Flat Heroes

My girlfriend doesn't like video games, but she likes the "one with the squares" a lot

It's a flawless or close to flawless puzzle-platformer game designed for either a single-player walkthrough or up to 4 players co-op session with additional modes to shake things up. The design of every aspect is minimalistic, so everything seems simple and clear from its looks, however the game proves to be challenging at times, as well. Besides, controls are perfectly smooth and responsive at all times due to constant high framerate and minimal input lag. (btw the soundtrack is great, too)

Introduction
Flat Heroes is developed and published by Parallel Circles. Given their studio name, isn’t it slightly ironic that their first and so far only Steam project, is a game in which squares take center stage? Another Early Access, another preview from me. At least this one was fun, which seems to be a rarity nowadays at this development stage on Steam.

Gameplay
Boy, am I glad that I don’t have to beat around the bush, careful not to spoil any precious storyline details. With Flat Heroes you have it nice and simple, without the game ever coming off as incomplete. So why the Early Access label? Well, I have to appreciate a developer which constantly struggles to improve a game, which many others would have released and already stop supporting. But that’s the beauty of Steam and the ever growing indie game scene hosted here. You have plenty of creative and ambitious folks, which do their best to tip the scale in their favor and wash some of that sour taste left by the equally numerous lazy and cash-grabbing bunch of “devs” out there. Now, as you may have noticed, I did write a con revealing the current Flat Heroes price tag as “slightly overpriced”. I consider it so, but perhaps time will prove me wrong once the game gets released in its final form. The artificial intelligence in the Battle section is savage, to say the least. I wasn’t left wanting, that’s for sure.
Being mostly a single player kind of gamer, I did enjoy the fact that the entire game can be played by yourself without feeling like you’re missing out on a lot. The objectives are straightforward: blast your opponents into oblivion by smashing into them. Obviously in a game about squares, violence isn’t far off, right? Some aggression in arcade titles isn’t necessarily bad. Breaking the mold never is. Wave section feels more natural for the genre. Mixing both platforming and quick reflexes, its levels have you dodging obstacles while also avoiding or fighting off other Human players in co-op. And survival ain’t that easy when you also have to avoid homing missiles (another example of good AI). The beauty of it is that even in single player mode, Wave offers plenty of challenge. Co-op is indeed, optional. Flat Heroes doesn’t become boring fast, a syndrome frequently found in arcade titles.
Unity Engine says it all. It’s pretty, in the right hands and it offers such a large spectrum of artistic expression. Minimal style being among my favorites, it wasn’t hard for the dev team to add even some degree of player-controlled customization. If you don’t like the color choice of either the squares or the background, you have several chromatic alternatives. Sounds selection isn’t the best, but this genre doesn’t need much to get by. Despite warning that the game is best played on a controller, the keyboard layout felt very responsive. Perhaps pitting human players against each other, might increase the odds for the one using a controller. Still, don’t underestimate the AI.
Pros
+ Fun to play in either SP or MP mode
+ The AI offers enough challenge when you play by yourself
+ Minimalist arcade design
Cons
- Slightly overpriced Early Access title
- No Steam Achievements or Trading Cards
Result / Final thoughts
I was only slightly bothered by the price tag (in regards to my readers and potential buyers of this game) but other than that, Flat Heroes doesn’t fail to deliver a consistent and entertaining arcade experience. Near flawless as far as I’m concerned. You just have to like this genre, I guess. Grab it while on a seasonal Steam Sale or when bundled and you won’t regret it.
Rating 75/100

This review was submitted for Imperial Reviews, through the generous contribution of RedHill.

Lots of fun to play in local Co-op with friends or family.

An enjoyable platformer with local coop support. Flat Heroes consists of 10 worlds with 15 levels each. All you have to do is survive the enemies that come at you, there's quite a bit of variety to these enemies. Movement feels solid, though the airdash can feel a bit fiddly at times. Each world has an annoying boss fight, the worst one being the final boss. It introduces a new mechanic and takes too long. It consists of five phases, the first two are basically just filler to introduce the mechanic which should've been done earlier.
Once you beat the game there's Heroes mode, which is just the same levels but a lot harder.
I would highly recommend playing Flat Heroes, even alone it's quite enjoyable.

FLAT HEROES = NEW SUPER MEAT BOY
As easy as that.
This game deserves a spot in the platformers 'Hall of Fame' for sure. The level design is out the roof in terms of quality, as are the controls, the bosses, the sound, etc.
Playing it solo it's amazing, but where it really shines is when you get together with 3 other friends and start battling it out in the many multiplayer modes (also has co-op).
TL;DR : It's amazing, buy it.

Despite my positive recommendation, I have one major complaint about this game: your avatar is a square that rolls to move.
Hrm... a SQUARE that ROLLS... does anyone else see the problem with the physics of this?
So if you want to move your square just a little bit, you are out of luck because the square will roll back to where you started or will roll further forward than you want if you hit a certain threshold. If your square is tilted in air, you could land on your corner and move into danger. If you land on the edge of a ledge, even if you are flat, if your center of mass is not on the ledge, you can roll off. You can wall cling, but only if one of the sides of your square completely touches the wall, so again, if your square is tilted and you hit the wall with a corner, this can mess you up. I can’t tell you how many times I got fracked by this baffling mechanic. In my humble opinion, it doesn’t make the game any more fun or unique, the game is way too hard otherwise to warrant this extra challenge, and it actually goes against the game’s minimalist street cred (if it were me, I would have made it more like Thomas Was Alone and have the little squares just slide along instead).
Other than this, the game is pretty fun. I do like the soundtrack, level design, basic premise, and various color palates. The game can be glitchy at times, but that might be my subpar hardware. And I have to admit that getting all of the achievements in single-player mode was really satisfying (which is what ultimately tipped me in the direction of a thumbs-up), but I just had to vent about those goram rolling squares...