35 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 218.4 hrs on record (4.7 hrs at review time)
Posted: 23 Jul, 2022 @ 3:14am
Updated: 3 Aug, 2022 @ 1:25pm

Early Access Review
EDIT: Full* Review is here! (Original review at bottom)

An Idle Game That Will Stand With The Greats

Where to begin? Incremental Epic Hero 2 (IEH2) is a very deep Idle game, that I believe rivals the best in the genre. The game is still currently in development, but it already has a phenomenal amount of content to pursue.

All Systems, Go!

IEH2 features a wealth of overlapping systems. Each benefiting the player's progression in their own right, and generally synergizing with many of the other systems. I simply cannot go into great depth on each of the systems within this review. There's too much to cover, already.

In general, the player will maintain a party of characters, each of which grows in power individually. You may actively play as one character while other characters (through an unlocked feature) play passively in the background.

As your characters level up, they will gain proficiency in skills/abilities that will unlock new skills down the road. The combat/battles will run on their own, but you can engage with them actively by manually moving your character, changing out equipment, consumables, and swapping skills on the fly.

Equipment is a huge system within the game. Every character can gain proficiency with each item in the game. When a character masters an item, they unlock a passive bonus for that item that will benefit any subsequent wearer of the item. In addition, when a character levels up their proficiency with an item, the item itself levels up, gaining an increase to its stats. These levels stack as each of your characters wear the item. Rotating an item through the entire suite of characters will offer HUGE advantages (and not just simple stat increases).

Beyond all of that there are systems for Alchemy, Pets, a Guild system that benefits your entire party, a Town system that also benefits your entire party with several distinct bonus to many systems/sub-systems, and many others.

Like I said, I just can't say it all here. Get in there and get your hands dirty. There's SO. MUCH. STUFF. to explore, learn about, and tinker with. It's freaking great!

The Loop

As many of you likely know, most Idle/Clicker games revolve around a reset/loop mechanic, in which you will trade in your immediate progress for some sort of meta-progression.

In IEH2, there are currently two systems at play.

Rebirth, is a system wherein you reset your active character. You lower their level back to 1, but are given points to exchange for things like, bonus EXP, taking more quests, gaining more resources, and more. Eventually, you will reach higher Tiers of Rebirth which demand deeper runs, BUT offer even more incredible progression bonuses, like being able to use more skills at once, or boosting lower tiered Rebirth's bonuses!

The other system is World Ascension! This is the casual filter. Reaching your first World Ascension takes real effort and commitment. I'm not even there, yet! This, as you might have guessed, resets the entire world. The reset includes things like your Town, Guild, Items, Alchemy, and more. HOWEVER, there are many features that persist through the ascension, giving you a massive boon when resetting. In addition, like the Rebirth mechanic, each World Ascension will garner points that you can allocate into uber bonuses. Also, like the Rebirth mechanic, World Ascensions also have Tiers, which each subsequent Tier giving even greater rewards.

So What's The Verdict?

Incremental Epic Hero 2 is a massive addition to the Idler/Clicker genre. It will easily stand with the greats. There is such a grand sense of progression, power gain, and achievement when reaching new heights within the game. This is the game that made me uninstall NGU, and Melvor. The developer is active, diligent, and expanding the game consistently. There are already a myriad of QoL features within the game. The community for the game is lively, positive, helpful, and fun to engage with. I just can't recommend this game enough. And the best part? You can play it, right now, for free. Honestly, I'd pay a fair chunk of change for this game. It's a stellar title, and when the full feature set is complete, you'll be upset to have not started playing it earlier. Get in now, and enjoy the ride. This is an idler that you can play for a long time, always feeling like you can set achievable goals, and always feeling a great sense of accomplishment when you reach them, with ample rewards waiting for you when you do.

A masterpiece in the making.

My original review is below:

What's with the negative reviews?

I also just started NGU and that game has the exact same shop where a ton of things are gated behind a special currency you very slowly accumulate over time. It also has even more DLC, as far as amount spent goes.



So when NGU does it it's one of the greatest idlers of all time, but IEH2 gets flamed for it? I don't get it.

I'm not very far in and will update this review once I'm much deeper within the systems. So far it's pretty amazing. Lots of things to do, goals to push for, and systems to learn. I just wanted to balance out the negative reviews until I get to the point where I can write a proper review.
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8 Comments
Juniper Seed 7 Sep, 2022 @ 11:55pm 
I really don't understand what the point is here. Originally the majority of negative reviews were all about the shop and I was just making a point at the hilarity of how one game was cherished and loved in spite of its monetization whereas another wasn't.

On your other points, the systems are all pretty useful from the get-go. I would certainly hope that they're more useful further down the line, otherwise it'd make for a bad idle experience. Progression is fine. Slow progression is practically an inherent quality of idle games that are worth a damn. Crashes? So what? Bugs get fixed.

Needless to say, the game is solid, even without all the content being completed.
Sephiroso 7 Sep, 2022 @ 5:46pm 
Did you even read the negative reviews? Most if not all the negative reviews say nothing about the shop. They all mention slow progression, multiple crashes even after latest update, and systems that don't really help much until much later.

Your analogy of NGU does it and is good so IEH2 should be good too doesn't hold. Just because a clone pops up doesn't mean they did everything the original did to the same level. Need to look no further than the thousands of WoW clones that lacked the attention to detail/polish original WoW had.
TheLilaDoez 30 Jul, 2022 @ 10:17am 
I seen a lot of complains about the this game and honestly, now you mention NGU, it is quite ironic. I was already going to give this a try (because I don't lose anything) but this review makes me wanna give it more of a try : D
Dude, Where Is My Beer!?✝ 23 Jul, 2022 @ 11:14am 
wow!:csgohelmet:
Don't mind me, just passing by 23 Jul, 2022 @ 8:10am 
@Lil Doom Vil
Some basic functionalities are still missing on Steam, sadly.
Lil Doom Vil 23 Jul, 2022 @ 7:02am 
I couldn't give the previous comments thumbs ups, so I'm saying it here.
Juniper Seed 23 Jul, 2022 @ 4:05am 
I agree.There's good out there if you know where to find it, but sometimes it feels like meme/twitch toxic culture has taken over.
Don't mind me, just passing by 23 Jul, 2022 @ 3:47am 
To be fair, the "gaming community" is probably way more toxic and entitled than it's ever been before.