Published , by Blake Morse
Published , by Blake Morse
The idea of a creature made of slime in a video game is nothing. In most instances, though, they find themselves on the getting-their-butt-kicked side of things (do they even have butts?) like the iconic slimes of the Dragon Quest series. Slime Heroes, however, is giving these goopy creatures a chance to shine as the protagonist of their tale. I recently got to go hands-on with a brief demo of Slime Heroes during an event held by Xbox during GDC and found it to be a rather slick experience.
The opening cut-scene for my demo immediately melted my heart like so much butter in a microwave. Our titular Slime hero was frolicking through the woods with their best buddy, a giant one-eyed dragon guardian deity. It turns out the rest of the world wasn’t faring so well though as the guardian had been using its powers to protect the realm where the two of them dwelled. The adorable scenes of the two creatures playing a living together quickly turned way to an invasion of corrupted beings. While the guardian did its best to fight it all off, it was barely able to give the Slime a chance to escape. And that’s where the adventure really begins. It was now up to the Slime to find the other guardians and get their help in saving their friend.
In order to complete this quest players will have a vast number of options. While there are your standard weapons like swords and spears, the real fun seems to lie with the abilities you can collect along the way.
When players take out an enemy there’s a chance that they’ll drop a magical attack ability. These attacks can be equipped on their own, but they can also be augmented with other attacks and special abilities in order to create a new skill. For example, during my demo I combined a projectile attack with a whirlwind to make a whirlwind that traveled in its fired direction. When I swapped their slots I now had a whirlwind that shot projectiles in every direction. Probably the most impressive combo I was able to come up with during my hands-on time would have to be rolling attack with the whirlwind and a life-stealing augment. I was quite literally crushing the competition with that combo.
Along with the massively open-ended attack combo system, players will also be able to find fancy hats that can buff things like health and magic power. While playing I happened to stumble upon a pair of cat ears that I thought looked particularly cute on my Slime. Just another fine example of how adorable Slime Heroes is looking.
Overall, Slime Heroes was able to slip its way into my heart rather quickly. There was plenty of exploration to be had, even in my brief time with the game. The open-ended nature and customizability of magical attacks left me wanting to try out more combinations. And the game is just flat-out cute. If you enjoy action-adventure games, Slime Heroes should definitely be on your radar.
This preview is based on hands-on time with a preview build at a GDC 2023 event held by Xbox. Slime Heroes is set to launch in 2023 for Xbox Series X/S and PC, but does not have an official release date as of the publishing of this article.