One True Hero [Xbox]

Rat Cliff Games’ One True Hero is a very generic yet self-aware action-adventure platformer that leans heavily into humour. You play as the titular Hero as he grapples with suddenly being transformed from just a simple farmer into the only hope the townspeople have left to save the kingdom. You’ll have to help various townsfolk with their problems in order to progress, with a burning orphanage housing a missing teddy bear that you’ll need to recover, a rat infestation and more being just the start of your troubles. The story is entertaining, and throws lots of bizarre elements your way - with full voice acting too, which is always a bonus.

As you gain experience, you’ll earn Skill Points that can be used to upgrade and learn new skills such as new moves like The Lifter, which allows you to thrust enemies into the air; as well as The Explosion, which allows you to release a devastating blast when fully powered. You can increase your Power Bar by attacking enemies and parrying their attacks, though combat for the most part feels rather bland - making it all the more frustrating when you run into a bunch of enemies a few times in a row.

A lot of love has clearly gone into the visuals, despite the somewhat jankiness of it all. There’s little handwritten quips on blackboards in the school, and funny little interactions between characters that add a very real, human layer to it all. The humour does a lot of heavy lifting - helping you to forgive the frequent staggering and clunky, repetitive combat. The world could have done with being a bit less linear too, as there’s not a whole lot of exploration to be done aside from possibly going through a doorway on your path to pick up a handful of gems, before backtracking to follow the main course again. The soundtrack is pleasant, with a very magical feeling that is reminiscent of the Fable series and this escalates into more epic tunes at key moments.

One True Hero has often inconsistent controls, though when they’re working well it does feel surprisingly decent. You have an extremely fast run, which makes travelling around a doddle - although it can make it a little bit too easy to fall off of surfaces into the abyss below, and doing long jumps can sometimes lose you health, since there’s fall damage too (a huge pain in a platformer!). There are a lot of climbing segments, which when compared to the sheer speed of your run, makes things feel staggeringly, painfully slow. The camera angles are also frequently awkward and clip through walls at some points, completely obscuring your vision - not great when you’re trying to pull off a tight jump. It’s not all bad though - you do encounter some brilliant sections of gameplay, with a bunch of wacky and epic parts of the story as you progress, which gives you a bit of a boost after all of the frustration.

As well as the main world, there are challenging platform levels within the Hollow Realm, which can be unlocked by collecting enough of the crystals found scattered throughout the world. Visiting the Hollow Realm is a great option to break up some of the core gameplay, and allows you to get a brief respite from the story before heading back in, however the platforming is ultra-precise, and at times will punish you unfairly, which is made all the more frustrating by how unforgiving these sections are in the first place.

Overall, One True Hero is an extremely mixed bag, that switches from being janky but fun, to extremely frustrating in a repeated, alternating pattern - and this makes it particularly difficult to force yourself to keep going. Pushing through, you do find yourself being rewarded with hilarious moments, but it sometimes doesn’t feel worth all the effort, which is a shame. It is a truly charming game, and if some of the worst bugs and jank could be addressed, it might make it more worthwhile to play. If you’d like to try it out for yourself, you can pick it up for £11.99 on Xbox.

In the end, we decided to give One True Hero the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.

Are you interested in One True Hero? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to No Gravity Games for the One True Hero Xbox review code!