「ＬＯＶＥ　ＨＥＲＯ」(New 3DS, 2019)

(Special Valentine’s Day Review)

Overall: C+\B-
Presentation: A+
Flow: A
Thrill: B-
Replayability: F

Background
I know the site is themed around me mainly reviewing old games, but hey, I make the rules so I’m allowing exceptions. I have 2 more 3DS reviews planned but after this it’s back to more Game Boy.

One day I was browsing the eShop and came across a game titled Love Hero that was listed as unavailable. The description was very vague…something about treating a woman through medical trials? No video was attached either, just the usual 3 screenshots. It was slated for release on Valentine’s Day, but looked somewhat odd and obscure, so I assumed the duty of playing and reviewing it before anyone else.
(NOTE: Love Hero is available exclusively as an eShop download for the New 3DS. It costs $1.00.)

Presentation: A+
I am very strongly biased towards this game’s style.
I don’t mean that as a roundabout way of saying “I like how this game looks”—Love Hero employs a very specific aesthetic reminiscent of vaporwave, characterized by a combination of simple pixel art, low, crushed, analog-ish audio samples, and “lo-fi” music. I can’t quite describe it to those unfamiliar with it.
Most of the game graphics are in the aforementioned pixel art style. While it’s in 2D, the pixels are matched up perfectly to the 3DS’ “scanlines,” so it looks very good. (Ironically, the title screen is an exception.)
And notably, very few colors are employed—around 3 per DS screen. This makes the pixel style work very well, as opposed to those games with unrealistic amounts of colors claiming to be NES-inspired…

The museum, where you can unlock images by beating the levels, features a black-and-white graphic representing each image. These stand out from the rest of the game, being in a 2-tone comic-book style that looks nice. The images themselves are all based on photos of medical imagery, but nothing gory—just needles, gloves, and equipment. They add borders, filters, and other effects to achieve a look that I would once again describe as vaporwave-inspired to create a very intriguing and compelling aesthetic. The music that plays with them, of course, fits the same description.

Tl;dr: Music inspired by vaporwave, probably. Graphics are nice, very simple pixel art…or sometimes inspired by vaporwave, probably.
Very pleasing to the eyes and ears in a relatively unusual way.

Flow: A
Want to know how simple this game is? There’s no instruction manual. (You can click on it, but it’s the default Important Information and Troubleshooting pages.)
An almost-hidden menu option shows a page which explains the game. To sum it up: survive throughout the duration of the song by avoiding enemies. The controls are given, but they’re pretty much what you’d assume.
(Interestingly, this screen also tells you that completing a level unlocks “sick content” in the Museum. I’d normally assume they mean “cool,” but given the odd hospital theme…)

There are 5 levels in total, each with a slightly different set of enemies. You play as a white spaceship with a pink center that goes hollow (black) if you die. The controls are excellent and I never felt that a death was unfair. A, B, X, and Y can all be used to shoot from the top and bottom of the ship. The heart and block enemies can be destroyed, but not the beams. They all hurt to touch, but thankfully you can be hit up to 5 times before losing and having to start the stage over.
While the game claims you play until the end of the song, it also gives a timer on the bottom screen, and the songs aren’t the type where you’ll notice any major progression, so it feels more like just playing until the timer runs out.

The 5th level is a boss battle of sorts, where you play as a slightly different spaceship shooting down yet a third design of spaceship. The timer is replaced with a thick HP bar that slowly depletes as you land hits on the enemy ship. There are a few different types of attack patterns but it’s not extraordinarily difficult.
You also hear digitized, crushed voice samples of a woman taunting or otherwise speaking negatively to you. It’s strange, and seems to hint at some semblance of a story or character in play, and I like it.

Tl;dr: The game is extremely straightforward and easy to pick up and start to play. It works very well for what it is.

Thrill: B-
It’s pretty fun! While the levels only last a couple minutes, most of them took me a few tries to beat.
The atmosphere of the game is very compelling. I was actually excited to unlock all the pictures, hoping the final one would reveal something or complete a story. (It really didn’t.) The description about someone being treated, the odd love and therapy-themed level names, the odd pictures, and the harsh voice clips lead me to believe that there’s intended to be some sort of story behind this game I’m missing, and I want very badly to discover it.

Tl;dr: In short, it’s fun and compelling. It may not last long, but it’s a fun game.

Replayability: F
As much as I love what this game has, there’s really not a lot of it. 5 stages that last a few minutes each. This game can be beaten in to completion in an hour. And once you have, there’s little to do. The game doesn’t track score or anything like that, so there’s no reason to revisit the stages.
Some sort of endless mode that saved high scores would have gone a long way and made this a much better title, but sadly, no such thing is present.
You play it once, it’s pretty awesome, and then it’s over.

Tl;dr: There is no reason to replay this game.

Overall: C-\B+
All the pieces of this game are pretty great, but it doesn’t feel like the puzzle is complete. 5 levels? That’s it? And nothing but vague hints at the presence of some kind of story to it? This game is a great experience, but the lack of depth and replayability is glaring.
Of course, it was only a dollar, and for that, it’s pretty good. I’ve spent a dollar on worse experiences.
If the game sounds like fun, go ahead! Even if not much is there, what is there is enjoyable.

Extra

I discovered Butterfly (alt name of Batafurai) actually has a Facebook page where they’ve posted about the game before.
Apparently the pixel component of the aesthetic of all of their games is entirely inspired by the Atari 2600 and, of all things, Nintendo’s Color TV Game series from the 70s\80s!
Promotional art for Love Hero also seems to confirm that the final boss is a woman who has some connection to you. The Japanese and English promo text say “she is alive.” My guess is, the first 4 stages are spent reviving and restoring her, but once she’s back, she just wants to fight you. Harsh!

They also say that development started in 2017, and it began as an adult game involving sex and heat played on the touchscreen, called “Cake and Juice” at that time. What a turnaround…let’s be glad they ended up making something I wouldn’t be uncomfortable playing.

I messaged them asking to clarify the story of the game, so we might see an update on that.

Link to their page: https://www.facebook.com/BatafuraiCorporation/

UPDATE 2\15:
They did reply! Apparently, leaving the story up to interpretation was intentional, although some key details were given:
-The game is about a woman who is revived\resummoned only to discover she has been fighting against (her own?) pleasure
-She returns to the hospital dead every time she tries to “please herself” (what a great thing to leave to people to interpret)
-This creates a battle against her own body.
So the final battle is not you against your ex-girlfriend or whatever, it’s her against herself.

My fixed interpretation:
By beating a level, you revive her, but between stages, she attempts to seek pleasure, and so you must pursue additional trials (beating the other levels). She eventually grows sick of this cycle and attempts to directly pursue the force inside her responsible for this phenomenon, culminating at the final battle in level 5. After completing that, she regains some control of herself, represented by the pink gloves replacing the blue ones in the 5th museum picture.

So, that’s all for Love Hero I suppose.