What first came across as a mindless gun and run became more than that when I got my hands on the game. Makers of OlliOlli, Roll7 just pushed out their newest title: Not a Hero, and it’s a very enjoyable experience with amazingly creative writing.
Not a Hero follows the adventures of Bunnylord and his journey to being elected as Mayor. He enlists you, a member of his ‘Bunnylord Fan Club’ to help him in his propaganda by rescuing, murdering, collecting people, objects and creatures. As his campaign pushes on towards election day, his fan club grows, and his opposition disappear for some unknown reason.
In Not a Hero, you can unlock several playable characters as you progress in the game and succeed in doing challenges within the levels to gain approval ratings. Each playable character has a certain play style change, each with different guns, sub weapons, perks and speeds. These range from Steve who is an all rounder with great accuracy, to Mike the close quarter, fast execution maniac and Stanley the hammer wielding delusional superhero. The playable characters available are an excellently colorful cast that offers a lot of variety. Personally, Mike is my go to, it feels amazing blitzing through levels as him.
In terms of variety, the game has 24 levels, 3 being unlocked when you fully complete all 21 base-game levels. By fully complete, I mean, each level has a main objective you must beat in order to move on, and 3 side objectives you do whilst you’re in the level. It’s pretty easy early on, but as you hit the later levels, it gets infuriating. It’ll get to the point where unless you’re extremely perceptive, you’ll most likely be running through a level constantly until you have the layout of the level in your head solidified.
The visual style of Not a Hero is exceedingly colorful and it hits home with the brutal onslaught of deaths you wrought as you run through the level. It ties in with the concept of Bunnylord, an over-the-top, lovable, misunderstood sociopath who is willing to get his hands dirty for the sake of his Mayorship. The goofy pixel art levels filled with blood and gore doesn’t get detracted when you start to see how light hearted the game is.
It also helps that the music also fits into the art style of the game. I can not stop praising the music in this game, all of the music is very well done and does a twist on genre whilst staying electronic and chiptune.
As far as negative feelings towards the game, while not overly negative, the lack of cohesive options in the settings has been something I addressed to the developers. The inability to adjust music and sound, lowering or increasing resolution, increase/decrease graphics settings for low end systems and the like.
Not a Hero is an insanely chaotic game that has it’s share of frenzied bloodlust and happy-go-lucky thrill ride as you push right through the challenging levels and helping Bunnylord achieve his dream. With only a lack of settings holding it back; the game is truly an enjoyable experience.