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More_Badass · Jan 17, 2015

Hero Emblems is a JRPG that mixes Side-scrolling beat' em up and Match-3 features. Set in the middle-ages fantasy world of sword-fighting and wizardry, it is an adventure of 4 brave warriors who wield different emblem powers and their attempts to stop the re-awakening of the God of Evil.

Unique Turn-Based Beat' em Up Experience
Launch combo attacks, defense, healing and skills by matching lets you experience the beat' em up action

A Variety Of Monsters' Attributes & Attack Debuffs
Different Monsters have their own strengths/weakness. Some can attack with debuffs, such as poisoning, sealing, freezing, petrifying. You have to determine the strategy to attack the weakness of monsters with specific skills and remove the debuffs by matching.

Big Adventure World & Story-Driven Quests
Bravely traverse into dungeons, wilderness, caves, and cross the ocean to visit the new continents in the fantasy world. In the journey, you will meet different NPCs, and visit a variety of villages to purchase the new equipments and skills. Seamless transitions between the battle scene and cutscene let you deeply immerse in the story.

Reviews
Toucharcade

Offering an enjoyable experience in most of its aspects, Hero Emblems is proof that theres still room in the market for a great match-3 adventure. The games RPG elements work well with its well-implemented match-3 gameplay while the games visual and aural flourishes differentiate it from the pack.

Pocket Tactics

The twee aesthetic is going to be a deal-breaker for some, but behind it lies a surprising degree of craftsmanship that makes this a strong example of its genre, a lengthy and consistently joyous experience where the gameplays polish makes up for the games weaker elements.

AppAdvice

Hero Emblems is an addictive match-three RPG that is harder than it looks. If you are a fan of these types of games, but want something where it feels like youre making progress, and forces you to think ahead, then you have to check out Hero Emblems

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GAF Impressions

Hero Emblems really is a superb game (game being the main word here, rather than a match-3 puzzler). My weekend was taken up entirely by it with more than 10 hours being played.

Really loving this game. You really can't treat the game like it's just a puzzle game. The RPG elements really set this one apart. It looks and feels like a true JRPG and it definitely is not afraid to kick your butt.

I can agree...that the story is nothing special. But the gameplay alone makes it an amazing game to me at least...This game takes skill and planning to win. It isn't the typical match 3 RPG like Puzzles & Dragons and the billion other games that try the combine the genres. It is very hard but...fair in that it can be beat if you put your mind to it. And,yeah, it feels great when you finally win a boss battle that's been driving you nuts.

And as cliched as the story and characters are, the animations and amount of polish also are fantastic.

It's the gameplay and strategy, however, that put this on the top of the heap for puzzle RPGs IMO.

It is an awesome game but beware, it's not casual at all.

It's a RPG first and foremost and the 'way to the boss' (you have always 5-10 encounters before the boss) is critical and must be played with great attention to build 5-match Emblems, or you will die (and start over with the initial loot).

The only casual thing in the game are the random encounters, which are pretty easy after a bit.
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Super cool.
Best match 3 game since the original Puzzle Quest.

OMG! Hero Emblems is sooooooooooooo good! Such a great rpg/puzzle/brawler-mix!

More_Badass · Jan 17, 2015

To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Match-3 games. The vast majority I've played, I found shallow and repetitive and much too reliant on luck and random chance. Even the lauded 100000 didn't do anything for me. But Hero Emblems is the real deal.

It's an RPG first, an RPG with a Match-3 battle system, rather than a Match-3 game with some light RPG aspects. It's the kind of game that follows the Dark Souls school of design. It doesn't hold your hand. If you enter an area and get destroyed in a single move, then you probably aren't ready for those enemies yet. There's grinding here, but it's a balanced grind, a wall designed around challenge and difficulty rather than pushing you to buy in-app purchases.

What makes Hero Emblems so good? Well, the visuals are charming and colorful, the world quite large, with hours of content. The animations are great, each battle a spectacle of attacks and skill effects and match chains. But it's the RPG core of the game and the challenging combat that stands out the most. Hero Emblems provides you with a multitude of attributes and equipment to alter and equip, from various and vastly different skills and emblem attacks to new weapons and armor to potions and buffs. Enemies are just as varied, able to throw a wrench into your plans with any number of debuffs: poisoning your heroes, locking down tiles or even entire columns, and much more.

The match-3 combat is challenging and strategic. Due to the amount of skills you can equip, enemy debuffs you have to deal with, as well as enemy weaknesses to find and utilize, the repetitive nature that tend to plague the genre is not a factor here. Combat is all about positioning and smart choices. Matching longer chains provide you with powerful buffed tiles and access to your special skills as well as tide-turning abilities, so simply making random matches will get you nowhere. Should you save your strongest emblems for later or replenish your health and defense points now or unleash a powerful attack? Can you do all that before your enemies attack? While needing to also neutralize health-sapping debuffs? Every move counts, and it's common to finally beat a boss only a hair's breath from defeat.

SiDCrAzY · Jan 17, 2015

I need to play this more, I barely got past the tutorial. It seemed fun though. I just have so many other games on my iPad >_<

BetterWorldz · Jan 17, 2015

That looks amazing! Would buy it instantly on Android.

Flunkie · Jan 17, 2015

Pretty early on, I tried to go in the first cave and got my ass handed to me. I love that it's a premium app with no IAPs and an RPG first. This deserves to outearn all those bullshit mindless cash cow worthless time waster games on the top grossing list.

Edit: and despite the game having pretty rough translation, it's still pretty damn funny.

DiscoJer · Jan 17, 2015

Isn't Gems of War the actual successor to Puzzle Quest? It's from the same maker anyway., though they unfortunately turned it into a F2P Skinner Box fest

More_Badass · Jan 17, 2015

DiscoJer said:
Isn't Gems of War the actual successor to Puzzle Quest? It's from the same maker anyway., though they unfortunately turned it into a F2P Skinner Box fest

Yeah, I mean successor in the sense that it lives up to the promise and style of that game, probably better than Gems of War since this is premium not F2P. Not that it's from the same devs. Sorry for any confusion

Aaron-Lagann · Jan 17, 2015

Um, I think we can all agree that HuniePop is the true successor! No greater quest than the one for dat ass.

Dingotech · Jan 17, 2015

Thanks for the topic, I bought the game and it seems quite fun so far.

Clunker · Jan 17, 2015

This game is legit! I got bored with Gems of War due to how the difficulty was either "insanely easy" or "need to grind more for better characters" but Hero Emblem straddles that by being honestly challenging while also giving you the chance to grind a bit to make life easier.

The dungeons and bosses in particular require serious forethought in planning out when to use special and super gems; I've put maybe 2 hours into the game so far, and even now if I'm not careful and I show up at a tough set of enemies with no armor I can be wiped in literally two hits. You need to balance your armor/life with attacks, focus on elemental weaknesses, and stay geared up as much as possible (the first new emblems I saved up for doubled the characters' attack power).

One tip that I only found out by accident: you can go back into cleared dungeons and run them again for extra gold. If you try to grind by the shitty overworld enemies it will take hours to save up enough money for new emblems and special skills.

infiniteloop · Jan 17, 2015

Picked this up, haven't played it yet. Does it have iCloud saves?

Tizoc · Jan 17, 2015

dOES THIs have IAP? Not that it's a major turn off for me but I would like to know.

Community Forum · Jan 17, 2015

Tizoc said:
dOES THIs have IAP? Not that it's a major turn off for me but I would like to know.

None.

The game is so good it makes me want to delete every other game off my phone.

Hawaii Jeff · Jan 17, 2015

Love this game! The story is cute and the parallax during fight movement is a nice added touch.

It's grindy, sure, but it's still addicting and I've played 6 hours and realized I haven't left the first island yet...

awp69 · Jan 17, 2015

More_Baddass was spot on with his description.

Honestly, while Puzzle Quest was great, did awesome integrating the story and was the groundbreaking game in this genre, I think Hero Emblems is better. The amount of strategy involved, especially planning moves just go get better moves and learning to adapt by saving special attacks for the bosses, is staggering compared to any other RPG match 3.

Yes, it's difficult. I typically like a match 3 just for a casual break from more serious games. But this I is a hardcore experience. No question about it.

The more casual folks playing Puzzles & Dragons may be put off by this. But it's just an amazing game. You know how good it is when grinding or replaying bosses doesn't feel like a chore, it's a blast. And finally nailing that perfect setup to take down a boss that seemed unbeatable is ultimately satisfying.

I'm nine hours in and not done with the first continent (so definately less than 1/3 of the game). And with little time to game, that is probably the most I've spent on one iOS game in that short a period of time.

More_Badass · Jan 17, 2015

What I like most about the match-3 set-up here is that every tile and move has a purpose. There's no high score to worry about, no time limits. Every move you make, it's always with a goal in mind: attack, defend, heal, move tiles around to set up bigger chains in the future to allow for more potent means to attack, defend, and heal. The gameplay is focused and lean, and really emphasizes that it's an RPG rather than a simpler puzzle game.

awp69 · Jan 17, 2015

Finally made it to the second continent. Wonder whether I will regret only buying one of the 2000 coin emblems on the first continent. Guess I could always go back if they don't sell them here.

Oh it felt so good to kill the boss in the final tower (the witch at the graveyard afterwards was a cake walk). So it basically took me ten hours to beat the first third of the game and I'm expecting it to take longer with even more challenging times ahead.

Quickly becoming not only one of my favorite match-3 RPGs, but one of the best RPGs period (at least among the non-ported games on iOS).

flowsnake · Jan 17, 2015

Jesus the spider poison status or whatever can be horrible.

Tizoc · Jan 17, 2015

Will get this game by the end of the month, Yeah it's just $3 but I kinda have my odd reasons =X

Syril · Jan 17, 2015

Is there something I'm missing about making extra money in this? I got a skill I wanted for Trista, but it turned out that I needed Elsa's ice magic skill to hit a boss' weakness, and I'm barely finding any gold after anything I do.

Pinko Marx · Jan 17, 2015

Android version when?

awp69 · Jan 17, 2015

Syril said:
Is there something I'm missing about making extra money in this? I got a skill I wanted for Trista, but it turned out that I needed Elsa's ice magic skill to hit a boss' weakness, and I'm barely finding any gold after anything I do.

Money is scarce, but even as a challenging of a game that it is, bosses can be beat with effort to conserve special attacks, potions and ensuring you are constantly getting health and shield matches in between your attacks. Some bosses and treasure chests also give you skills upon success. Gold, in my experience, should be used just for new emblems and some potions.

The most gold comes from the main quests not the random encounters. You can replay them without hitting the bosses again and get a decent amount of coins.

I beat every single boss on the first continent with just the 300 gold emblems. Didn't buy my first 2000 gold emblem until after I finished the last boss on that continent

Voidance · Jan 17, 2015

Is there iCloud support?

More_Badass · Jan 17, 2015

Some tips from another forum

- Prioritize purchasing emblems over new skills
- Use items
- Save a 5 match emblem for the boss fight and use it with a shield to make life easier
- Don't kill enemies until you have to, spend time recovering when a low hp enemy has a few turns left before it will attack
- You can go back to dungeons to pick up the blue chest drops, they are unique and usually have skills or emblems

The game is tough, this is more in line with classic JRPGs than recent mobile games that fall over at the slightest push from the player (or a purchase of moonbux). It punishes you for failing, but the grind isn't excessive if you learn how to manage your tiles and line up 4/5/L/T matches.

Also note that in 3+ matches the attack is defined by the highest emblem involved. If you match 5 emblems in which one is a buffed one then you will get 3 skill attacks. The bosses also have unique weakness and attacks, learn those. Some are elemental immune, or guard physical attacks.

- In certain dungeons that leads to a boss, you will have to choice path A or B. One contains always a chest, with items and sometimes even emblems drops. The other one always have the dwarf (a Golden Axe easter egg) that you can kick for money. Keep that in mind that if you really need to grind. Later on you will have a steal skill that let you acquire even Emblems from enemies.
- If you have to choose, get first the paladin Emblem, save 5-matches for the boss, and use them to cast the protective shield.
Only when protected, think about doing damage
- Be sure to upgrade the cleric too, which is fundamental to avoid debuffs and all the nasty things enemies do to the board.

Also saw that someone mentioned that his playthrough length was 30 hours. Now that's impressive for a mobile game

Aizo · Jan 18, 2015

PM me when it comes out on Android. I loved Puzzle Quest.

Ezalc · Jan 18, 2015

This looks amazing, I finished playing Hitman Go and was looking for a new puzzle/strategy game or something to play. Unfortunately I don't have an iphone, so I'll just hope that this makes the jump or something later.

epmode · Jan 18, 2015

Bought. Aside from the crazy translation, my only complaint so far is that it doesn't even run at 60 FPS on an iPad Air 2.

Froli · Jan 18, 2015

This looks amazing.

More_Badass · Jan 18, 2015

Finally beat the Red Demon boss. Switched my offensive heroes to fire attacks, used Trista's tile upgrade skill, and used the 5-match Emblems purely for Alston's protective barrier skill. That let me stay protected and unleash long strings of fiery hits from Howard and Elsa.

Zeth · Jan 18, 2015

I've been playing non stop this week. Great little gem of a game. Well worh the price.

awp69 · Jan 18, 2015

epmode said:
Bought. Aside from the crazy translation, my only complaint so far is that it doesn't even run at 60 FPS on an iPad Air 2.

Hmmm..I guess for me it might be hard to tell the true frame rate of this kind of game to the point of being noticible. But I haven't had any complaints on how it runs on my mini 2.

Usobuko · Jan 18, 2015

I guess I will give this a go.

awp69 · Jan 18, 2015

More_Badass said:
Finally beat the Red Demon boss. Switched my offensive heroes to fire attacks, used Trista's tile upgrade skill, and used the 5-match Emblems purely for Alston's protective barrier skill. That let me stay protected and unleash long strings of fiery hits from Howard and Elsa.

That protective barrier skill is really a life saver and has come in handy in many boss battles for me so far. Still need to be able to focus on each boss' weakness but definately buys some time to get in unanswered attacks.

Now that I'm on the second continent, I've noticed how even random encounters are no longer a guaranteed victory. Some rough enemies there. Where I used to not have to worry about using special attacks during those confrontations -- now I do.

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Was looking at the devs website and was blown away that it's just a two man team. Totally amazing work. With the exception of the relatively minor translation issues, this could have easily been released by a major dev. They deserve well more than the asking price for the game and hope it sells well. Only see 40 reviews on the US App Store -- sadly a few of them negative for being "too hard" or "unbalanced". Today's gamers are spoiled with watered down gaming and don't know what older games really were like in terms of difficulty.

ArtHands · Jan 18, 2015

I am 8 hours into the game, and is on the second island. It's really fun

More_Badass · Jan 18, 2015

awp69 said:
That protective barrier skill is really a life saver and has come in handy in many boss battles for me so far. Still need to be able to focus on each boss' weakness but definately buys some time to get in unanswered attacks.

Now that I'm on the second continent, I've noticed how even random encounters are no longer a guaranteed victory. Some rough enemies there. Where I used to not have to worry about using special attacks during those confrontations -- now I do.

----------

Was looking at the devs website and was blown away that it's just a two man team. Totally amazing work. With the exception of the relatively minor translation issues, this could have easily been released by a major dev. They deserve well more than the asking price for the game and hope it sells well. Only see 40 reviews on the US App Store -- sadly a few of them negative for being "too hard" or "unbalanced". Today's gamers are spoiled with watered down gaming and don't know what older games really were like in terms of difficulty.

Not even an Editor's Choice! Shadowmatic is a great game too, but Hero Emblems really should have been given a spotlight as well

GWX · Jan 18, 2015

Having a hard time in the Dark Woods. Awesome game, though! Really fun and easy to pick up and play.

ProgramFighter · Jan 18, 2015

Great game. My wife and I split time with it, though she's been hogging it. One of the few games that's really caught on with her. Everyone should give it a try.

infiniteloop · Jan 18, 2015

how the hell do you save in this game? a couple of times i've started playing, i come back to it later and it's back at the title screen with 3 'New Game's listed.

Don't want to start it again and have to suffer through the awful localization.

jackal27 · Jan 18, 2015

Really been enjoying this game for about a week or so! The dialogue is nice and so are the visuals!

Also make you are you check out Block Legend if you're into this!

awp69 · Jan 18, 2015

infiniteloop said:
how the hell do you save in this game? a couple of times i've started playing, i come back to it later and it's back at the title screen with 3 'New Game's listed.

Don't want to start it again and have to suffer through the awful localization.

Strange, it always saves automatically for me. Not exactly sure of the frequency but at least after every battle.

Got the Shakes · Jan 19, 2015

I assume I know the answer to this since it's not in the game description in the App Store, but is there any iCloud save support? I'd love to be able to play on iPad at home and then have the chance to sneak in a few battles while on on the go on my iPhone 6 Plus.

infiniteloop · Jan 19, 2015

Got the Shakes said:
I assume I know the answer to this since it's not in the game description in the App Store, but is there any iCloud save support? I'd love to be able to play on iPad at home and then have the chance to sneak in a few battles while on on the go on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Yeah, me too but I don't see any thing in the options.

okno · Jan 19, 2015

8 hours (on the clock, but it's probably closer to 10 hours IRL) and just about to set sail for the third continent! Really fantastic game, although the beginning's difficulty curve doesn't match the second continent. I sailed through the second continent and hardly ever died. However! The game is still tricky. You really need to make every move count and think through how make as many 5-match combos. Not just s-skill combos, but also L and T matches.

Also, always go back to old areas and find all of the treasure. You'll gain a ton of skills and also gain a ton of gold. Found a chest with 5,000 gold in it on the second continent, cha-Ching!

Mike M · Jan 19, 2015

Jesus, this game does not fuck around. All these emblem freeze debuffs are pushing my shit in, I just can't clear them fast enough to not get wrecked, even with the Purify skill on my healer. I know there's the item that removes 4 debuffs, but with only four item slots and constantly trying to keep my head above water on HP and DP, I don't want to sacrifice potions...

More_Badass · Jan 19, 2015

Mike M said:
Jesus, this game does not fuck around. All these emblem freeze debuffs are pushing my shit in, I just can't clear them fast enough to not get wrecked, even with the Purify skill on my healer. I know there's the item that removes 4 debuffs, but with only four item slots and constantly trying to keep my head above water on HP and DP, I don't want to sacrifice potions...

Alston's barrier skill is your best friend. Gives you a few turns to focus on other things besides keeping your HP & DP up. Save the 5-Emblems for that, and then you can clear debuffs with impunity for a several turns

Mike M · Jan 19, 2015

Yeah, I learned the utility of that right quick. The trouble is getting 5-emblem setups when mobs keep chaining up my emblems!

Muskieratboi · Jan 19, 2015

Damn, but if I can't see the plot twist coming from a freaking MILE away. but otherwise, it's pretty good, if a tad on the grindy side. well worth the price.

OccamsBlender · Jan 19, 2015

More_Badass said:
To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Match-3 games. The vast majority I've played, I found shallow and repetitive and much too reliant on luck and random chance. Even the lauded 100000 didn't do anything for me. But Hero Emblems is the real deal.

QTF and wow. You just sold me on this game. I normally like Match 3 games but the genre has gotten beyond stale for me.

I'd kill for the Hero Emblems team to take a stab at the Puzzle and Dragon style drag-thing-around mechanic. A premium PnD style game that didn't resort to the usual difficulty spike bullshit, awwwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

okno · Jan 19, 2015

Okay, wow, the beginning of the third continent is a BITCH. Holy crap. But in such a good way. My boyfriend hates me so much right now, because I wont (can't) stop playing this.

gingerbeardman · Jan 19, 2015

The feedback this game is getting makes me wish I liked RPG and Match 3 games...

Almost!

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Hero Emblems |OT| A True Match-3 RPG Successor to Puzzle Quest (IOS)

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