Hello Hero All Stars Review: A Streamlined Yet Worthy Installment To The Famous Franchise

The Hello Hero series from developer Fincon has been a pretty popular one on the mobile market for quite a while, so it’s probably not too surprising that Hello Hero All Stars, the third installment of the series, decided to skip all the redundant introduction and gets straight to the point.

As soon as you download the game to your phone and open it, you’re thrown right into the thick of the action, controlling your team to march down the screen and smash enemies left and right. There is no cut-scene or any of that extraneous stuff to interrupt your gaming pleasure.

Admittedly, this can be somewhat abrupt, especially considering that All Stars is one of the few games on mobile that actually have some entertaining cut-scenes. Still, some briskness every once in a while doesn’t hurt, and in this case, it contributes to a bracing experience.

So let’s dive deeper into the gameplay for a detailed look:

I need a hero

As mentioned, in Hello Hero All Stars, you’ll control a team of heroes battling their way across wave after wave of enemies, with some occasional bosses added into the mix. These enemies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, all of which are weirdly wonderful. There are turnips, bouncing toadstools, chibi dragons, robot orbs, babies wearing bear costumes, and more. Clearly, these are not the generic and lazily designed monsters that you often see in these types of fantasy mobile RPGs.

That said, the gameplay still sticks to the usual formula of the genre: You complete a series of quests to progress through the campaign, unlocking new heroes and obtaining more powerful gear in the process. There are also several abilities that you can level up using gold or other in-game currencies.

The cool part is that you actually get to recruit some bosses into your roster after defeating them. This adds a sense of righteousness and wholesomeness to the entire thing. After all, what could be more heartwarming than knowing that not only are you fighting for the greater good, but you also get to turn enemies into friends doing so?

Lean mean RPG machine

Yet the most remarkable thing about Hello Hero All Stars is not that bad-guy-turn-good affair, but how dizzyingly streamlined it is. Look at quests for an example: You’ll receive a constant flow of them, which becomes heavier the more heroes you unlock, but… you don’t have to actually do them. They are automatically done upon picking up. In fact, you can finish batches of them at once, and even purchase more slots to increase these batches.

There are times when Hello Hero All Stars feels more like a clicker instead of an RPG – particularly given that progress is basically linear. The game automatically accumulates loot for you even when you’re offline, too, so this is the kind of game that you can just leave there for a bit and then return to reap the rewards.

But All Stars is not a shallow game by any means. There are literally hundreds of heroes to collect, so building the perfect squad and keeping everything properly leveled up actually require no small amount of effort

Of course, while the first couple of hours are a piece of cake, the game will get more and more difficult as you go on. Soon enough you’ll find yourself poring over hero stats and upgrade trees trying to figure out which is best or going back to previous levels to grind for experience and gear. Another (lazier and less exciting option) is, you guessed it, spending money on IAPs.

All things considered, though, Hello Hero All Stars is a worthy addition to the franchise, leading it down an interesting new path while still retaining most of the iconic cartoony charm. The streamlined gameplay is probably not for everyone, but if you are the more casual type of gamers, there are plenty of things for you here.

The game is available on both Android and iOS.