Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 10, 2015

  I've been trying really hard to like this game from the moment that I started playing. With each passing encounter, with each newly introduced event, with each new NPC speaking and each logic flaw in either narrative or combat; my task grew to become harder and harder. Finally, I give up. This is the day that I'll leave an RPG unfinished. As the curtain opens, we watch a cinematic about a legendary artifact; the Sickle of Chronos being stolen. Then, we choose between two 12 year old siblings - one male and one female - to take as our character, and begin playing a pesteringly long, somewhat illogical and predictable prequel story. By the end of the prequel, our "hero" is given the "choice" of becoming the champion of one of the 9 Olympian Gods to compete in a contest. If she/he prevails, her/his one wish will be granted by the gods. To accomplish this deed, our hero is sent to the Island of Machantar to the main temple of his/her deity. After that point, our hero will venture out on an unending journey of hack & slash to acquire that accursed sickle. [i]Numen: Contest of Heroes[/i] is a single player 3D RPG in a run on the mill MMO model - which is based on fetch quests or killing a certain amount of monsters to get a certain drop - with the skill bar, mobs to kill and levels to gain. You slay monsters, gain level and loot, travel to new areas with tougher monsters and so on and on... which would be quite alright if it wouldn't be for a couple of downers. To begin with, the storyline is botched, with you always ending up aimlessly wandering around to try and discover "what to do next". Quest indicators fail to present pointers or direct towards locations. Any and all areas of the game are open, so it wouldn't differ whether you are level 20 or 80, you can always find a mob to get yourself killed by accidentally. There is a monstrous imbalance between classes; warrior being overpowering, mage being somewhat decent and archer being completely pointless. Skill and item usage are completely laggy; you end up pushing a hot key 2-3 times before the game decides to cast that spell and by then - guess what? - You are usually dead. There is no actual lore to gods or no differentiating factor between gods, so your choice of whomever you decided to follow there is somewhat irrelevant. The game fails to deliver any kind of authentic lore: there are Greek names and figures thrown around, bravo. As if that would be enough for a setting. Aside the main scenario - and a vague one at that - side quests are not many, and they end up popping around in completely imbalanced levels. Dialogue is forced, unimaginative and usually contains a couple of typos anyhow. Arena battles or tournaments rely on luck and how laggy your casting would be instead of actual skill and reflexes. Oh, and as far as atmosphere goes: graphics and textures are okay - with no facial or physical customization option for your character, and the soundtrack decides to take long pauses of silence as you play for no apparent reason. Phew, sorry. I hate being thoroughly this negative, but [i]Numen: Contest of Heroes[/i] would be a somewhat acceptable MMORPG. As a single player RPG, it fails to deliver either interest in story, any character or scenario involvement, decent game or combat mechanics or basically any good time. I remember having better time with [i]Metin 2[/i]. That was multiplayer at least. When I bought this game, it was on sale for 99 cents so it's not a big loss, but if you are interested in an Action RPG in a Greek Setting, [i]Titan Quest[/i] is most definitely a better choice. Good day. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ladystoryteller#curation]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!
• gamedeal user

  Jan 2, 2015

  I really like this game. It looked to me like an arena fighting game at first glance so I always ignored it. I bought it on sale for 79 cents on a whim and I'm sure glad I did. It looks like Titans Quest, but It plays very much like an MMO. Tab targeting, auto-attack, skills hotbar, camps of mobs you have to carefully pull, etc. If you aren't in to MMO-style combat, you may not like this. The combat reminds me of Vanguard and several others. Fights are quicker though, mobs your level usually die in 10-15 seconds. The leveling is relatively fast so far. I've been playing about 6 hours and am level 31. I did grind out a couple of levels once to make an area easier, but it only took about 10 minutes. A big plus for me is that there are 16 item slots, including four ring slots. I prefer many slots and slower upgrades rather than constant upgrades to 6 or 8 slots. One of the things I didn't like about it are the slow walking speed when you first start the game as a child. But once you leave the tutorial island and become an adult, the walking speed is very good. Another thing I don't care for is the day/night system. You have to find a campfire to rest, with the option of resting to restore stamina only, or until morning or evening. It seemed like I had to rest until night time to make one quest mob appear but there was no indication of this that I saw so I roamed around looking for him before trying to wait until night time. So far, this was the only time day or night mattered, other than picking some flowers on the tutorial island, and you are told to do that at night. The last thing is the save system. You can only save at one of the campfires. There are plenty of them around so this is not a big issue for me, but a "save anywhere" would be nice. I only went to the arena for a few minutes and it was kind of weird and not all that fun, so hopefully it'll be mostly optional. The graphics are on par with most MMO graphics and the sound is adequate but there is not a lot of music. Having finished all other RPG's that interest me, and being between MMO's at the moment, I'm having a lot of fun with this. I would have easily paid the full $7.99 for it had I realized what it actually was. Edit: 1) I finished the game in 13 hours at level 80. 2) The arena is optional. I never went there again and only lost a little favor with the gods for missing a tournament. 3) The night/day thing was not a big deal. There are 3-4 times someone or something will only appear at night. 4) A couple of the quests are a bit vague. I consulted a walkthrough a few times. 5) It did crash on me twice, both times after saving and entering a new zone. It was still probably the most fun I've ever had for 79 cents, and is well worth even full price, imo, if you can overlook a few minor issues.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2014

  Numen: Contest of Heroes basically plays like a single player MMO, complete with hotkey bar, ability cooldowns, and combat that doesn't feel like it's quite connecting. It isn't a great game, but it's at least a decent one, and well worth the huge sale prices I've seen it (currently $0.99 as I write this review.) I myself picked it up for $7.50 soon after release, and don't really regret it, though $5 or less is the sweet spot here IMO. The introductory / tutorial section is pretty boring, but persevere and the game becomes more enjoyable later. You start out as a kid, and through a few quests learn the basics of the three primary classes - Warrior, Archer and Mage. At the end of the tutorial you get to pick which of the three classes you want to become, and appear as a leveled up adult with only the abilities of the chosen class. At the same time you also pick which God to worship, granting you additional abilities and bonuses, which increase as you make your God more proud of you through your actions. Then it's standard fantasy RPG fare. You go on quests, trigger events which advance the plotline, unlock new areas and make more quests available, kill monsters to level up and get better loot, and eventually kill the final boss and beat the game. You encounter other heroes along the way and choose whether to help, hinder or ignore them. And there's an Arena tournament event where you can fight these heroes as well. The balance seems a bit off in some areas. A couple times you can be thrown into a new area severely underlevelled for the enemies, and have to grind before you can take on more than one of them at a time. Then 3/4 of the way through you find that 90% of your attacks are critical hits and enemies don't stand a chance as long as you don't get careless. Overall I'd recommend the game when it's on sale, though not at the base $9.99 price.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 29, 2016

  [b][i]Numen: Contest of Heroes[/i][/b] is a third-person hack & slash RPG. Having demonstrated enormous courage as a child, you are selected by a Greek God to be its hero and must compete against those of other Gods in order to find the Sickle of Kronos first. [b]Pros[/b]: You get to pick from a boy or a girl, although can't actually customize your appearance. When beginning the game, you are given the option of using different weapons, and your class is determined by the type you used the most. Your mastery of any weapon comes from using it. Each of the three classes allows you to pick from three different Gods to be the champion of, so the game offers a total of nine sets of spells and powers. There is a large variety of equipment you can find (common, enchanted, rare and unique) and may equip up to 16 at a given time. Some of the items you find are only good for one gender, but can be refitted to your character. Rather than being class-specific, items are attribute-specific, meaning a mage that works strongly enough on its Strength will be able to use that badass sword usually meant for Warriors. Graphics are ok, most textures are pretty good, and each piece of equipment have a different look on your character. [b]Cons[/b]: The writing is bad: sure, I spotted several typos and even apparent missing words, but the bland story itself is badly written with many mistakes about Greek mythology (example: Neptune is NOT a Greek God), you never actually feel like you're playing in Greece. The game lags and drops in frame rate when looking too far away. Combat is uninteresting, you click on the opponent once and look at the character fight, this game should've been an isometric hack & slash, but that would probably make the tiny size of the maps too obvious, or the comparison to [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/475150][i]Titan Quest[/i][/url] (a much better Greek mythology RPG) too easy. There is little to no development, interactions with other champions are very limited and fighting them in arena battles is lackluster. The game is short, very few main or side quests, no branching paths, save a few short class-specific quests in the early game. The game itself would be over quickly if you didn't spend that much time grinding for levels, the first few hours of which is so tedious that I almost stopped playing (although the grinding got less annoying a few hours in). [b]Verdict[/b]: ★★☆☆☆ - Forget it I've seen worst, but it doesn't excuse [i]Numen: Contest of Heroes[/i] from being an uninteresting game that offers no surprise, no excitement, and no replay value. If you have it in your library AND have the patience to tough it through the boring introductory level, you might as well play through it to get it over with, but I otherwise don't see how I can recommend to someone to purchase this. ————————————————————————— [i][b]This was just my opinion.[/b] If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/CJsOpinions/]reviews[/url].[/i]
• gamedeal user

  Dec 24, 2013

  Well the game not that bad however the market offers a lot betters of the same genre. You know the feeling of ''hmm there is something amiss here'' ,well you are condemned to feel it often here. Dead atmosphere, boring gameplay, even a few hours of gp is enuff to get it uninstalled unless you had anything better to do.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 17, 2013

  Ever wondered what it would be like to play a generic MMO with no other players? Well, that's basically Numen.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 22, 2014

  At best this relic should be sold at the $2-3 price point. The animations, skills and flow of combat are all rather poor. No reason to get this unless you've played Torchlight 1/2, Van Helsing, and other similar titles to death and need a arpg fix, but be forwarned that there is little substance in this title.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 13, 2021

  Numen: Contest of Heroes is a short action RPG from 2010 whose Metacritic score is only slightly higher than its current Steam rating (50%). It often goes on sale for $1.00 or less, which is when I picked it up. Despite the mixed to negative reviews, the mythical Greek atmosphere attracted me enough to take the small risk. I should note that I have a high tolerance for lower-reviewed or lower-quality games; as a little girl, some of my favorite games came out during a great time of innovation for gaming, with hits [i]and[/i] misses ('90s, early '00s), so I tend to like trying games that fail to convince others. Beating these types of games feels like a whole different kind of achievement since so many abandon them. I'm really glad I played Numen. It's a ridiculously short game, which I didn't expect; I beat the entire game in 15.3 hours, which included completing most side quests and getting lost in the minotaur labyrinth for over an hour. The labyrinth seems to be the most memorable part of the game for most given its difficulty; you are placed in a dark maze without the map function and must get through it, defeat a minotaur, and escape, all without the map. Rather than frustrate me, this only motivated me to make a hand-drawn map and create my first-ever guide for this section of the game, which I will include below in case anyone ever needs it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2454816512 Numen's story is generic. The characters aren't memorable, and there aren't many of them to begin with. Numen has a lot of great ideas that aren't implemented to the fullest (gaining your god's favor, tournaments, travel system, etc.). I had no glitches, though the game did crash once, but I had recently saved so it mattered none. It [i]is[/i] a beautiful game, with diverse and interesting locales to traverse. There are three play styles: warrior, archer, and mage. The game told me that whatever I ended up using the most as a child would be my adult class, so I used all three in the first section of the game to see if I could create a hybrid. I couldn't; the game classified me as a warrior and removed my mage/archer abilities, so that was a little disappointing. The game's so short it doesn't end up mattering much, since it doesn't give you time to "miss" other play styles, and you can unlock new abilities for your class all the time given how quick leveling is. I beat the game at level 75 or so, and I have no recollection of leveling up 74 times, so I have no idea if the game starts you out at a higher level or not. Everything in Numen feels like it goes at super speed; you're done with a map in two quests or less, you level up every handful of enemies or so, and awesome loot is dropped so often you never have to pay for equipment at a trader. In many respects, this makes Numen significantly easy. Given Numen's low difficulty (other than the minotaur level [i]and[/i] its battle) and short play time, this game is a perfect choice to play when you feel like exploring/fighting in an RPG game without having to put much effort or thought into it. Overall, I get why Numen isn't the highest-rated RPG in the world, but that it is rated at 50% baffles me. I think this deserves a 60% or so, and that's around where I would rate it on a scale. I enjoyed it. It was short, allowed me to gawk at gorgeous vistas and explore a little taste of mythical ancient Greece, all without requiring too much of my time. Is Numen worth full price ($7.99 at the time of this review)? Although I got more than the $1/hour of playtime out of it, I would say wait for a sale. Half off? Sure. If it's on sale for $1.00 or less, absolutely! Get it and jump into it when you're feeling a bit lazy but want to play an RPG, particularly if you're forgiving of flawed games. Numen is perfectly competent. I probably won't go back to it, but I enjoyed my time with it.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 3, 2014

  If this game was free, I might've felt better about playing it. I thankfully got it on sale for very cheap, but I'm still unquestionably disappointed. After one playthrough, anyone would be able to notice that this game has many, many faults. Pretty unforgivable faults, [b][u]especially since it's so expensive[/u][/b] (relative to the quality, that is): Bland textures and animations, dull, boring gameplay, and a silly, confusing storyline. The developers made the mistake of substituting true, engaging gameplay moments--quests, fights, anything--for easy-to-implement, overdone bloat. I'm talkin' fetch quests, more or less forced grinding, and unintuitive mechanics. I think there was a very small few fun moments, but... they aren't even remotely as abundant as the bland moments. On top of all this, this game's ending is... awful. Just awful. It's honestly, sincerely pathetic. Like, if you're a game developer or wish to become one, I'd recommend you [strike]play this game just to see the ending[/strike] find footage of the ending and see a perfect example of how NOT to end a game. An abysmal ending on top of an already mostly mediocre game? Sounds like rubbish to me. It's sad, too, because I really wanted to like it. An under-the-radar RPG with a Greek mythological setting? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this did [b]not[/b] deliver. At all. Stay away from this.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 28, 2014

  I will only reccommend this game to people playing RPGs on a budget. I'm sure you can get this game for a dollar during a sale, and I'd say it's worth it at that point. Besides that, it's a low-budget, not quite horrendous but still not-good RPG with an ancient Greek aesthetic. For some reason, it plays exactly like an MMO in spite of its being single-player only, and the titular contest comes down to you dueling one or two NPCs over the course of the game. But if the struggle is real, there are far worse games to spend a dollar on.