School Hero

Play it on: Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Experience some mega-powered excitement!

If there’s one word I think is overused in mainstream game reviews, it’s “polish.” It’s become this kind of undefined catch-all, with the phrase “a lack of polish” letting a writer broadly gesture at a game’s apparent flaws and create a vague suggestion of roughness or jank of a sort that, we’re meant to understand, brings the whole game down. It’s not that I think refinement and elegance of design are never important or valuable, but I also don’t think they’re always all that crucial. In fact, there may even be games for which a “lack of polish” contributes to the texture of the overall experience in ways that make it more distinctive and memorable. In any case, I’m not expecting much “polish” from the new beat ‘em up School Hero, but what it lacks in that regard, I suspect it will more than make up for in sheer enthusiasm.

Released on Steam in January and currently possessing just 25 Steam reviews, School Hero only caught my eye because Twitch retro streamer Macaw45 played it recently and was blown away. As he writes in his own Steam review,

This game is full 10/10. It’s got some bugs and jank but it doesn’t matter at all because the combat is meaty, satisfying and fun. The constant levelling up and getting more powerful is also mega satisfying and fun. More importantly the stage design is utterly incredible, with new stuff being thrown at you like every 30 seconds in every level that never ever makes it boring or tedious, it’s always exciting and fun and interesting and good and waaaaay better in this aspect than lots of other recent beat-em-ups.

One thing I love about Macaw is that, like me, he’s often more concerned with a game’s energy and enthusiasm than with its refinement. That doesn’t mean we always agree, far from it, but his responses to games are always genuine and rooted in his own personal tastes, and I appreciate that. Anyway, I watched enough of him playing School Hero to know that I have to check it out for myself. Incredibly, the game is just four bucks. Worth taking a chance on, I think, if you have any affection for old-school beat ‘em up action. — Carolyn Petit