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Heroes of the Banner

Heroes of the Banner is a 2D browser-based tower defense game where players take on the role of the heroes of Freyja, tasked with defending a small city from Loki’s invading horde of monsters and demons.

Publisher: R2 Games
Playerbase: Low
Type: Tower Defense
Release Date: January 5, 2015
Pros: +Unique Gameplay. +Colorful art style. +Nine total hero classes.
Cons: -Rarest heroes only available through the cash shop. -Limited number of turns per day. -Heavy-handed cash shop. -Repetitive gameplay.

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Overview

Heroes of the Banner Overview

Take on the role of a blessed hero of Freyja and protect your city from Loki’s forces of darkness in Heroes of the Banner, a 2D browser-based tower defense game. Choose from three core classes with three specializations per class. Recruit other heroes to your team to help you take on wave after wave of enemy forces. Forge epic equipment and arm your hero as you fight to survive and protect your city from invading monsters and demons.

Heroes of the Banner Key Features:

  • Complex Defense Combination find the perfect combination of towers to successfully defend against both ground and aerial enemies.
  • Unique Class-Based Tower Defense Game choose from nine classes.
  • Party Formation pick the perfect team line-up to gain advantage over the enemy.
  • Item Enhancement and Forging make your hero stronger by forging your own equipment or by upgrading existing gear using a variety of enhancements.
  • Treasure Hunt use treasure maps to discover different weapons, gold, scrolls, medals, and more.

Heroes of the Banner Screenshots

Heroes of the Banner Featured Video

Heroes of the Banner - Official Trailer

Classes

Heroes of the Banner Classes

Each hero class has three specializations or incarnations:

Archer Class

  • Archer – can attack a single target and has the ability to increase their attack speed.
  • Druid - has multiple AoE skills and can stun enemies for a brief moment
  • Alchemist - has multiple AoE skills and can poison enemies for a period of time.

Mage Class

  • Flamemage – deals major damage to a single target.
  • Thundermage - has multiple combinations of AoE skills.
  • Frostmage – reduces movement speed of a single target.

Gunner Class

  • Gunner – has multiple AoE skills and can stun enemies for a brief moment.
  • Mechanic/Mechmaster – has multiple combinations of AoE skills.
  • Arbalester – deals massive damage to single targets from long range.

Full Review

Heroes of the Banner Review

By Toan Layne

Heroes of the Banner is a 2D fantasy browser-based strategic tower defense game developed and published by Reality Squared Games, also known R2games, a company known for their free-to-play browser games. The game went into open-beta on January 5, 2015 and can be played through the game’s official site.

The game is set in a mythical fantasy world based on Norse mythology, a setting those who have played Ragnarok Online should be familiar with. Players take on the role of Heroes of Freyja and are tasked with defending what’s left of civilization from a dark and shadowy end at the hands of Loki’s forces. They must protect their city from hordes of enemies while slowly expanding their territory as they work their way up to even more menacing demons and monsters. The game features colorful cartoony graphics and upbeat music and sound effects that appeal to younger audiences.

Waves of Destruction

The game starts with a quick tutorial that walks players through the basics of constructing towers and other gameplay elements, such as recruiting and gearing up heroes. During the tutorial, players are asked to complete a variety of objectives such as successfully eliminating a wave with a score of 3 stars. Successfully completing objectives rewards players with items, new abilities, units, and resources apart from the ones dropped by monsters during each attack wave. Each wave also rewards players with various items like treasure maps that reward players with random items as well as items that can be used to power up their heroes. Players can also go on Exploration missions to gain additional resources. During Exploration missions, players gain resources over time by gathering resources from mines. Players can only mine resources while online. Players can also attack other players during exploration missions which will be explained in detail later.

Defending the City                                                                                                       

Like most Tower Defense games, players defend their territory from waves of attacking enemies by constructing towers along their route. The goal is to prevent enemies from reaching the end of the lane where the city folk are huddling in fear. The player fails if ten city NPCs die during the round. Each map also offers a variety of challenges, such as multi-lane waves and limited tower construction sites. Don’t worry, if you fail, you can always restart the round. You can also replay successfully completed maps to collect more resources. Keep in mind that you can only attack if you have at least one Banner since every round uses up one Banner which regenerates by one point every hour.

The Heroes of Freyja

Heroes of the Banner adds RPG elements to the game with heroes that can be recruited from the city tavern. Players can summon up to 5 heroes a day for free. Additional heroes can be summoned using Summon Tomes. Summon tomes can be acquired as quest rewards or purchased in the cash shop using the game’s premium currency. Heroes come in three classes: Archer, Gunner, and Mages. Like most RPG’s, heroes can be equipped with weapons, armor, and accessories that can be obtained from loots or forged by the player. Equipment be made stronger with a variety of enhancements such as stones, gems, recipes, and orbs. Completing Main and Daily quests also rewards players with points that can be used to level up their heroes and improve their skills.

Testing your Strength

Players can test their strength against other players through the PvP arena which players can access upon reaching level 16. PvP combat pits one player’s line up of up to ten heroes against another player’s line up. The battle happens automatically with each team attacking alternately. Hero’s skills are cast by chance which is determined by the percentage shown on the skill’s description. Players receive a certain amount of green crystals corresponding to their rank when they participate in PvP matches. These crystals can be exchanged for special items in the crystal shop inside the arena and can only be acquired through PvP and should not be confused with blue crystals which is the game’s premium currency.

Players can also attack other players during Exploration missions by paying gold, similar to attacking players in Clash of Clans. Combat is the same as Arena PvP but rewards players with trophies and loot instead of green crystals. Again, much like Clash of Clans, the number of trophies a player has determines their rank. The higher the rank, the more rewards they receive as part of the game’s Daily Reward System. Having played dozens of browser-based strategy games like Pirates: Tides of Fortune and Siegelord, Heroes of the Banner is actually a breath of fresh air for browser-based games.

The Shop

Like most free-to-play games, Heroes of the Banner offers players willing to spend a little extra cash an advantage over the free playing community. Players can buy Crystals using real world cash to buy items from the in-game cash shop. The shop contains items players would normally find in other cash shops, such as additional resources and items to level up heroes and upgrade skills as well as forge equipment. Players can also exchange crystals to gain VIP status which gives them access to rare and powerful heroes. The rare heroes that players can acquire through VIP status easily outmatches every other hero in the game. Plus the ability to level up heroes by simply paying for it seems just a bit too much. While I understand that the developers need to make a bit of money through the cash shop, the items they offer seem a bit too powerful almost to the point of making the game pay-to-win.

The Final Verdict - Good

Heroes of the Banner is a good and simple game that capitalizes on tower defense’s addictive gameplay and adds a bit of flavor to the mix by introducing heroes and RPG elements. The game’s colorful visuals and upbeat sound also makes playing the game a fun experience. Overall, a good game that would definitely appeal to younger gamers—that’s not to say that more mature gamers can’t have a bit of fun with it as well.

Screenshots

Heroes of the Banner Screenshots

System Requirements

Heroes of the Banner Requirements

Operating System: XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Equivalent
Video Card: Any Graphics Card (Integrated works well too)
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 100 MB (Cache)

Heroes of the Banner is a browser based MMO and will run smoothly on practically any PC. The game was tested and works well on Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. Any modern web-browser should run the game smoothly. Heroes of the Banner is also available on Facebook.

Music

Heroes of the Banner Music & Soundtrack

Coming soon...

Additional Info

Heroes of the Banner Additional Information

Developer: R2 Games
Publisher: R2 Games
Platforms: Web (browser) and Facebook
Release Date: January 5, 2015

Development History / Background:

Heroes of the Banner is developed and published by Reality Squared Games, commonly known as R2Games. R2Games was founded in 2010 and is most well known for games such as Caesary, Crystal Saga, Wartune, and League of Angels. On January 5, 2015, R2Games released Heroes of the Banner, a free-to-play, browser-based tower defense game.