My Hero (Sega Master System) review "Video-Games can provide us with many interesting experiences, even in the remote times of the SMS. If I wanted to feel like the ultimate scourge of nature, I could play “Safari Hunt” and shoot down hundreds of wild animals. If I wanted to feel like a true master of Karate, in Body and Spirit, I could play “Black Belt”. "

Video-Games can provide us with many interesting experiences, even in the remote times of the SMS. If I wanted to feel like the ultimate scourge of nature, I could play “Safari Hunt” and shoot down hundreds of wild animals. If I wanted to feel like a true master of Karate, in Body and Spirit, I could play “Black Belt”.

Then there's “My Hero”. This game makes me feel emasculated.

~//~

The plot in this game is the same as pretty much every other brawler in the 8-bit era: you must beat lots of people up to save your girlfriend, who gets kidnapped as soon as you press the start button.

The emasculation begins right there. You see, in every other game, the 'girl gets kidnapped' scene occurs whilst you, the main character, is away from the woman and thusly unable to aid her.

In 'My Hero', you press start and see yourself and your girl walking along a flowery garden. Then comes a thug, punches you, and takes the girl away. You were right there beside her and could'nt do a thing. Manly, huh?!

Anyway, you then are granted control of the character. You can move left to right and do 2 moves: Button 1 lets you do a jump-kick and button 2 lets you punch, high-kick or, when crouched, do a low-kick.

The punch & high-kick are useless. The low-kick is useful against only 1 enemy. You'll just mash button 1 to jump-kick the entire game. Ka-Ge-Ki, with 2 attacks, no longer is the fighting game with fewer useful moves in existence.

You fight having either a flowery garden or a typical 50's (maybe 60's) small town as background. You won't have time to look at it though, because as soon as you can control your character you'll be attacked by thugs.

These thugs kill you with 1 punch.

Said punches are not even very spectacular, you know. They consist only of one frame of animation with no sound. They look more like 'touching someone with a closed hand' than 'punches'.

Since this single aspect smashes any fun you could have with the game, I'll reiterate it in caps lock, for emphasis:
GETTING TOUCHED ONCE BY ANY RANDOM HOODLUM KILLS YOU.

~//~

You may think that, since one jump-kick from you also dispatches said thugs, all would be OK. Well, no. You see, in the world of 'My Hero', thugs are an endless commodity. As soon as you send one flying, another comes to fill to his shoes. Oh, and aided by another thug who emerges from behind you.

How fast do these thuggish populations populate the screen? Well, let's just say that if you are foolish enough to use your punch to slay one thug, another one will appear and kill your wimpy self in the time it takes for your character to get ready to throw another punch.

Simply put, you'll die in this game. A lot.

To survive the thug onslaught, you'll have to do lots of jump-kicks. All of them will have to be times well enough for you to dispatch at least 2 thugs. Do otherwise and you'll die.

If you decide to play this thing, you'll probably get the 'game over' screen several times in this first area and desist. Unfortunately for the persistent ones, you'll not be reward for getting past this part.

After the 'punching thug onslaught', you shall have to face knife-throwing baddies and bottle throwing criminals emerging from windows, sometimes tagging along with some aforementioned punching thugs. Do I have to mention that a single bottle or knife is enough to kill you?

Should you survive this bit, the game just get ridiculous. In your continued quest to retrieve you girl, you'll face a platforming section where iron balls and bombs shall drop from the sky in high speeds just to kill you. Should you survive this, you have to jump-kick your way through campfires that spit fireballs upwards just like the lava pits in 'Mario' games.

If you pass this bit, guess who makes a comeback?! Yes, it's your beloved & infinite thug menagerie! Only, this time, they have started to jump-kick as well as punching! How fun, eh?

You will see the 'Game Over' screen many, many times before you even get to the end of stage 1. Your last foe will be a entourage of 4 small dogs, the only time you'll use button 2. That these puppies can possibly kill you is insulting enough. Guiding your wimpy foolish jump-kicking character to the stage's end is a grueling test of how much mockery you can stand.

But the ultimate emasculation is yet to happen.

~//~

After getting to the end of stage 1, you shall face a boss. Guess who it is?! Yes, the punk who snatched you girl there at the beginning!

Seeing the boss battle for the first time actually feels like maybe, just maybe, all the pain and jokes on you were merely a test. The setting for the battle is a beach during sunset. Quite pretty and Epic. The music for this part is also fitting. Could it be that this SMS game would reward persistent gamers for their virtue of endless patience?!

Well... no.

In the boss battle, you must hit the foe 10 times before he hits you 10 times. Those random thugs could slay you with one touch but this supposedly badass boss needs 10 hits to best you. Simply put, if you were good enough to get to this point, this boss fight is ridiculously easy.

You beat the boss! He sits down and starts weeping like a girlie man! Your lady shows up, kneels beside you and, apparently, starts praying to you (look for this scene at the screenshot section)! More than a Hero, you are a God!...

... then the subdued boss knocks you down with a punch, steals your girl again, and must go after her... yet again...

Round 2 (and 3, and 4, and 5, and 6, and 7...) has the same background and foes. However, new foes appear this time around. These new foes include pigs, toys cars, and spitting frogs.

You are so wimpy that you die from frog spit.

Get at the end of round 2 (therefore earning a degree as a zen master)... and get to the boss fight! It's the exact same thing as the first one.

Again the punk boss will snatch your praying girlfriend and force you to enter stage 3. Clear it to be emasculated by the boss yet again. Stage 4 is identical to stage 1. Stage 5 is identical to stage 2...

... and by then you'll notice that the game only ends at the 'game over screen'. Of course, to reach this realization, you were forced to see your girlfriend getting kidnapped by the same guy in the same way over and over again. The not-so-hidden message? “Not only you are wimpy, you are also an idiot.”

~//~

In summary, if you are drawn to “My Hero” because it can give you the excitement of playing a very hard game, you probably also like Hydlide's combat system and think that “Dark Castle” had a really innovative throwing mechanism.

You also must be quite unsuccessful with the chicks.

Community review by zanzard (April 12, 2008) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.