Heroes of Gaia Review

Heroes of Gaia is a free-to-play strategy RPG that more than resembles the classic Heroes of Might and Magic series that made its debut on PCs back in 1995. Although it does a great job of capturing many of the aesthetic qualities of its well-regarded predecessors, free-to-play weirdness and general denseness makes Heroes of Gaia significantly more confusing and dull than its inspiration.

For the unfamiliar, games of this ilk feature an overworld and hero avatar that navigates that world to collect treasure, capture buildings, and enter fights with enemy armies. Resource collection is vital to sustaining and upgrading the castle and army that players use to go on increasingly more dangerous and difficult adventures, while the battle system uses turn-based strategy mechanics that feature spells, magical creatures, and more. After completing an adventure in the overworld, players of Heroes of Gaia return to their castle where they can upgrade or summon new units, build additional structures, and take on another mission.

For anyone looking for a game that captures the style of Heroes of Might and Magic, Heroes of Gaia‘s overworld maps and general structure do a pretty good job of making it look and feel like one of these classics – at least a first blush. Unfortunately though, as players venture deeper poorly explained mechanics are layered on top of one another, which feels both overwhelming and unnecessary at the same time.

The primary reason why Heroes of Gaia gets so confusing and dense the more people play it is due to the sheer amount of things to do when players are at their castle – all of which have very poor explanations for their existence. Or no explanations. Looking at the main screen when not in the overworld, there are 15 buttons that players can click on – all of which don’t properly convey their purpose – and these buttons don’t even count the buildings that can be clicked on to upgrade or collect resources. Regardless of their purpose though – whether that be prompts to buy diamonds or login bonuses – their connection to the overworld sections of the game aren’t made very clear either, which is strange considering the missions don’t seem particularly difficult or strategically demanding.

The end result of Heroes of Gaia‘s puzzling structure is a game that looks like Heroes of Might and Magic on the surface, but quickly reveals itself to be another overwhelmingly menu-intensive free-to-play management game. This style isn’t necessarily bad, but in this case there are better renditions to be had elsewhere.