[New Release] Full Court Heroes - First Impressions

[LuxerWap]

The game is now available on Steam. A demo of the game is also available: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2268 ... rt_Heroes/

So, I saw this game today and was pretty excited. A new 5-on-5 full court Basketball game that's not the usual NBA 2K games was something I was very interested on needing. Taking a look at the screenshots and the bit of gameplay, it really reminds me a lot of Hoop Land on mobile, a great basketball title and one I definitely recommend if you're itching for a good basketball game on your phone!

Curious as I am, I decided to try out the demo a shot and see what's it like. Unfortunately, I have ran into a few crashes in the demo. Tried starting up a game 4 times and they all caused a crash, even during a game. It was only the demo as I haven't tried out the full game so that might not be an issue there. If so, I do hope the team are Tireswing Games will fix it.

Presentation of the game looks really nice and the teams parodies the actual NBA teams very closely with how the logo are designed, just like Hoop Land. You can choose how difficult you want the shot meter to be, turn some of all fouls off, set quarter lengths, and change the difficulty of the CPU. The 16-bit player models, the courts, and the audience all look really good too!

Gameplay is a mixed bag for me however. I may need to play more of it, but defense feels clunky and sometimes unresponsive; especially when I try to steal the ball from my opponent, my characters will extend their arms out and just stand there for about 2 seconds; I cannot be able to quickly switch characters as I was stuck with the one I was using to try to steal the ball with and that screws with multiple mind as other basketball games allows me to switch characters quickly even after attempting to steal the ball, and I don't recall a player standing completely still after the attempt too. It shows that it doesn't work as when the CPU will sometimes do absolutely nothing but stand with the ball and here I am mashing that steal button until the Shot Clock Violation hit. A Steal button that doesn't work and a CPU that seems to not wanna play as this had happened 3 times. I couldn't get to finish the game as once again, the game crashed in the middle of it, so that was disappointing.

Shooting the ball feels pretty good, but dunking just feels odd. I don't understand why a meter shows up when you're at the rim after running up to it unless the player is going for a layup, but no; they dunked the ball instead, yet I couldn't tell because there's no animation of them dunking. The shot meter stops when I'm at the rim and it counts as a dunk. It doesn't feel natural to me. Passing the ball feels fine and sprinting feels a little fast, which I'm am alright with. I don't have much of an issue on those.

But overall, the demo for this game left me feeling a little mixed about the game. I was thinking of purchasing it, but from the Steam reviews I have read, the full game is somehow worse than the beta, mainly the CPU behavior and lack of modes that were listed before. I understand the game is in Early Access, but it doesn't feel polished enough to pay for it. As much as I want to support the devs, I can't recommend paying $16 for it. At least try out the demo as all teams are available in expedition, but be wary of crashes. But for now, I recommend playing Hoop Land on mobile or Basketball Classics on Steam. They're both great games and needs more attention!

[Andrew]

I've been keeping an eye on it. I instantly became a fan of Basketball Classics (we've had Josh and Dave on the podcast a few times over the years) and its throwback to the 8-bit era, so it's cool to see some indie games tackling the 16-bit era and its style. I've noticed some similar issues playing the demo, so I'll be interested to see if they're ironed out in the full version. I too really enjoy the "bootleg" NBA team names; they remind me a lot of Super Dunk Shot in that regard, so again, a great throwback to the 16-bit era there.