First, I want to send a big shout out to the developers at Heroic Games Corp. for being quick to respond and very approachable. My wife donated to support the game before the Ship of Heroes Character Creation Beta and there was a bit of a mix up with the keys going out, without knowing that either of us were writers the folks at Heroic Games Corp. got back to us very quickly and were able to help resolve the issue. For those gamers hoping that the SoH character creator shows signs of living up to be the spiritual successor of a certain other superhero game, as a fan and past player myself, I am happy to say that the building blocks are there. This is our impressions of the Ship of Heroes: Character Creation Beta.
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The character creator is looking pretty robust so far even with only the basic options for costumes. I was pleased to see the familiar archetypes to choose from which included tank, brawler, devastator, support and, while I was only a touch disappointed that the option was greyed out, a controller. The hand drawn images added a nice touch and everything was straight forward for how to proceed from one step to the next.
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Though you could see one or two area where understandably there are still a few visual bugs. I personally did not crash once while creating my character and was able to navigate back and forth without issue while trying out different archetypes and appearance options.
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The powers that you can select at character creation are of course based around your archetype. As you can see above after having selected support a player chooses two primary and two secondary powers. Then the real fun begins.
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While you do choose your base build there are options for almost every aspect of your character’s appearance. Some sliders are still pretty limited they overall gave a wide range of options to make a character look unique, I especially liked the various eye color options/effects implemented so far. The ability to zoom in close to the eye by using the buttons at the bottom of the screen was a nice touch.
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Concerned about getting the coloring your costume pieces just perfect? Have no fear the creator has that covered as well. You can select your costume style on the left and then change the linked colors on the right for each piece. If you are really a stickler about what your wearing you can even customize your underwear color.
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Once you are ready to begin saving the world there are only the final touches left to add. While I think it is great that you can add a character tag and description, I can already see the Tag being overused by some players… you know who you are.
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As expected, the play area we had access to explore was basic but the devs keep folks engaged with a few different events throughout the week and implemented patches as needed. I was able to test out a few of my powers on targeting dummies, ran into a few other aspiring heroes and visited the “hidden” beta club. Surprisingly the only crashes my wife and I encountered was during the patching process. I had no issues, but my wife had to restart her machine and patches twice to get by a launcher error.
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Final Thoughts
Oh, the feels… playing around in the character creator brought back a lot of memories and it really looks like the foundation is there of a good upgrade to what came before while still retaining the core. There is still a way to go before it is ready for a full release but the building blocks are there and it has the potential to be really amazing. I am looking forward to more beta events and the progress Heroic Games Corp. makes with SoH in the coming year.
I do have one concern that I cannot shake yet, will SoH be a spiritual successor to what has come before by keeping the core intact but at the same time be successful at breaking new ground in the gameplay/story or will it fall into the trap of becoming a clone? No real way to answer that until we see more.
If you want to support a great group of developers and a project the has started off on the right foot of being a spiritual successor, at least in the character creation department, then I encourage you to head over to the donation page on the Ship of Heroes website. Just be aware the project still has a way to go before release.
Full Disclosure: Beta code was provided by publisher.
