You Are Not The Hero Demo

If you happen to recall your last experience in a classic role-playing game in which you played as someone who must save the world from evil, then you probably remember looting random houses for potions, minute amounts of gold and the usual rags that amount to a bit of extra coin when you reach the next merchant. However, has it ever occurred to you that these NPCs have lives as well?

You Are Not The Hero is a 2D role-playing game featuring an unusual approach to the genre, in the sense that you do not play the almighty hero trying to save the world. In fact, you are nothing special, as the title clearly implies. Since you do not possess powerful abilities or enchanted weapons to deal with evil creatures, the gameplay is a bit different as well, at least for an RPG.

You are Petula, a simple girl from a nondescript village living a regular life with very few dragons and ogres involved. One day, a group of mighty heroes stumble upon your house and promptly start looting it for anything useful. You know, like heroes usually do when they need supplies for the road and they cannot be bothered to pay gold for it. Naturally, Petula is more than outraged by their behavior, and thus an exciting journey begins.

The actual gameplay is a mix between an RPG and a platformer, although it still needs to be refined to be fully enjoyable. As such, you have an inventory and you can gain a bit of experience along the way, but the actual confrontations are usually solved with trickery and stealth instead of bravery and combat. The platforming bits are rather annoying from an isometric perspective, but you can get used to them after a while.

You Are Not The Hero excels through humor, on the other hand, because it is indeed funny to experience Petula’s quest. There are many fourth wall-breaking jokes and hints along the way, some of which poke direct fun at the classic fantasy RPG approach. Not only that, but the game looks very nice as well, even if it sports a 2D engine and a few glitches that make movement a bit tricky as of right now.

Even if You Are Not The Hero is not finished yet and there are many things that require more work, the game is shaping up to be a great one. Hence, if you do not mind the humorous approach to the genre and not being able to wear epic armors, the game is definitely worthy of a try.