One Tap Desert Hero Review

One Tap Desert Hero is an arcade-style pachinko-like game that masquerades as a role-playing adventure. Although initial playthroughs may feel oddly compelling, there is so little to the game that it can get pretty boring very quickly.

As the title suggests, players control a hero with one tap, and that tap determines the trajectory of the hero’s trek across the desert. Once set in motion, the hero attacks all of the creatures in its path in the hopes of reaching a boss. However, if a creature proves too strong for the hero, players have to restart at the beginning of their desert journey and attempt the quest once more.

In order to successfully complete a level in One Tap Desert Hero, players have to strategically place the hero on a path fraught with many weak creatures in order to win enough battles to level-up and take on the stronger monsters toward the end of the desert. Additional considerations for players to keep in mind is the smattering of power-ups randomly distributed across the desert, which can do things like teleport the hero or launch a volley of arrows in four different directions.

Upon reaching the end of the desert, players come face to face with a boss that can only be defeated if players have earned more levels than the boss has health points. Upon defeating this boss, points are totaled and players can play again.

While in concept many of these features could be compelling, there just isn’t enough to One Tap Desert Hero from a content standpoint to make it feel worth investing any real time in. The desert stage is always the same in appearance with some different enemy and power-up placements, and no new power-ups or obstacles really present themselves. WHen the game has been completed once – which can take all of a few minutes (and that’s being generous) – the only thing left to draw players back are some different unlockable characters that merely look different from one another, and a leaderboard system. Granted, games like Crossy Road have done well with a model that looks like One Tap Desert Hero‘s, but the main difference between these two games is that Crossy Road involves active participation beyond one initial tap.

In the end, One Tap Desert Hero just doesn’t have much to it. Once the initial input is pressed, I found myself sitting and wondering why there isn’t more to this game as my hero did the rest of my work for me. My guess is that many other players who picked this game up are wondering the game thing. Overall, One Tap Desert Hero is a missed opportunity that feels just about as dry and empty as its setting.