling a countryside full of pumpkin warriors and Blobster creatures, many of who refuse to speak, in order to fulfill your destiny, whatever that may be.
Average Score:
Total Voters:
Highest Rating:
6
Lowest Rating:
2
Achievements
Achievement
More than Meets the Eye
-The Pumpkin Warriors has a few surprises under its belt that aren’t readily apparent, but a little bit of exploration might uncover.
Achievement
Best non-Halloween Pumpkin Game
-The game is about “Pumpkin Warriors,” but it’s not scary, creepy, or horrific.
Achievement
Straight Six-shooter
-The first five votes (out of eight) for The Pumpkin Warriors were 6’s.
Achievement
Saturday Morning Special
-The Pumpkin Warriors is the game that best looks and feels like a Saturday morning cartoon.
Audience Consensus:
A great start for a new author. It’s fun, cartoonish, slightly ridiculous, and reminiscent of Earthbound (thanks to its soundtrack). Has plenty of rough edges thanks to incomplete areas, silent NPCs, and twitchy battles that come out of nowhere, but still promising. Even has secret areas!
6.
Troll Over
by
Spoonweaver
Release Type:
Original Release
Fuzzy Description:
A troll wants to be a villain, and he will wander around the mazelike forest recruiting the baddest folks he can find to help him retrieve enough passes to audition for a minion role in the evil Warlock that lives atop the hill’s army. He’ll defeat the innocent and desecrate shrines as he attempts to solve puzzles along the way. He’s a true villain’s hero. And remember, Atomisk is a nut.
Average Score:
Total Voters:
Highest Rating:
8
Lowest Rating:
1
Achievements
Achievement
Multiple Endings
-Troll Over has more than one way to end the game.
Achievement
Don’t Recruit Atomisk
-Troll Over goes to a number of unscrupulous places to define its quirkiness, but the disturbing weirdness behind the death cultist Atomisk’s recruitment takes the cake.
Achievement
Wait, That Guy Was Really a Hero?
-A Troll Over spoiler alert!
Achievement
Fun to Be Bad
-Part of the “appeal” of Troll Over is to see what ethical discrepancies the main character can get away with, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Achievement
Most Voted On
-With 12 unique voters, Troll Over has the most votes of the 2014 Heart of the OHR season.
Achievement
Multiple Endings
-Troll Over has more than one way to end the game.
Achievement
Wait, That Guy Was Really a Hero?
-A Troll Over spoiler alert!
Achievement
Fun to Be Bad
-Part of the “appeal” of Troll Over is to see what ethical discrepancies the main character can get away with, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Achievement
Don’t Recruit Atomisk
-Troll Over goes to a number of unscrupulous places to define its quirkiness, but the disturbing weirdness behind the death cultist Atomisk’s recruitment takes the cake.
Achievement
Most Voted On
-With 12 unique voters, Troll Over has the most votes of the 2014 Heart of the OHR season.
Audience Consensus:
Quirky and puzzling, the game has a few interesting design choices. Its cartoonish look also helps with its charm. Casting a villain as the hero is also a nice touch. Besides that, battles can be bland, and the maps themselves have little to offer. Pretty straightforward adventure with most of its gameplay happening automatically and its story happening at the end. Has multiple endings depending on your approach.
5.
Batman & Robin
by
RedMaverickZero
Release Type:
Re-release
Fuzzy Description:
In 2010, famed crime-fighters Batman and Robin foiled the Joker’s nefarious plot to use tainted fish against the city of Gotham. But how did the Joker and Harley Quinn get out of Arkham Asylum in the first place?
Average Score:
Total Voters:
Highest Rating:
9
Lowest Rating:
3
Achievements
Achievement
Fan Game Award
-Fan games on the OHR have a reputation for underperformance (read: sucking), but RMZ’s take on Batman & Robin is a cut above the usual expectations.
Achievement
Altered Add-on
-Batman & Robin comes with two games, the titular game, and the add-on, “Joker’s Breakout.” The add-on changes the gameplay formula to provide a different kind of experience from the base game.
Achievement
Villains Are Cool, Too
-Traditionally, games cast the hero as the main character, but the Batman & Robin expansion, “Joker’s Breakout,” casts the villain as the protagonist.
Achievement
Still Better than Schumacher
-In spite of its flaws, the OHR version of Batman & Robin is still more entertaining and sensible than the crapfest we got out of the 1997 movie of the same name.
Audience Consensus:
The base game is a lot of fun once it gets going, but “Joker’s Breakout,” the version officially submitted to Heart of the OHR 2014, has less a visual impact, none of the level selection that makes the base game better, lacks enough saves to correct bad moves, has difficult health restoration balance, and is all around too limiting to keep it from gaining the secure foothold that players have when playing the base game. Still more than competent as a game, but not as fun as the core Batman & Robin game.
