Class of Heroes 3 Remaster Review

Have you ever wanted to be in a school for heroes, building friendships while going on quests? If you have, but have no interest in Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery, then Class of Heroes 3 Remaster from developer ACQUIRE Corp. and Zerodiv could be the title for you. The question is whether this is your ideal school or if your second choice might be a better option.

Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is, as you guessed, a remaster of the original game that came out on the PSP and PlayStation 3 in 2010. The original game never got a release outside of Japan, so, for the majority of people, this will be a first-time experience. The game has you choose from three different schools: Draken Academy, Preciana Institute, and Takachiho College. These schools not only change the uniforms your character wears, but they’re also the game's difficulty settings.
 

However, and this will be a running theme here, it’s really unclear in what manner they are the difficulty. The descriptions of each college are colourful, but they lack anything to simply differentiate what the choice will mean in terms of gameplay. With that in mind, I selected Preciana as it had the best colour scheme.

Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is split into two distinct sections: you have the school, and you have dungeons. The school serves as your basic hub: you can build your team, buy new equipment, plus use alchemy to forge and upgrade your items. This is also where you’ll talk to the majority of teachers and other, non-playable, students.

The other part of the game is the dungeon crawling, which is certainly different from what I would expect. The entirety of the crawling is viewed in the first-person, and you move through the map using WASD or your controller. The odd part is that the Class of Heroes 3 Remaster utilises tank controls, meaning you walk forward, or you can turn, that’s about it. This is fine on long stretches, but if you bump into anything, some of the characters in your party gasp in pain, which gets old really quickly.

As you explore, you’ll eventually be attacked by groups of monsters. In the dungeons, you will have a full team of six characters, which you can set in the front or back. One thing to note is that there are over 45 classes across 10 different races in Class of Heroes 3 Remaster. Some of these classes you can get the gist of, while others, like “Little Brother”, are a bit harder to comprehend. For simplicity's sake, you can simply think of them in generic RPG terms. You have fighters, tanks, mages, healers, and archers.

The combat is pretty simple: you select each of your characters, then choose to attack, use magic, or use a special skill. However, it gets more complicated as it goes on, and while it is tempting to just spam, there is a fair bit of thought that goes into planning your turns. While you could just hit attack while spamming fireball, you will find that you start doing less damage as you are not playing the game as you should by taking into account the different systems.

This is important primarily because Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is damn hard, trust me on this. Your characters might appear to have a lot of health, but they will lose it quickly, plus the enemy rarely attacks you in groups of two or three. Instead, you could be up against eight or more, and any singular enemy is going to be very tough.

You’re also not going to have great weapons, armour, or even all that many items for a long time. This means that things like long-lasting status effects, MP management, and losing a team member will punish you, as you’re often forced to leave the dungeon you’re in to solve the problem. On top of that, there’s no autosave function, really, plus the save system can be a bit buggy. For instance, I saved in one area, died in another, then, when I reloaded the game, I was back in the school with all of my party members having vanished into the ether. 

You have to build your team properly, while also forging the connections between them. How this works is that you can forge a positive connection, or link, between two members of the party, but in doing so, you have to forge a negative relationship with another member. These links allow for special abilities and attacks, so there is a reason to have both positive and negative attachments.

Outside of class, you can also equip your team with a staggering number of different options. You have somewhere around 1,500 different weapons and items to find, craft, or buy, which can make it difficult to pick the ideal loadout. With that being said, most equipment is really just a difference in number, so it’s simpler than the number implies.

Visually, Class of Heroes 3 Remaster is very anime – and I mean very anime. All the character models look fine, and the attack animations are decent enough, but if you do not like the art style, then the game will not be for you. One other thing to note, there is no English voice acting, although there is little to no voice acting at all, so I hope you like reading.

So, what we have here is a complex dungeon crawler with a light social element, which I can certainly see the appeal of investing in, but honestly, I did not have much fun. The issue is that while the combat has its moments, the amount of time some fights can take makes you want to speed through encounters, and that can screw you up. There’s also the fact that your actual team, including the students you create, don’t really have any character. Sure, you can build connections, but there are no story changes, so really, you’re doing it for the mechanics more than for a love of the characters.

So, if you’re looking for a challenge and you love the older dungeon crawler design with a strong challenge, then Class of Heroes 3 Remaster might be for you. However, if you’re looking for something more Persona 5-like with in-depth connections or stories, this isn’t what you’re looking for.