My Hero Review

Aww, man, this is just. Wow. Am I allowed to vomit on the readers? I am? Here you go (I puke all over you). Now that I got that out of my system let me actually throw some words around instead of undigested food debri. Speaking of debri, let’s look at my next game to review for the Master System, My Hero. Time for some cheese, because a hero of mine this game is most certainly not.

My Hero was originally a basic, very early beat-em-up from Sega in 1985. When the Master System hit the market and Sega attempted their whole ‘card’ idea (which was pretty cool on paper), this was one of the titles they released. Unfortunately, due to the lack of memory on the cards, it was quite difficult to recreate even a smidgen of the original. The graphics are atrocious. They had to go with this eye straining green for the background, and I really wish I knew why because it looks so awful it’s beyond words, or vomit. The environment, including most of the enemies, is decent considering and detailed fairly well, but some of the character animations and designs are horrid. Really poor quality for the Master System. This is the bottom of the barrel here, almost as terrible as F-16 because it just looks so badly done. At least that game had the excuse of being for an inferior system before it was just thrown on the Master System without changes.

As for the sound, I have to say I kind of find the sountrack in My Hero somewhat entertaining. They were going for almost this sort-of 50s theme here, and it does fit the way it looks, puke aside. The sound effects and little death tracks fit right in there as well, but nothing too stellar overall. Considering the poor memory of these cards, I’m surprised they got this much out of it, but it’s nothing noteworthy or anything. They were able to pull the original off for the most part, however.

My Hero’s most puke-laden aspect is the gameplay. Basically, all you have to do is save your girlfriend from Mohikan by running through levels, attacking enemies, avoiding obstacles and then taking on Mohikan in a quasi-boss segment before doing it all over again in different levels. Not bad really, that’s all Kung Fu on the NES is when it comes down to it. But My Hero has tons of flaws that make it nearly unplayable. Enemies come at you in horrifying waves, so many and so fast that the only attack you can really use without getting struck is the flying kick, but you have to do it in this weird way where you spin around forwards and backwards in order to get enemies ahead and behind you. Really awkward, so thank god the controls are responsive. You only start with three lives and lose most of them the first billion times you play it as you try to get used to the horrendous collision detection and enemy movement, only to realize you have to essentially memorize the levels to get anywhere because there’s so much going on. My Hero has way too much difficultly for what it is, an ungodly amount in fact. Once you get past the first level you’ll be incredibly lucky to get any further. The Mohikan boss segments are a joke, too, you just have to keep jumping and then turning quickly as he sweeps by you to get a few hits in before it goes to the next level and you have to go through a similar barrage of death again. It’s really basic and too hard for how simple it is. They really should have fixed the collision detection, because it sucked in the arcade too, but at least there it was to your benefit. As it stands, every blade of grass, shoe, thread of a shirt and bit of spittle kills you. An exaggeration, of course, but that should give you an idea of how easy it is to avoid enemies. You really have to see what it looks like though to get a feel for all of the above, so here you go:

As for creativity, there really isn’t anything in My Hero to make it stand out other than the odd 50s theme they had going for it. This wasn’t used that well, however, so all you end up with is a pretty tame and incredibly aggravating beat-em-up. Not much more to say.

I have no reason to play My Hero ever again nor do I want to. It’s lacking in so many ways and is so difficult to even try to play that I don’t want to bother, ever. I’m not sure how long it is either because I never got past the second level, so I assume, judging by the first, that it’s probably only about a thirty-minute game if you can get far enough, but it likely starts right back up again so if you’re looking for an endless feeling of nausea in the pit of your stomach, go right ahead.

My Hero is a total disaster. Sega should have never released this game, because if they wanted the whole ‘cheaper’ card idea to catch on they need to do two things. One, release somewhat entertaining games in this format and two, absolutely do not release them in regular cartridge format. Why in the hell would I purchase this in a cartridge if the card exists and it’s cheaper? Do you think I wanted to waste more money and hate myself more as I cover myself in vomit? Seriously. The only good thing about this game is the background color, it matches what will come out of your orifices should you play it.