Glitch Hero Review – Life’s a Glitch
Glitch Hero by Didactoons
Mainstream gaming is increasingly leaving children behind. While the consoles of yesteryear will full to bursting with cute mascot platformers and the like, nowadays it seems like only Nintendo feel any real need to cater to someone outside the 16-35 age demographic. That is, of course, if you don’t include the indie scene.
Glitch Hero aims to correct this by making the classic Zelda formula accessible to younger audiences, while also teaching them a thing or two about programming logic. The question is, will kids (or adults) find something to love here?
All of Them Glitches
Young Ada’s scientest father and his companions are trapped in Codeland, a virtual world of their own making. With the help of a powerful hammer program and a snarky rabbit, can she navigate through dungeons and solve coding puzzles to rescue them?
While Glitch Hero’s premise isn’t original, it manages to be charming thanks to its snappy writing and colorful characters. Everyone in the game is likeable and often genuinely funny, and bigger story moments are punctuated with some genuinely gorgeous cutscenes.
Similarly, the gameplay is basic but tried and true. Much of your time is spent hacking and slashing through individual screens from a top-down angle, much like A Link to the Past. There’s also a strong emphasis on puzzles, solved either through Ada’s powers she accumulates, or the aforementioned programming sections.
It’s the kind of thing I could easily see a kid taking some interest in. I’m not exactly sure how well it would actually teach them programming logic, but the puzzles are inventive and do require understanding concepts like loops and functions.
Cure For The Glitch
That being said, Glitch Hero unfortunately lacks quite a bit of the secret sauce that makes its peers work. The gameplay itself is both very basic but also quite imprecise (especially combat), which I could see a lot of kids getting either bored or frustrated with, respectively.
This might also just be a sign of my age talking, but I also found the game generally difficult to look at for long. The cookie-cutter “mobile game ad” art style is genuinely unappealing outside of being colorful, and ends up feeling lifeless compared to the cute characters and gorgeous cutscenes.
I do commend the game for giving age suggestions alongside its difficulty options though. Again, if their aim is to appeal to kids, I think they’re ultimately doing something right.
The Verdict
Glitch Hero has its heart in the right place, and I think there’s the opportunity for its target audience to find some enjoyment here. Unfortunately, I think the game’s general shortcomings mean that many kids would probably shut this off and go back to Pokémon after a while. Kids can usually tell when something they’re playing feels off, and I think Glitch Hero is more likely to bore or frustrate than educate or entertain.
Glitch Hero is available via the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Xbox Live, Google Play Store, and Steam.
Watch the trailer for Glitch Hero below:
