Game Review: 7 Days Heroes

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

Retro-inspired 2D action games aren't exactly a rarity these days, so the game we're going to be looking at today has a hard road ahead if it wants to stand out in an already crowded scene. Coming soon to consoles, following an earlier release on Steam, we have 7 Days Heroes. 7 Days Heroes features a team of four heroes who find themselves up against a horde of zombies. That setup isn't exactly the most unique, but let’s take a closer look at the Nintendo Switch version and see what exactly this game has to offer. We have just seven days to save the world, so we better jump straight into it!

They actually just want to escape.

Just a boy and his dog versus a tank.

7 Days Heroes opens with three kids and a dog in a research facility. They are being tested and trained in a way that reminds me of the kids from the Akira manga/anime. You have the main character, the boy with glasses, the girl, and the dog. They technically have names, but I don't think they're meant to be anything but archetypes. This is evidenced by the fact that the boy with the glasses is literally named "Megane" (as in "glasses" in Japanese), and the dog is just called "dog" or "pug" throughout. One day the AI that runs the lab, known as MAI, runs amok and begins turning all humans in the world into what are essentially zombies. Our heroes take this opportunity to make their escape on a military plane, but are separated when said plane crashes in the middle of nowhere. Our quartet must reunite and decide if they're going to help humanity, or simply make a run for it. It's estimated that MAI will only need seven days to turn the entire population into zombies, so time is of the essence. While that sets up the basic premise, I have to point out that discussing the plot of 7 Days Heroes is by no means an easy task. This game has one of the worst translations I've ever seen, and I am convinced that the developers simply ran the entire thing into Google Translate. It's not even an "All your base are belong to us" type of funny either, as most of the text is literally unreadable nonsense. It took a lot of mental gymnastics to piece together the story I just mentioned, and it never gets any better. It's odd because I don't think a game like this needed all the extra plot elements like AI and research facilities. It could've simply been a zombie invasion story, and wouldn't have needed nearly as much garbled text to get that across. Seeing as the story is definitely the weakest aspect of this game, let's just move on and discuss gameplay.

Even though I don't think 7 Days Heroes does a lot to break any 2D action gameplay norms, there are a few things that make it unique. Since the four main heroes start the game separated, you can only control the main character and the dog at first. This is a good thing as the main character is the only one who is able to continuously attack at all times. This is done by way of the many guns he can equip, and reloading them comes at the cost of nanomachines. Nanomachines are what is causing the MAI's zombie outbreak, but our heroes can use them to their advantage. While you can technically run out of nanomachines if you're not careful, most levels will give you at least enough so you're able to complete them and perhaps spam easier levels for more. The boy with glasses can also attack, and he even has far more powerful weapons at his disposal. To balance things out a bit, their usage is limited on a per level basis. This means that his grenades and flamethrower can be used to clear touch enemies, but there's no way to refill them if they run out in the middle of a stage. The girl uses psychic attacks, and I found these only useful for solving puzzles or attacking when you absolutely can't move forward even one square. The dog pretty much only exists to do things like hit a switch or push a block, and can't attack on its own. The dog does have to ability to dash, and dashing can dodge most attacks. While you start as just the main character and the dog, you eventually get to play as several combinations of the characters, and eventually as all four. This not only leads to performance issues I'll discuss later, but also all sorts of annoyances like having to have all available characters with you in order to exit a stage. This means you'll often have to switch between them many times to clear a level, since they more than likely got stuck behind a wall somewhere. This issue can be compounded when the character you previously controlled is running backwards like mad to get to the character you're currently playing as. It's a really messed up system that is only partially fixed by a "wait" command you get early on. Rather than have them sit patiently, I'd have liked it more if their AI wasn't literal trash.

If only the dog could not get stuck.

I burn teddy bears in my free time.

There are seven sets of stages in the game, each representing a day. Each of these days is broken up into four smaller stages and a boss fight. Your job is to find a randomly placed key in each stage, and reach the exit with all current party members intact. Along the way you'll want to find that level's unique item, usually a new weapon for one of the characters, and try to collect all the nanomachines available. Though you're given what should be the full amount for each stage, I've noticed that some levels allow for you to pick up more than the stated max nanomachines. Any nanomachines picked up get placed into a pool you can use to upgrade or reload the main character's weapons, and you continue the process again in the next levels. Most stages are typical action platforming type deals, but you'll have to rely heavily on the character switching mechanic mentioned earlier. 7 Days Heroes can feel deceptively easy at times, but you'll often find yourself blindsided by tough enemies that come out of nowhere, and enemies placed in areas to specifically annoy players. Thankfully you're not being timed, so you can often clear even the hardest sections by taking things one at a time. As mentioned earlier, you can also upgrade the main character's weapons if you're having too much trouble taking out enemies, though the upgrades don't often feel worth the high cost of nanomachines. Getting hit can quickly lead to death as your invincibility frames seem to only last a fraction of a second, and seeing how most healing items are scattered about at random, you'll often find yourself dying more than you'd expect. There are mid-level checkpoints the pain a little, and you do get to keep items and nanomachines you've already picked up, but enemies will respawn too so it's not really an ideal situation to die close to the end of a level. All these gameplay quirks are made worse thanks to the slippery controls. You'll very rarely feel like your character's momentum is working as it should, and your double jump always seems to turn into a wall grab at the worst possible time. I'd complain about that last point more, but I'm pleased to say that there aren’t many sections that rely on precision platforming.

Doggo got on the elevator wrong.

Get used to this screen.

There's a lot of retro fun to be had in 7 Days Heroes, but at the end of the day I don't think it plays very well. The controls are far too loose, the hit detection is all over the place, and it can randomly turn to unfair out of nowhere. There isn't even a lot of balance when it comes to the bosses. Since your characters are the definition of squishy, most boss encounters will see you attack as quickly as possible, and hope that you get the boss before they get you. This wonky difficulty balance can also be seen in the levels themselves, where you'll sometimes find yourself facing multiple damage sponge tanks and helicopters that can kill you in a few hits. Also, while platforming is never really an issue, there are a lot of decisions in the level design that I simply can't get behind. One of the sets of stages sees you on the back of a truck being driven by the boy with glasses, and most of these operate as sort of stationary shooters. These levels are the worst in my opinion, and they almost made me quit the game. Falling onto the road is instant death, so that means the main character is useless for attacking anything that's not directly in front of him, and I also think it's impossible to pick up all the nanomachines in any of these stages as they'll simply fall into the road. Then there's the boss fight, which is the only one that requires any sort of tactics. I say "tactics", but I really mean that it just takes a stupidly long time to beat them since you can only attack it one hit at a time. These stages are followed up by a series of cave levels where the game suddenly decides it wants to be a sort of Metroidvania-lite game. These once again almost made me quit, but I persevered for the sake of the review. Honestly, I'm not sure it was worth it since all I got for my efforts was more chewed-up garbage text this game calls a story. Not everything here gameplay-wise is bad, but when it is, it's absolutely horrible.

While I'm not exactly a fan of the game's story or gameplay, I can say that one place where 7 Days Heroes shines decently bright is in its graphics. Everything is presented in retro-pixel glory, and there are even some cool lighting effects to be found in many of the levels. There is a sort of "sameness" to some of the enemies, but I guess that can be expected when you're dealing with what is essentially a zombie invasion. That small nitpick aside, the other character and enemy designs look great. I may not have been a fan of those driving sections, but I will admit that the Phoenix chase that starts the entire chain of events is one of the best-looking sprites in the game. This would all be well and good if not for the fact that the game manages to run very poorly on the Nintendo Switch. While I know that many factors go into why that would be the case, I can't help but question why a game that looks as simple as this one can't run at a consistent framerate. I'm usually not one to notice or complain about such things, but the game becomes almost unplayable when you enter the cave levels with all four party members. I'm not sure if it's the open layout of the stages themselves, or the fact that you'll easily hit the double digits number of on-screen characters once you factor in enemies, but only this review kept me playing. I'm not sure if this is an issue on other consoles, but considering the Switch is rather infamous for this kind of thing, I wouldn't be surprised if players on other consoles never had to deal with performance dips. I hope that a patch comes out to fix these issues, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

I kind of want to go to Walmart now...

The game runs like garbage in these sections.

You'd think that 7 Days Heroes could've just given players a healthy dose of 8-bit inspired music and called it a day, but I think they fumbled the ball here almost as badly as they did with the gameplay. Before I begin bashing the game's music, I want to point out that it's really not that bad, it's just very generic. I like to complain whenever a game mixes its music very low into the general sound mix, and that was my first problem here. I had to play around with the options until I could hear anything at a decent volume, and then I realized that it was probably purposely placed low into the background so you couldn't hear how lackluster everything is. There are a few good tracks, with the intro and first level themes being decent standouts, but most of them just seem uninspired. The way they simply exist without really moving along the gameplay made me wonder if they were just taken from a music library. Once again, I don't mean this as a fully bad thing, just that nothing stands out at all in a game that is already sliding down a slope when it comes to presentation. While obviously there isn't any voice acting here, there also don't seem to be a lot of sound effects either. Most effects are muffled and muddy, and others seem far too loud. This goes back to my issues with the overall mixing of the sound, but it made for a generally poor experience in the audio department. Seeing as how I often like to say great music can save a mediocre game, I was very disappointed when I came to the conclusion that everything here is forgettable at best, and borderline bad at worst.

If you know what you're doing, and if you're not concerned at all with weapon upgrades, you can probably beat 7 Days Heroes in well under five hours. I had some difficulty with certain sections of the game, so I grinded my way to full weapon upgrades. Doing that adds one or two hours to the overall time, most of which will I spent absentmindedly defeating the same boss over and over again while watching videos on YouTube. It can be a fun experience if not for the many issues I mentioned above, but there's very little reason to go back to the game once you complete it. There are optional items to find, and lots of nanomachines to collect, but those goals can easily be hit your first time through a level. I guess there is some difficulty playing the driving sections to perfection, but the less said about those the better. At just $9.99 I have to admit that the game isn't priced too high for the amount of content you get. Once again I don't know if I recommend playing it on the Nintendo Switch at the current time, but it's not a bad price point. There is the slight caveat to that price though, as the game only costs $3.99 on Steam. This isn't just a Switch Tax thing either, as it's nearly double that price (once again $9.99) for consoles. This is almost definitely a decision made by the publisher for reasons that I'm sure have to do with licensing, but it still bothered me.

This phoenix looks cool.

At least they're a great-looking bunch.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to recommending 7 Days Heroes. It's not a horrible game, but it's also not very good. It's poorly balanced, features a horrible translation, has some questionable gameplay mechanics, and there are entire sections that are near unplayable on the Nintendo Switch. All that said, there were some moments where I had a lot of fun with it, I just wish those moments lasted more than a few minutes. I guess if you can look beyond everything I've said, and can grab it on any platform other than the Switch, you're likely to find some enjoyment with it. Everyone else is probably better off playing any other retro-inspired 2D action game, as there are plenty of them out there.

Check Out 7 Days Heroes on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/7-days-heroes-switch/

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Story: C
Gameplay: C
Graphics: B+
Music/Sound: B-
Value: B

Overall: C

Pros:
+ A fun action game that features some light RPG elements.
+ The weapon and item upgrades make gameplay progression feel very smooth.
+ Blends run and gun action with simple puzzle solving really well.
+ Barring a few sections, the game offers a smooth challenge progression.
+ The game looks and sounds amazing.

+/- Though it would've required a lot of re-tooling, this game seems like it could've made for some neat multiplayer levels.

Cons:
- Has one of the worst translations I've seen in recent memory. It can often be hard to interpret what is trying to be conveyed.
- The character change mechanic can lead to some very annoying situations when the computer-controlled characters get stuck behind walls.
- Just about every level that takes place in the driving section is horrible and not fun to play.
- While I'm not sure about the other consoles, having all members available significantly slows down the game in some areas, rendering it nearly unplayable.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Time to hit up the mall!

#7DaysHeroes