Almost A Hero is half an idle game, half a free RPG that combines mechanics from idlers with a surprising amount of depth; I wasn’t sure what I was getting into - since mobiles RPGs are pretty hit-or-miss for me, but this one was great! I probably would’ve stuck with it for way longer if I didn’t want to go down my list of iOS games to play. With a ton of things to unlock, a very generous currency progression and some interesting game mechanics that unlock themselves after a long while, Almost A Hero is real neat.
The game starts pretty simple, you only have one game mode - the main one - and no hero. You have rings that attack enemies manually and they all have different mechanics. The one you start with - the lighting ring - damages enemies and gives a powerful critical strike after you’ve used it a few times but others like the fire ring get overheated if you use it too much or the earth ring throws meteors after its fully charged but does nothing otherwise. You can find runes in chest to give them special abilities and customize them to match the way you play the game.
You fight a few monsters and gather gold until you can hire your first hero. There are a ton of heroes and they all have one ultimate skill, two active ones and eight passives, this gives the game a ton of depth and you can make teams that work well with each other. Some heroes are focused on dealing damage while others are better at taking it. You also have the oddball supports, and there are a ton to unlock, each of them with their equipment as well. The equipment is obtained randomly from chests, which can take time and be frustrating, or upgraded via a resource that you don’t have in infinite supply, so it’s a bit random if you can upgrade your favorite hero.
After getting to a level where you can’t defeat enemies - whether they kill you too fast or you can’t kill the bosses before a timer expires - you restart from the beginning with mythstones that you use to unlock and improve artefacts that give you a wide array of passive bonuses. You upgrade them and restart the process, picking different team of heroes and getting a bit farther ever time. You unlock new rings and heroes and eventually, new game modes. Like Time Challenges where you have to complete specific maps with a limited team and you gain resources, like premium currencies that you can use to buy chests full of rare goodies.
There are perhaps too many currencies in Almost A Hero, gems are the ‘hard’ currency bought with money, from there you can get ‘scraps’ to upgrade items, ‘tokens’ to use abilities like auto-tap or accelerating time, and a few more that get unlocked even further in. There seems to be things to unlock for a really long time - the list goes to stage 3650 - and in my time with the game, I didn’t even get to stage 1000. You really need to make a good team with enough survivability and damage, so it’s not just an idle game, there’s strategy involved, which I liked.
You unlock trinkets after a while, these can be equipped to your heroes and can have up to three abilities and you can upgrade them with scrap to boot. You unlock side quests, and a mine you can upgrade to get more scrap daily, there are events for big holidays, mythical artefacts that get stronger the more normal artefact levels you have and finally - at least, what I got during my time with the game - you get gate dungeons. These are pretty tough and you can activate random level/skill placement to make them go quicker, but they introduce a mechanic of charms that have specific trigger abilities and effects and help you surmount their challenges.
I really enjoyed Almost A Hero, it’s what an idle/mobile RPG should be, it was so generous with its free currency that I didn’t spend a dollar and had a good experience, but I would’ve gladly paid to play a slightly tweaked version of the whole thing. It’s got enough mechanics to keep you interested, the core gameplay requires enough strategy to not be dull and there are tons of things to unlock, a solid ‘yes’ from me!
