REVIEW: Hero & Daughter+


Title	Hero & Daughter+
Developer	Tachi , KADOKAWA DWANGO CORPORATION
Publisher	Degica Games
Release Date	February 16th, 2016
Genre	RPG
Platform	PC / Steam
Age Rating	N/A
Official Website

I’ve always been a fan of 16 bit retro styled RPGs. I grew up with these things and would be hard pressed to count the endless hours I spent playing them as kid. So when our review manager came across this very unique looking RPG Maker title it caught my attention. When I saw you recruited a harem of women for party members I had to check this one out! The game is called Hero and Daughter+ and looked like it would scratch my retro itch nicely, though a Harem of Waifus and nice retro graphics can only take you so far. So the real question is, was it any good?

The story follows the hero of the land, Ralph. He vanquished the demon lord so many times he has become bored of it. The king of the land decided to help Ralph out in his search for a new challenge. He made it so the poor hero would always be stuck at level 1. That’s right; the main hero of this game never gains a single level. Soon the hero meets a strange man at the town pub who can summon women to fight by his side. The question is: can Ralph defeat the demon lord with his harem of awesome ladies?

The best part about this story is just how funny and quirky it is. They play off every RPG trope you’ve ever seen in your life and it works beautifully, from the item descriptions to the over the top personalities of the ladies, everything is just very well done. I have to give Degica Games a nod here for their fine localization work, everything is really well written and just a joy.

As for the graphics and sound, they are pretty much what you would expect to find in a game of this type. 16-bit styled sprites and some pretty catchy chip tunes do a nice job with the presentation. The best part was each girl has a hand drawn picture you see when your first summon them or when your affection level reaches a certain point. These pictures are pretty simple, but I thought they added a lot of character to each of the gals.

The gameplay here is pretty basic as you would expect from an RPG Maker game, but they still do some pretty interesting things with it. Since Ralph cannot level up you have to rely on your army of ladies to get the job done. There are over 30 girls in total, each with different skills and stats. So as usual, you will have to find the best equipment for each girl to get the best battle results. Though you can only have 3 girls in your party at a time and those that are benched do not gain experience, that doesn’t mean the girls left behind will get nothing. You can distribute Ralph’s gained experience to any of the girls you see fit when you’re back in town. Even if the poor hero is stuck at level one, it doesn’t mean he cannot increase his stats. You can order food at the town diner after coming back from exploring a dungeon to give him a permanent increase and they drop a lot of items in dungeons that do this as well. So while he does grow slower than the girls, he won’t be completely useless.

You will gain affection points with each of the girls as the game progresses. These are obtained by either giving the ladies gifts from the gift shop, or simply using them in battle. As these points increase it will trigger different events as you speak to them. I really enjoyed quite a few of the exchanges between Ralph and the ladies. They were just fun to read and made me want to gain more points to see what would happen next.

Your characters are not the only thing that gains experience in this one, your town levels up as well. As you purchase or sell items to the various shops in town you will gain experience points. Meanwhile, the ladies not in the battle party will have done odds and ends around town and gained you a few more EXP as well. As your town levels up there will be more items for you to purchase in the shops. The hero can buy various houses and decorate them with furniture, different wall and floor types, and more.

Now that we are leaving let’s head to the dungeons. They usually consist of around five floors. The map layouts are pretty basic, but they do vary a lot in style since they are randomly generated. Enemies will appear on screen so you can avoid encounters if you wish, and just like with any basic RPG there’s plenty of treasure lying around to be had. There are some special monsters to be found here as well, which are for the hunting quests found at the guild in town. There are several different monsters to hunt in each dungeon. The game will advise you of the recommended level to take on each before entering battle so you won’t get blindsided by a crazy boss. Then of course at the end of the dungeon is the dungeon boss. These battles can be a little tricky at times, but mostly just buff up and lay waste to them.

I have to say I really enjoyed my time with Hero and Daughter+. While there may not be anything groundbreaking here there is some great writing that had me laughing out loud several times and some fun retro styled RPG game play. I spent around 10 hours with this one and completed the first chapter, which is the main story of the game. I also did some of the extra content in the extra chapters. So depending on how much of this you want to do, I ‘d say you could get 20 to 25 hours out of this easily. Especially if you want to see all the events with girls. At the $9.99 price tag I find it hard not recommend this one to fans of classic RPGs or folks that like anime style harem games with great writing.