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)

There are so many flaws...
...but I can't bring myself to not recommend it.
The game is clever and yet simple.
Clunky and yet smooth.
Funny and yet unfunny.
Interesting and yet uninteresting.
Fun and yet not fun.
I don't know how to explain it.
It hooked me immediately with its underdog premise, what with the 'chosen hero' dying and a lowly minion rising up to finish what the hero started. I'm a sucker for that sh♥t. Stitches' aloofness and the minions' innocent yet mischievous behavior is just a delight to experience and the music can be downright beautiful at times. The design of the characters and worlds remain inspired, and yet unique in their own way. It also got a couple of chuckles out of me with some of the deadpan humor used during certain interactions, and the story is interesting and pretty engaging near the beginning.
This all sounds great, but honestly it isn't what this game is primarily composed of. Unfortunately, the game mainly consists of levels that, quite frankly, drag on for waaaay too long. Some other problems are:
The platforming sections are a bit herky-jerky
The combat is interesting but yet too slow due to an annoying stamina bar
The dialogue occasionally suffers from cliche 'no sh♥t sherlock' moments
The bosses (or at least, some of them) are overwhelmingly forgiving
The story suffers from poor pacing and a downright dumb twist at the very end (although the visuals of the fight were amazing)
The game feels semi-unfinished, as some characters speak to the protagonist at the end of the game like they're old friends, when in truth, they've only met twice (thrice?)
Even still...
The first half or so of the game was really charming, from the little drawn HP squiggles to the protagonist cringing when throwing coins away (the greedy little b♥stard).
Overall, I felt it was worth it. There was just enough good at the beginning and middle, to justify most of the bad near the end. At least, in my case. That may not be your verdict, but it is mine.
So try it. At least, for the first hour and a half.
As for me, I look forward to seeing Paper Castles' improvement in their future games. This game remains an exceptional accomplishment for a small team.

I'll be honest, it feels like it's been years since I've played a game this deeply satisfying. Since my childhood, it felt like no game could ever fit the unique standards left behind by the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series, but I think this one may have just done it. I'm writing this as I just finished watching the end credits and I'm... kinda blown away. I didn't have the highest hopes when I first bought this, but I'm so so glad the experience surpassed my expectations entirely. I don't even know where to begin!
The soundtrack was simply amazing, the story was very cute and charming, along with the art! the gameplay was a tad on the simple side, especially in terms of platforming, but I think the game benefits from that; makes it easier to focus on other stuff. I'd talk more about what I loved about the story, but I'm no professional review writer and I have no idea how to do that without dropping hints at major spoilers. So all I'll say is that it fun, engaging, filled with charming characters, and managed to keep my attention the whole time!
So yeah. I totally recommend this game, 100%. it's a real shame it isn't more popular, it certainly deserves much more attention!
also, when can I start backing for a sequel? I'm dying to know what happens next!

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".

A very charming 2D platformer action RPG with interesting timing/reaction based combat, a good amount of exploration, secrets and collectibles and an interesting story with plenty of cool twists and turns.
The pixel art and music are very good as well.

Great game all around.
If you love paper mario or TTYD then this game is right up your alley. The writing great, and is very funny when it wants to be.
Only issue i have is that jumping can sometimes cause the camera to shake a bit, but this is a minor nitpick.

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.