♪Sleeping with my armor on
Was really for the best-
Now I won't have to waste my time,
I'm ready for this quest!♪
Was really for the best-
Now I won't have to waste my time,
I'm ready for this quest!♪
— The Hero
Songs For A Hero (translated from its Portuguese title, "A Lenda Do Herói") is a Brazilian sidescrolling platformer by Dumativa Game Studio, an Affectionate Parody of 8-16 bits platform games based on the eponymous Web Animation shorts made by the YouTube channel Castro Brothers. It's a classic fantasy story with a twist: the knight who's questing to save a princess narrates everything he does in song, including the player's specific actions: from finding secret paths to staying for too long at the same spot, everything is commented in song form.
The game's English localization was released in May 2020; the original Portuguese version was released in March 2016.
In 2022, a sequel called Songs for a Hero 2: March of Malachi (A Lenda do Herói: A Marcha de Malaquias) was announced, featuring the Internet humourist and musician Lucas Inutilismo. The story is set to happen many years after the events of the first game and will have different protagonists, although the musical narration and mechanics will continue.
This game includes the following tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The entire game can be considered this to the four original Castro Brothers' web videos, dividing each of the levels into three acts and providing a full story, characterization, additional levels, world building, lyrics etc..
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The Giant Scorpian boss battle. It involves the boss chasing the Hero through a linear path, full of traps and enemies the player must avoid. If the Hero is too slow, the boss causes damage.
- Affectionate Parody: The game frequently parodies and pokes fun at several classic elements of Sonic and Mario-like platform videogames through the narration, like enemies dropping coins and NPCs repeating lines, at the same time that it also is a passionate homage to the genre as well.
- Anthropomorphic Shift: The Giant Scorpian boss from the fourth level was simply a normal, if giant scorpion in the original web videos. However, he got a more anthropomorphic look in the game proper, where he gets a visible human-like face and looks more like Scorpion People.
- Attack Its Weak Point: This is the standard way of defeating several Bosses in the game, with the Hero waiting until the Boss is vulnerable to cause damage on a weak point.
- Big Bad: The Terrible Villain is a powerful evil sorcerer responsible for kidnapping the princess and creating some of the adversities the Hero faces. Subverted Trope when he turns out to also be manipulated as a part of an alien experiment orchestrated by the true main antagonist, Papa Bidi.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Lava Spider and the Giant Scorpian are both giant arachnids that are the main threat of their respective levels.
- Cute Slime Mook: Smiling green slimes are one of the enemies in the game from the third level and beyond, hurting by contact. They can be frozen into ice cubes to be used as platforms in the sixth level and put on fire to lighten dark places (though they are immune to fire attacks on themselves).
- Death Mountain: World 5 is this as it is at a mountain which is home to boars, eagles and other critters you’d find on the mountain top.
- Deconstructive Parody: Many video game cliches are portrayed with the character remarking on their existence and absurdity, but eventually, a ridiculous reason is given for them near the end: aliens using powerful alien technology were using Earth as a laboratory and creating these battle snakes, floating platforms, causing people to speak in bubble-sounds, and doing other things.
- Double Jump: The Hero gains this ability after finding a scripture in act two of the fifth level, being capable of giving one extra jump in mid air with half the height of the normal one.
- Floating Platforms: The Hero finds several floating platforms throughout the game, which shocks him."Could I be losing my sanity?
Or does this truly defy
The laws of gravity?" - Forest of Perpetual Autumn: The second act of the first level "Not so Greenish Hills" is set in a bush with autumn-based vegetation, with a color palette much more inclined to orange than the other acts. This is lampshaded by the Hero himself, who wonders in song form how could so much time have passed since he passed through the last phase, which was still green. He gets confused again in the third act "Venomous Fortress", where the foliage is green once more.
- Giant Spider: The Lava Spider, a plus-sized arachnid boss fought in a volcano.
- The Great Serpent: The first boss is the gigantic Queen Cobra who can spit fireballs and repeatedly tunnels in and out of the arena trying to chomp on the hero.
- Green Hill Zone: The first world is this as it’s first and second levels are called "Greenish Hill" and Not-So-Greenish Hill".
- Heel–Face Turn: The final boss of the main game helps in the epilogue levels.
- Informed Species: The Queen Cobra looks nothing like a cobra (she doesn't have a hood, for starters). She looks more like a generic serpent.
- "I Am Great!" Song: The hero mostly sings about how courageous and clever he is.
- Jungle Japes: World 2 is a jungle with a whole lot of trees. It’s also home to a lot of critters that call this place home.
- Lampshade Hanging: The subject of much of the hero's singing is the many strange things he encounters along his journey.
- Mythology Gag: In the earlier versions of the game, the minimalist avatar in the World Map looked like the Hero's original design from the web videos.
- One-Winged Angel: The Terrible Villain turns into a dragon during the second phase of his boss battle.
- Shifting Sand Land: World 4 is a desert that’s got cacti and you’ll come across a mirage of an oasis. There’s even a Egyptian pyramid in the middle of said desert, which contains (You guessed it) mummies.
- Snakes Are Sinister: The only enemies in the opening levels are various types of snakes and their boss, the fire-spitting Queen Cobra. Dart traps are also decorated with stone serpents, implying the snakes built them somehow."I am a mighty warrior
But no matter how hard I try
Whenever I touch a snake, I feel
I am going to die..." - Speaking Simlish: Minor characters 'speak' in indecipherable bubble-sounds that are subtitled. The hero lampshades that he can't hear the words, but understands their meaning anyway. He himself is obligated to speak in this way after being stricken by a red lightining in the eighth level."Your voice is weird
Doesn't sound like you're speaking
But for some reason
I can understand the meaning" - Underground Monkey: The basic green snakes from the first level have many variations, abilities and colors across the game: fire-breathing red ones, more resilient armor-wearing yellow ones, flying serpents with a darker tone of green, ice-breathing blue ones and Aztec-esque purple ones in the epilogue, not to mention the larger barrel-spitting ones and their leaders, the Queen and King Cobra. The variations are implied in the fifth level to be the green snakes modified by mysterious red lightings later revealed to be caused by the aliens.
- Weredragon: The Terrible Villain shapeshifts into a dragon as the final part of his boss battle, now called, appropriately enough, Terrible Dragon. He turns into a human once again when he is defeated.
- Yeti: One shows up as the boss of the winter stage, expectedly, and it's large enough to take up most of the screen while trying to pummel the player hero. Smaller Yetis also show up as enemies in the third act of the same level and in the final level at the spaceship, harming the Hero with ice crystals.
