Love Hero (3DS) review "The art of being short and unconventional."

When I heard that Butterfly made a new game I had to go check it out! Their first home console video game on the Nintendo Wii U made me a fan! My English is good now and I am working on my own video game review blog. I thought I would come back again and write a review on here because I love HonestGamers! This site has influenced me and my opinions on gaming a lot! So anyways, I heard about Love Hero when I was visiting my family in Spain and luckily I had my 3DS on hand to download and play it.

The gameplay for Love Hero is very straightforward. There is a little square menu on the main menu on how to play. You use your control stick to move around your ship and the A, B, X, or Y to shoot your bullet lasers. The ship you control moves very smooth and buttery and you shoot from both the front part of your ship and back end, almost like the Bosconian ship. This game is not Bosconian though, as your ship only points vertical but I do like the Namco influence. The core of the game in each level is to endure opposing enemies until the very end of the song in the level. Together you have 5 levels where the fifth level is a cool challenging surprise and is different from all the others. The difficulty was high for me as it took several tries to finish the later levels but losing was pretty fair. Every level completed unlocks a perplexing illustration in the Museum section of the game along with its coinciding song.

The graphical look in Love Hero is similar to the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Color TV-Game which the developers are really big fans of apparently. Everything is simple and very cohesive. The minimal colors stand out and create an experience for sure. Literally like only 4 colors are used throughout the game. The one big difference is the Museum artwork where the pieces are completely different but are part of the overall theme of Love Hero.

One of the best chunks of this game is the music! Seriously one of the best soundtracks on the 3DS I have ever heard! The easy sensual vocals and synths in the main levels are beautiful! The dreamy music in the user interface creates a dark nostalgic vibe including the sound design when choosing stages or going back. One of the artists, Purient (derived from the word prurient I assume) who works with Butterfly often has created a name for herself! Interestingly enough her musician name works well with the lustful theme of the game. Kudos to Butterfly for crediting the musicians!

There is absolutely no story in Love Hero but a lot of it hints into what it might be. This is such a quirky take on the shoot 'em up genre where the aesthetics give some hints into a weird and maybe sensual story. The only thing I can say is that there seems to be only one character and she seems to have a lust for death in pleasure? The character looks to be fighting herself, fighting an urge not to indulge in temporary pleasures? This is my assumption and take on it. I am sure there are a few takes on what people think the social theme of this game is. This is something you game theory fans might enjoy piecing together! I hope to see a full story release one day by the developers or maybe a summary would be nice.

In response to how long this game is, Love Hero only takes about thirty minutes or more to complete. Without being too explicit but rather scientific, Butterfly might have taken influence from how long it takes for lovers to perform the carnal response cycle. What I find also interesting is that the name of the levels are similarly named after the stages of the physiological responses from that cycle. Again everything in Love Hero seems very alluded but vague so the assumption is there. Also the art direction in this game is wonderful! There are more interesting aesthetics and themes to be explored in Love Hero where I cannot fully grasp or understand but the overall hospital healing vibe in this game is very haunting and charming.

All in all Love Hero creates an art appreciation and mysterious depth into its concepts. Interestingly Love Hero is only $1.00 and provides a short artistic experience through its seductive audio and dated visuals. For what this game is and its cost I deem it an exceptionally confusing mini video game. I enjoyed every minute of it even though it was for a short time and maybe that could be the whole point of the theme of this game.

Community review by pedrorojas (March 20, 2019) You like games. I like games. We all like games.