Exos Heroes is a role-playing game that lets you explore a mystical world full of heroes and heroines. This game takes you to an epic adventure filled with fantastical scenes and progressive storytelling. All of these sound like your typical RPGs but somehow, Exos Heroes stands out a bit more. What makes this RPG different from the other titles? Let’s take a deeper dive.
Such Attention to Detail
RPG is a gaming genre that is predominantly synonymous with popular franchises like Final Fantasy. For newer titles, it is harder to stand out because the bar is set too high for them. That said, one of the ways to make a first impression is to have an eye-catching art style. Fortunately, Exos Heroes delivers in this aspect! The game’s art direction looks like a mix between cell-shaded graphics and hand-painted aesthetic that results to highly detailed characters that make them stand out.
The designs look top-notch, and you can tell that the graphic artists brought their A-game to create the various heroes for the game. Their decision to go for a traditional anime look combined with painted cell-shaded art style gives each hero an inherent personality from their looks alone. This is a great touch since it makes them more endearing to players.
Moreover, the heroes’ personalities shine further since they have specific animations to make them stand out when you pit them against enemies. Each hero has unique attack animations that are often flashy and expertly drawn. There are moments when it feels like you’re watching an anime instead of playing a game! Again, you can tell that the graphic artists put in their effort to create such dazzling and smooth character animations to further immerse you into the world and narrative of the game.
Immersive World and Characters
Apart from the excellently designed characters, the world of Exos is also vibrant and very pleasing to look at. Run-of-the-mill dungeons and taverns are given more life—thanks in large part to the style choice that its developers and graphic designers have used to make each scene, location, and battles pop out.
Speaking of immersion, another thing worth noting here is that the characters you use are fully voiced over. This makes cutscenes and interactions between them even more immersive. The voice acting also feels natural and not too over the top, making it highly engaging especially during major story beats.
Many modern RPGs have foregone character voice acting and are more focused on gameplay and other mechanics. So it is quite refreshing to see a title that utilizes original character designs and voices. This is one of the reasons why players can easily get invested in Exos Heroes. You can also change the voice acting from English to Korean or Japanese according to your preference.
Classic RPG Gameplay
As far as gameplay is concerned, Exos Heroes sticks to the standard turn-based RPG gameplay. You will rely on choosing the correct heroes to form your team as you begin quests and progress through the story.
Exos Heroes’ main gameplay mechanic is their Break System—enemies have corresponding colored hexes on their Health and Mana Bars. The colors represent which attack you should to Break them.
For example, if an enemy has a red-colored hex, it means that he or she is weak against fire attacks. This means you have to include a hero in your party that has a fire attack to damage that enemy and achieve a Break. When a character is Broken, they are stunned for a few turns and are especially vulnerable to attacks. However, keep in mind that your heroes also have weaknesses and can be Broken by enemies. So try to avoid that by creating a balanced team.
In terms of story progression, it is also worth noting that you can choose whether to continue the story or look for other side quests that help level up your heroes and acquire various items and rewards. Exos Heroes’ is somewhat open-world, which is a pleasant surprise.
You can look for items that are hidden in forests, mountains, and even encounter NPCs who might ask for help or give you some tips to locate powerful artifacts and treasures. This feature gives players options on how to play the game. Do they want to breeze through the story, or do they want to make their heroes stronger by completing other tasks first before progressing further? It’s for the player to decide.
Hero Challenges and other Game Modes
Since Exos Heroes also plays like a hero collector game, you need to grind and level up your heroes’ star rating. This can prove to be a hassle especially in the earlier part of the game. Because even though you can clear up levels, you will sometimes lack the necessary heroes to complete tasks of certain quests that give special rewards.
However, you can look for Challenges to get you the necessary resources that can level up your heroes. Challenges are the standard resource-grinding stages to help you gather the necessary materials and level up. These range from Experience Challenges, Gold Mine stages, as well as Hero Challenges which lets you complete a quest that further develops one of your heroes’ narratives. At first glance, these Challenges might look repetitive and for the most part. it is, but the game’s Break system gives a bit of variety.
Once you reach a certain level, you will unlock the PvP Game mode which pits your team against another players’ squad. Your strategy and team composition will be tested in this mode since you will be battling against other players. Furthermore, your knowledge about the Break System will be essential here.
Overall, Exos Heroes is a great RPG. Its stylish game design coupled with expressive characters and open-world exploration are refreshing additions to the genre. If you have the time, play this game and discover what Exos has in store for you!
