Underhero

200 character summary
Underhero is a very nice platformer, Unique due to the turn based combat with real time elements. It has a great story with a lot of secrets and suprises. The game also has a little comedic aspect.
Story & Characters 9/10
The story plays out trough dialogue, it is about a little masked underling who kills the hero by accident, When you get close to the body you hear a talking magical sword, When you pick it up the sword convinces you to keep the sword a secret, An NPC walks in and sees what has happend and can not wait to bring you to the boss; Mr. Stitches, He is happy with your performance and promotes you to bring some magical stones to the bosses.
Mr Stiches lets the princess go because she was just bait for the hero, But that won't be the last you see of her, The story gets very complex at a certain point, You might break some dimensions but they don't break the 4th wall, There is a lot to do and you will meet a lot of funny characters, Can you save the mysteries, but most importantly, can you bring back Taco Tuesday? The game really blurs the lines between good and evil, and the story is very well done.
The characters have a lot of charm, the main characters are all pretty unique and have quite a backstory, Surely there are generic enemies like yourself, and the game even makes fun of it. Everything makes sense towards the end. You yourself don't talk a lot, But your sword Elizabeth the 4th talks for you, She is one tough negociator. You will meet a skitzophrenic moth, But I especially like Mr Stitches, I think he is portrayed amazingly.
Gamemodes & Gameplay 9/10
The game is mostly platforming and Turn based combat with real time elements. The story plays out trough dialogs, and there are a lot of puzzles to solve. You will also be quizzed in a recurring gameshow where you can earn some extra money if you paid any attention to the story. You can go back to most areas, but some parts will remain closed after you have been there, So it can be easy to miss some optional upgrades or casettes.
The game works with a overworld which takes you to the different worlds, There are 5 worlds excluding the overworld, They are all very different in terms of gameplay, looks and most things. You spend most of your time jumping around to look for all the chests, These can contain upgrades, music casettes, coins and a lot more. You don't have a map, but there are public map signs which you can use and are pretty detailed,
Attacking is like Paper Mario, It is turn based but you can jump, shield and duck to counter or avoid attacks, You have several options for attacking, You have a Sword, Hammer, Slingshot, Shield and a rage ability which needs to charge. Blocking at exactly the right time will cause a parry and will stun enemies or send projectiles back. Attacking costs stamina and stamina refills over time, Stronger attacks tend to cost more and are a lot slower.
Boss battles combine these battles with platforming, moments where you can't attack the enemy and just have to evade attacks. The mix between real time and turn based combat makes it quite unique, especially on PC, Saving is done at special savepoints, and you can carry potions to heal yourself in or out of battle.
Graphics & Soundtrack 8/10
The game has a very nice soundtrack, And also some very nice pixel art. I do feel there are different styles used in the game, Like some things have an outline and others don't, And While I love the uniqueness of most of the characters, some feel a bit cheap, Like taking a main character make it grayscale and implement it as a different main character, I feel little things like these could have been done better. All levels look great tho, Each world looks unique and alive.
Performance & Support 7/10
The game runs fine at 60fps, but don't enable vsync if your monitor has a higher refresh rate, It has this strange issue where it refuses to jump from time to time when running above 60fps, The Underhero makes the jumping sound and you see the little clouds, only he doesn't jump he just stands there, And this makes platforming very annoying. It also introduces some other bugs, So on 120fps it does not run great, Luckily you can just disable vsync and play the game normally. Steam Cloud save is not working on Linux, But I had no further issues whatsoever.
Endgame & Replayability 7/10
Sadly there is not much to do endgame, I was missing a single casette and 1 weapon upgrade when I completed the game, I do explore a lot, trying to find stuff, I later found out some areas are restricted after you played trough them and this creates some missable achievements. Completing the main game will set you back to the main menu, and reloading your save will put you in front of the final boss. There is no New game + or Endgame gameplay. I think a new game + with a harder difficulity level would have been a great improvement.
Conclusion 8/10
Underhero is a great game, an absolute must have for Paper Mario fans, It is funny, but still has a moving story that will blur the lines between good and evil. It has some rather unique gameplay and is certainly worth the asking price.
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Game Info
# of players
Single Player Only
Steam Cloud Save
Not working on Linux
Controller Support
Yes, Xbox One Bluetooth Working
Achievements
Easy but missable
FPS on Ultra 1080P
Locked to 60 fps
Ram Usage
1GB
Installed Size
2076MB
Launch Command
gamemoderun %command%
Issues
A few
Operating System & Hardware
OS
Arch Linux
Kernel
5.6.3
DE
Gnome 3.36
CPU
Intel I7-6800K Hexa Core @ 4.2 Ghz
GPU
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 (Nvidia 440.82 Drivers)

This is another game that decides a "meh" rating rather than Yes or No.
Is it worth it at full price? I'm not sure. On a 50% sale, maybe.
Did I have fun playing it? Maybe 50% of the time. Perhaps less.
The music and artstyle is great, and the story is occasionally pretty neat as well.
The platforming is decent if not super tight. It also does not work properly if you enable v-sync and go over 60FPS so beware of that. The combat and mechanics in general keeps changing throughout the game so there is always something new.... for better or for worse. While not really hard, it can be challenging game at times due to new mechanics being introduced and you have to figure them out on the fly.
The puzzles are your standard fare for this type of game, I guess. I could have done without most of them and just focused on regular combat and story progression.
I finished the game in ~10 hours and while I did not find every collectible and upgrade I did grab quite a fair bunch of them. Despite being only 10 hours I felt like the game dragged on too much, especially in certain parts of it... and most certainly the very end. Seeing as I did complete it I'll give this game a recommend, even if it is not something I would like to replay ever again.

This is an awkward recommendation.
Underhero is a Platformer-RPG that spoofs traditional RPG plots by making the protagonist a minion of the main villain. It explores and deconstructs fantasy and video game narratives in a manner similar to a similarly named indie-RPG that came out recently, albeit with more of a cartoonish tone than a genuine and heartfelt one.
It employs some very creative and clever jokes and misdirections and weaves gameplay into the narrative very well. The game has quite a few memorable moments.
The game also has a very novel battle system. One seamlessly transitions from an encounter on the overworld to a battle with an enemy; there is no instancing involved, and some aspects of the surrounding environment influence each battle. Rather than using a turn-based system, the game uses a stamina system somewhat comparable to ATB in the Final Fantasy games: the player's various moves and dodges consume stamina, and stamina slowly regenerates throughout the battle. The player has multiple methods of dodging attacks, and enemies have tells on each of their attacks to warn the people as to what sort of dodge they should perform. The combat ultimately plays a bit like the Mario & Luigi games, dodging attacks to avoid damage and attacking with a good rhythm. There's a lot of room to improve in fighting against each enemy, and it's quite satisfying to go from trading blows with an enemy to rapidly taking out future ones without getting hit by a single attack.
Unfortunately, the battle system's limitations being to show as early as World 1. The fights tend not to handle multiple enemies well, so most of the game's encounters are against individual enemies with little variation between each battle. Most of the attacks in the game can be parried, which tends to be just as easy to perform as the move's corresponding dodge, but also stuns the enemy when performed.
Several fights mix platforming and combat. This is where the game's problems begin to show.
Underhero is a Platformer-RPG, but it handles its platforming with astonishing mediocrity. Outside of battles, the protagonist cannot run, attack, duck, roll, shoot, or accelerate. The only ability they have beyond the basic walking and jumping is a simple float move that slows their descent. No moves are ever added to this set; outside of a minority of gimmick rooms and obstacles, the Underhero is no less agile at the start of the game than they are at the end.
This may be an understandable sacrifice for an indie game, provided that this weaker element of the game had reduced emphasis compared to its stronger combat and storytelling...but the game has some fairly large and fairly expansive maps that contain a fairly unpleasant amount of backtracking and circling around. Without a run button, there's no way for a player to move faster through content they've already moved through.
As a result, most of the platforming in this game feels like padding. The game is 11-13 hours long on a casual playthrough, but that time could have easily been reduced to a clean 8 hours if the game's levels were designed more linearly, or given warp points. The game is designed slightly around doing a second playthrough, too, so one could easily double the hours. 8 hours would have been perfectly acceptable with the game's indie pricetag and would allow the player to spend a better fraction of their time seeing the game's memorable content.
And therein lies the awkward problem of this review; most of the game's good points involve memorable fights, scenes, and setpieces that would be spoiled by describing them. Metanarrative and parody have become increasingly more common in modern indie games, but Underhero pulls off quite a few ideas that I haven't seen in other recent titles.
The best way I can put it: play Underhero if you can *tolerate* these things:
- Mediocre platforming
- A functional, but not especially pretty, art style.
- Aggressive quirkiness
- Level design with a large amount of backtracking.
If you're willing to put up with that, Underhero's a neat, memorable experience that manages to avoid the artsy-fartsiness associated with most games that one would refer to as "an experience".

Underhero
Underhero is a 2D RPG adventure game where you take control of an underling, a minion of Mr. Stitches, a feared boss throughout the Chestnut Kingdom, who wishes to take control over it. After accidentally killing the hero, you must take his place, become the new hero, and put an end to his madness.
‎Pros:
‎Great story with some engaging combat mechanics.
Has a great variety of enemies, weapons and upgrades.
Fun interactive boss battles.
Cons:
Enemies can be too unpredictable at first, even with help of the tutorial.
The dialogue can soon get tedious and exhausting especially towards the end of the game.
Requires a lot of backtracking.
Soon after killing the hero, you are met with a task by Mr. Stitches, to return all of the stones back to each of the world's bosses. While on your journey you will be accompanied by Elizabeth IV, a magical talking sword who will guide you throughout the game and will teach you everything you need to know to become the new and better hero.
Gameplay
Once you have returned a stone to a boss, you will take a portal back to the castle to collect another and do the same thing, and it just repeats. Your journey may seem simple and straight forward but there's a lot of exploration and combat involved in-between, as well as completing certain puzzles and objectives.
Combat
The game features a timing-based combat system, where you must learn your enemy's attack patterns to survive. You start with just a sword but as the game progresses you will unlock more weapons such as a slingshot, a shield, a hammer, and rush mode. While in combat, each attack and dodge you do costs stamina, which can be replenished over time and after parrying or successfully dodging an attack.
The sword is a quick attack animation that deals low on damage and stamina. It's the best short-ranged weapon, and with each upgrade, you will unlock a charged attack that deals increased damage when held down.
The slingshot is best used on flying or far away enemies and just like the sword it runs on low stamina, but with each upgrade, it will unlock a larger pellet that will give improved aim.
The shield is used to block enemy attacks, blocking an attack will cause damage to your shield and will eventually break after time, unless you parry by pulling out your sword at the same time that they attack. It will stun them for a couple of seconds as well as doing zero damage to your shield.
The hammer is the most powerful yet slowest weapon, it requires a very high amount of stamina to use (which can be reduced by upgrades), it's best suited for slow or stunned enemies.
Rush mode is an ability you can activate when your rush meter and stamina is full. It slows time where you can spam some high damaging and fast sword swings, this lasts till your stamina bar is depleted.
While in combat, before you attack, it gives you an option to bribe, bribing the enemy might give you some useful information leading up. It's more commonly used for when you're low on health or have a tough enemy you don't want to fight, as it gives you less XP than actually defeating them.
Enemies & Bosses
When encountering my first enemy it was very unpredictable, it took me a while before I knew how to counter it. You can counter an attack by either jumping or crouching. It sounds simple but it's not, they give you subtle hints telling you of which attack they are going to do, but the hints are so petite and unnoticeable at first. Each world you visit introduces a new setting and a variety of enemies, always different from the previous, not just in design but in their attacks as well.

The bosses you meet are unique and different from one another. Each boss has 4 states of health and often requires you to dodge their attacks before you can engage in combat with them. Each portion of health you take off will cause their attacks to change and will go at a much faster rate. Oddly enough I found the bosses fairly easy, I thought the enemies and journey leading up to it was much harder than the boss itself.
Levelling & Upgrades
It's straight forward you level up by defeating enemies and once you have gained enough XP to level up your character you will be presented with 3 stat choices: Health, Attack and stamina. After each level up you get to chose one of these stats that you want to upgrade. Health is upgraded by 10 points, your attack and stamina are both increased by 1. You can also find upgrades throughout the map by opening up chests or by completing side quests, but it's not guaranteed.
Graphics & Sound
The game's visuals are appealing to the eye, bright and colourful but not too much. The design and animations of your ally's, enemies and surroundings are so simple yet charming. However, I do wish that the regular enemies had some uniqueness in design, something more frightening, as compared to Mr. Stitches, they just look adorable.
While at first, I hated the soundtracks but they soon grew on me, they constantly change throughout the game. You can find soundtracks by killing enemies, opening chests, there isn't a particular way of finding them. Once finding them you can change them in the save room, they have 4 pages of soundtracks you can collect and choose from.
Conclusion
Underhero is an amazing game inspired by the likes of Paper Mario and other Nintendo RPGs, it tells an incredible story through its dialogue with many unexpected twists and turns. It offers a great timing-based combat mechanic as well as introduces fun and quirky characters you will meet along the way, all without losing the tone of the game. It's such an underrated gem, a game I'd absolutely recommend and well worth the full asking price.

I just recently finished the game....And i'm at a loss for Words. I was recommended it randomly by someone, and I decided to pick it up. It's without a doubt not only fresh and invigorating, but i found myself not wanting to have to see the game end. Once i started, i couldn't stop until i reached the end. It's absolutely gorgeous, and i'm appalled that not a lot of people know about it. The Combat system is absolutely fun, the score is one of the best i've seen, the Characters are Lovable, the Boss Fights are unique and stylish...It's like a Love Poem to anyone who loves a good story. The End, i won't spoil anything, but....I want a Sequel. Immediately. I Urge you to buy this game.

Charming and cute little game, worth buying when in a sale
Pros:
+ The fighting system is very well implemented, though may feel a bit slow at times
+ Not too challenging for a casual playthrough
+ The story is fine
+ Hunting achievements is overall fun
Cons:
- Minor improvements could be made e.g. speeding up several animations
- Sometimes the characters seem bland

A relatively average 2D platformer that distinguishes itself with some unique play elements and great writing. Overall I fell in love with this game more than I thought. I don't remember buying this title so am assuming I got it from a Humble or Fanatical bundle. The full steam price may be a little steep but if you happen upon this in a bundle or discount give it a try.