ZHEROS

When it comes to videogames, you can never have too much polish. This is an underappreciated element of videogames, and let me tell you why: Most developers simply don't have the time. No matter the era, developers are constantly faced with impossible deadlines. Basically, not every "i" is going to be dotted, nor will every "t" will be crossed. However, if developers had the time to make even the slightest adjustments, they could turn a good game into something even better.
Since this is a review, you already understand where I'm going with this. Zheros is a nice beatemup. It has a solid foundation, some good ideas, and it can be pretty entertaining. However, this is a game that deserves a good polishing. The problems with Zheros could be measured in fractions and decimals. These issues are so slight, so miniscule, that people are liable not to notice them, but they'll still realize that something's wrong when they're playing the game. They'll say things like "What?" and "That doesn't make sense." or maybe just "Bullcrap!"
Jack and Dorian are a couple of Zheros out to stop Dr. Vendetta from doing evil things. Dr. Vendetta? I guess Captain I'mABadGuy and AdmiralBoneToPick weren't available. Anyway, the two playable characters team up to deliver fists of justice to a massive number of aliens and robots, over the course of 18 levels. Despite being a beatemup, this game is fairly long. Many of the levels can take more than 10 minutes to beat, some even as much as 30! In the time it takes to beat one level, you could probably play through the entirety of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or some other classic arcade brawler. Needless to say, it's greatly appreciated that progress is saved, after the completion of every level.
With the beatemup genre, we can expect at least some level of repetitiveness. Thankfully, Zheros does its best to keep things interesting with a large variety of enemies to battle. Jack and Dorian also have a wealth of combos they can perform. To add to this, the good guys can deflect both bullets and blows with a well-timed block. The brawling itself is serviceable, and it's fun just pounding baddies by the dozens. However, as you progress through the game, you're also liable to notice all of the little problems. At first they feel like nitpicks, but these complaints add up and start tearing away at the game. Allow me to share with you some of the issues that I've run into.
A lot of the enemies have melee attacks that are hard to read. The most common enemy is a small robot. Aside from firing their laser rifle, they also kick and swing their gun at the player. In the heat of the fight, it's never really clear what they're doing, and their range is so short you'll hardly be able to tell they're doing anything. Other, even smaller robots on wheels are harder to focus on. They rear back and do a lunging attack, but the lack of movement doesn't help them stand out. It's also annoying that the heroes drop everything, just to kick the bombs that these "dog-bots" drop. Kicked bombs don't suddenly explode and damage enemies, they're just moved to a different spot.
What you're more likely to notice is all of the damage you'll take while on your back. Certain larger enemies are capable of doing knock-down attacks. When they gang up on you, they can knock you to the ground, then continue hitting you. There's nothing you can do about this. It's a rare occurence, but if their attacks are timed at the right moment, they can deplete your health fairly quickly. While you can also knock the enemy down and continue hitting them, the larger foes can block your attacks at random. I've had my attacks completely deflected, even when the foe was lying down! Some other enemies will repeatedly dodge your moves, which is also annoying.
When enemies aren't randomly blocking your attacks, they can do a fantastic job at countering you. While the game would probably be too easy if your attacks had all of the priority, I'm of the camp that believes in "some is better than none". Your combos will get stuffed by enemy attacks at a constant rate. When foes group together, you'll find that it's extremely hard to get some moves in to spread everyone out. On the other hand, I think this aspect of the game adds a little depth. Beatemups are really enjoyable, when you have to work for those openings in the enemy's onslaught. Although, I also think that the heroes should yell "OUCH!" or "OOF!" when they take damage. Even when they're getting pummeled, Jack & Dorian don't utter the slightest grunt.
In level 1-8 "The Shelter", there is a section where you have to hit a button. This button causes a shutter to close, which keeps intense heat from sapping your health. However, this shutter re-opens in just a few seconds, which isn't enough time to get more than a couple punches on a huge cyborg bullman. This is one of those moments where two seconds, yes, two additional seconds of closed-shutter time, would have made that section far more manageable. Instead, you're going to be constantly distracted by the shutter, and trying to babysit it while also not being obliterated by one of the toughest enemies in the game.
Then there are the bosses. I didn't really enjoy fighting these clowns. Most of your attacks just don't do much damage. I had the most success with the Y, X, X, X, X, X, etc combo. Oddly enough, I had the least amount of trouble with the final boss, and that's because his attacks are the only ones that can be shut down by the block. The other two bosses require liberal use of the dodge button, and even that isn't guaranteed. On the brightside, there are plenty of health items, and the bosses don't do an excessive amount of damage.
What's telling about most of these complaints, is that all of them could be fixed via minor adjustments. Let's say that some attacks give the player 1 or 2 frames of invulnerability, or allow them a half-second to recover after being knocked down. The second boss would ever-so-slightly pause before their double axe-handle, allowing the player enough time (if they're paying attention) to get out of the way. The player should be allowed a distinct audible cue when their hero is getting hurt. These are all little things, the ones that are most likely to be overlooked, but they have a sizable impact on the game.
Despite my many complaints, Zheros is a perfectly serviceable way to spend a weekend or two. If you have a friend to play co-op with, then it's all the better. If you're flying solo and are prone to aggravation; consider sticking to the easy difficulty. This game's polish deficiency will cause you to repeat some headache-inducing sections, and there's no way to change difficulties, without restarting the entire game. That said, if you do decide to tough it out and play on normal or hard, you could eventually become accustomed to the wonkier aspects of this game. It might take longer than it should, but this game will "click" for you, if you allow it to.
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This is a very colorful game with awesome animations.
The effects are amazing, and because of this and the various fight combos you won't get bored.
The music keeps you energized and the characters look great. It's cool that you can also parry attacks, and all of it with nice graphics and colors.
It is nice to know that you are an intergalactic agent and you go into a mission to defend humanity.
If you like beat'em up games or generally games with action, then certainly you will like this game! I reccomend it!!!

ZHEROS is a side-scrolling brawler type game with a twist as it has a more 3D perspective to it.
Right off the bat as I watched the opening cut scenes it gave off a Saturday morning cartoon serial quality which I loved as I reminisced about all those shows I used to watch. The developers of ZHEROS have a great sense of humour as some of the cut scenes are hilarious and priceless. :)
You battle your way through the sci-fi setting using brute force or some occiasonal weapons. You want to to try and maximize your combo moves to boost your score. I really liked the way the controller layout in the settings illustrates with pictures exactly what each button will do for you so you can pick it up almost instantly and be an efficient brawler right away.
As you make your way through you can continue to develop your characters skills and improve their abilities. I have played with Mike only so far and I'm quite happy with his current skill set. You will also unlock some weapons and gear as you work your way through the levels.
While the combat is challenging I would have liked to see more from the computer AI as I find the bulk of your battles is just facing ever increasingly larger mobs of minions that come at you in waves and this can get to be a bit repetitive after awhile.
Visuals are very impressive and again I liken it to a saturday morning sci-fi cartoon which I love. Music and effects are upbeat and well suited for this type of game.
There is no online multiplayer but there is a local co-op which I'm sure this would make it even more fun but unfortunately I haven't had anyone here to play with yet but I will get my son to try it out with me when he comes home this weekend.
Overall I have enjoyed this game to date and it has served as a trip down memory lane for me as well. Even if beat'em up games are not your thing I encourage you to try this one as the story, humour and visuals might be enough to change your opinion of the genre.
Two thumbs up!!

DEEP DIVE: WE CAN'T ALL BE HEROES…CAN WE?
The Pre-ramble
All the way back in '23 I took on the task of beating this game.
Yes, I've been sitting on this forever. Is it because I’m terrified of what might appear on this intimidating blank box? This time tomorrow, will it stand to scrutiny? Will I blast past the word cap (yes)? Should I watch less video essays and find a real hobby? These and other questions can wait. I’m here to put a different sort of question.
✨Video Games✨…why play them?
What do we really get out of the endless grind for XP, the perfect execution of S-tier combos, the side-quest box-checking or the hollow victories?
Ask our confused parents and bystanders, who’ll look on in silent disapproval as we glare intensely at the blue hue of our crystal screens. They know little of the strife we endure, of how we suffer at the hands of our enemies, who’ll tirelessly scorn and goad us, or how in spite of that we still charge towards them swinging at dead air, jumping from platform to platform, dashing and somersaulting into death’s cold embrace. They can’t begin to know of all the trouble we submit ourselves to, so as to push the boundaries of our breathless virtual universe.
We mustn’t be ashamed, rather we must forgive them for failing to understand that entire worlds and the very essence of life itself, hang on the balance. Whole NPC populations are counting on the speed of our button-mashing, our dexterous key-bashing and trailblazing wits. Some do it for loot, others do it purely for their love of the sport.
✨Video Games✨ are not for the faint of heart, only the strong of body and mind shall prevail through the endless speed runs, collectible and achievement hunts.
Still the question persists, why play video games?
The Ramble
Even as a self-proclaimed 1%, every now and again I fancy myself as one who dabbles in the business of beating games…and it could be said this lesser-known indie title fit that agenda pretty well and who knows maybe I misjudged it the first time around and hadn’t given it enough time to reveal its hidden quality to me.
Here’s the thing though, some games to put it mildly, fail to reach their potential. They fall well below the bar set by their contemporaries and even their ‘inspirations’. You jumped the gun, you read the (paid) rave reviews, bought into the hype, or went with your gut feeling that this game was needed in your life... and then you played it and it sucked big time…or worse yet, it was just a big nothing.
Welcome to the underworld of under-cooked, lame-ass games.
Enjoy your stay, but whatever you do there’s no going back. Something beyond the bogus title of this absolute gem must have really appealed to my inner sensibilities. It could be that Mike, the dim-witted yet staunch protagonist, oozes that Earthworm Jim Saturday morning cartoon charm that would certainly have impressed my toon-loving ten-year old self.
More to the point, a brilliant mind once said something along the lines of 'we choose to play Zheros and other games to exhaustion, till the skin peels off our fingers, our joints stifle and our eyes become sore, not because they are easy, but because they are (inconceivably) hard.'

Furthermore, here are but a few sins showcasing why this may very well be the most painful beating a beat ‘em up could ever deliver:
-Swarms upon swarms of enemies will mob and overwhelm you on a regular basis
-Ludicrously heavy hitting mini bosses with bogus hit boxes, especially for larger enemies
-Enemies turn invincible while attacking
-Boss fights have no clear path to victory
-Occasional poor visibility thanks to mob clutter/larger enemies blocking your view of your character depending on their orientation
-Occasionally wonky 2.5D camera where enemies will come at you from an off-screen angle
-Infuriatingly fast and spammy, at times unblockable enemy attacks
-Checkpoint placement is often insidious ahead of bosses
-Haphazard mini boss deployment when you could barely deal with that 1st wave of minions
-Once selected, there's no ability to change characters or difficulty mode
-No double jump
-No lock on function
-Glitches, glitches, glitches
-Bosses are consistently frustrating as the stages do not encourage tactical thinking.
Instead, you'll die a couple hundred times until you button mash your way to an unsatisfying victory.
With all of that said, I was clearly not playing this as the couch coop it was intended to be so that must have significantly bumped up the difficulty and made its flaws all the more glaring and hard to ignore.
Now why would anyone in their right mind submit themselves to such torment? They are few and far between, still, I might as well list a few positives which I should emphasize, are at a disproportionate disadvantage, jank considered.
+Amazingly imaginative art direction with characters that would've wowed my younger self
+Aforementioned cast is exceptionally well animated
+Wide variety of combos that feel great to pull off
+Addicting simplicity, easy to pick up and hard to drop
Was I trying to make myself hate video games through this severe punishment? It’s been a complicated relationship with games lately. Maybe it's just me getting older, but games seem to increasingly test the limits of my patience these days.
ZHEROS was by no means the hidden gem I so wanted it to be and still, against all reason something in my lizard brain drove me to keep playing. I just HAD to obtain all the hidden stars! The game’s completion outlook was ZHERO to none and yet Mike and I trudged on. I mean, who doesn't love big bright yellow collectible stars that go poof and scatter frisky confetti when you walk over them? If they were ever to retool the combat and fine tune the single player difficulty, this little obscure beat em' up might have gone on to become a cult classic in my book.
The Afterthought
Few things unite us more than a chance to rag on that negligent developer making the headlines, but for once, let’s go against the grain, against the popular notion that games are cheaply made and ‘devs are lazy hacks’ and assume that games are actually incredibly hard to make, that even your average video game is arguably a painstaking labor of love employing the talents of many passionate creators.
It's then easy to surmise how everything that releases in a playable state or better yet, in a state that is polished, optimized and a joy to play is a goddamned miracle.
Did anyone really think THIS would be the one to shatter new ground and reinvent the beat ‘em up genre? Yeah, me neither. But I sometimes wonder, what goes down behind the scenes of games that fail to fulfill their potential by launching in an unfinished, buggy, straight up broken state? Who was to blame? Who was the first to derail the project? Whose idea was it to add that infuriating, blighted mechanic? Did they even personally play test it? What if their budget was a gross miscalculation and they ran out of dough halfway through development? Maybe someone ran away with the fund raiser jar!
It's a world of possibilities, things fall apart. These and many other questions whirl around players heads as they grovel on the ground in excruciating pain from engaging with a perfectly crafted torture device.
Or maybe, just maybe it was someone’s ✨Broken Dream Video Game✨, a misfire crystallized for all of time.
Thematically, it could be said this became an exploration of what it feels like to finish and unfinished game. Even still, in more than a few ways, flops are even more fascinating than success stories, much like how a horror film will intrigue and capture the imagination of so many.
Hold it there, so why DO we play✨Video Games✨?
Well, it’s quite simple, really.
Good and bad, they are akin to computer generated dreams. If that’s true, we should hail game creators as our most unfathomable, both nightmarish and spectacular dream machines that do also break down.
*Edited for legibility

Zheros:
~~~~~~
Mike and Captain Dorian are members of the intergalactic team called, “Zheros,” which combats crime in the universe. This time, they are facing the evil Dr. Vendetta who wants to mutate every living creature and transform them into his minions. This is definitely not going be a walk in the park; it will be a challenging mission for “Zheros!”
Zheros is an action / 3D beat’em up game where you play either Mike or Captain Dorian from the Zheros squad in single mode, or you can play with someone else on a local co-op mode. This game is absolutely frantic from the start. You will face several types of enemy as you progress into the game. The most comment one will be the white robots with a triangular shaped head, but you will encounter other really tough ones like the “Space Cow”. As in all good beat’em up games, you have to maximise your combos to get as many points as you can. On top of that, your character will have a shield to protect him/her from projectiles and punches, as well as a mounted gun on his/her forearm to use if you are in a pickle (they are plenty in this game)!
Collect all the golden tokens by destroying the orange boxes and do not forget about the golden star; there is one hidden in each level. At the end of the level, you will be able to see how many tokens you have collected and how many RP’s you will get for them. You will need RP’s to upgrade Mike and Captain Dorian’s abilities; more moves, better shield or more damage with your mounted gun.
Also, there are blue, green and red cylinders; the blue one will help you with your ammunition and the green one will regenerate your health. All I can say for the red cylinder is shoot at them when your enemies are close to them…hehehehe, BOOM!
Levels will also have obstacles, electric grids, lasers and more.
I really enjoy the 3D cartoonist graphics in this game and the animations are fabulous. The levels are fun and challenging. The controls are really responsive. The soundtrack will keep you pumped and help you to beat the upcoming levels.
Positives:
~~~~~~~
- Great 3D cartoonist graphics
- Fun, fast and frantic gameplay
- Really good animations
- Plenty of moves
- Achievements and trading cards
Negatives:
~~~~~~~~
- RP not equally distributed in Co-op mode
A great, fun and fast 3D beat’em up game to have in your library. Highly recommended!
8.5/10
Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!
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zheros looks promising and the the game seems pretty fun
there are a few problems the game crashes now and again i have a pretty good computer to run this game
but i cant seem to get anywhere in this game because the the bugs and crashes
this game needs to be patched up so we wont have any problems
i will recommend this game only just this game needs to be fixed

"In a journey through distant and unknown galaxies, you play as the members of the Zheros squad: Mike (strong, awkward and dim-witted) and Captain Dorian (agile, smart and ready for anything). Your mission: defend the universe from the evil Dr. Vendetta and his twisted plan to mutate every living creature in his trusted minions. In single player or in co-op mode, you can rely on your punches, using a rich selection of combos, and on powerful hi-tech weapons, but if that was not enough, a strong and destructive mech will come to the rescue in the most dangerous situations..."
Ah, yes… another retro-styled throwback – another beat ’em-up battle of furious fisticuffs. Here we go again! Zheros, bring it on. I’m ready to blow stuff up, jump around, and mash my punch button combos.
The first bit of news is that the game is good to go from the off; I plugged in my PS4 controller and all the button hints immediately changed in recognition. The early stages are easy to get into but not so undemanding to cause a collapse from boredom after five minutes. Gameplay is a mix of easy, intuitive and hard to master in just the right ratio. How do I know this? Well, there was a big grin on my face the entire time I was playing. A few points there then. (DING!)
Zheros is very good at what it does, with a well structured and nicely polished design, but sadly it fails to deliver as much fun as it appears to promise. I may just be incompetent, but the timed Level Five took me four attempts to complete, each try lasting around five minutes. I challenged a friend to complete the same level, and he is still trying - I have no expectations of hearing back from him any time soon. Also, be warned, checkpoints refuse to save when quitting and dropping in and out is impossible; levels have to be played start to end. Sometimes retro is slightly too retro.
I was a bit frustrated by unskippable, stupidly difficult enemies – to kill certain opponents in timed conditions the buttons were simply not responsive enough, which was not helped by the weird, unchangeable, control mappings. (Note to developers: please avoid mapping a quick-response button to a trigger control!) Add in a lack of cues for the timing of button-presses and LEVEL 5, yes LEVEL 5, was as far as I ever progressed in my hours of solid Steam time.
The graphics are, however, very colourful and engaging, and honestly, quite pretty; the look of Zheros will not bore and the graphics and art style fit the gameplay beautifully. As impressive as it looks, though, there are only two worlds to explore - if I had ever made it past the first one. A positive though, is the soundtrack, which is fast, aggressive, and motivational.
And then to the plot, which could be sketched out in full on the back of the proverbial packet of cigs. Frankly, there is no real reason for the slug-fest between the forces of good (all TWO of their best soldiers!) and Dr Vendetta, surely the daftest super villain name since Dr Evil and Sir Bonetopick, who were both clearly unavailable when Zheros was being developed. So plot points… more like flop points!
So where does that leave me? Well, there are no user-designable levels and I can confirm there never will be – because I emailed the devs. There were a few joystick issues in menus but all things considered this is actually surprisingly adequate for what it is and how much it costs.
To sum up: If you want a simple, well made, bug-free beat-em-up then Zheros is the game for you, provided you can get past the first level. However, if you came searching for a sense of humour, or a plot of any kind… well… your princess may just well be - dare I say it? - in another castle.
7/10