Hero Fighter is a Freemium Beat 'em Up game developed by Marti Wong of Little Fighter 2 fame, as a successor of sorts to the former. Compared to its predecessor, Hero Fighter expands on its gameplay while keeping the same basic structure and introducing an entirely new cast and setting as well as a defined story mode.
A mobile port, Hero Fighter X, was released in 2015, with a larger number of stages and unlockable characters.
The main game's development went on indefinite hiatus after version 0.7, leaving the story unfinished. Marti posted a message
to players of the game in 2021, citing a lack of time and resources to continue work on the game and a desire to prioritize the remaster of Little Fighter 2 (whose own development went silent in 2022, leaving the game's future development uncertain).
- Allegedly Free Game:
- Downplayed with the PC version, which includes a number of premium characters that can only be unlocked by upgrading to a premium account with real money, which will also unlock all characters for use without having to progress through the game; however, all other content is available to free accounts.
- Played straight with the mobile port, which significantly restricts the characters and stages you can play without shelling out money, though at least it's only a small one-time purchase to unlock everything as opposed to constant microtransactions.
- Character Level: Each character levels up from the player using them in battles, gaining increased stats per level.
- Command & Conquer Economy: In Battle Mode, players have to manually recruit units with earned gold. After being recruited, troops will automatically be replenished by spending gold if needed, but this can be disabled by the player.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Capturing a building in Battle Mode causes an explosion, which can damage enemies of whoever captured it.
- Expy: Several characters are unambiguously based on characters from Little Fighter 2, sharing similar moves and often designs:
- Drew is basically the Elite Mook Mark with a more fleshed-out moveset.
- Shawn is Henry the archer but with one of his moves swapped out (Henry's Sonata of Death is given to Sinan, while Shawn instead gets a Rain of Arrows move).
- Eason's moveset is an exact copy of Davis, while his Swordsman version is a carbon copy of Deep. Leo's moveset also takes cues from Deep.
- Iczzy is basically a blond Freeze, while Heater takes cues from Firen in his moveset and design.
- Taylor's appearance is based on John and he shares two of John's moves; his other two moves are Bat's laser and a version of Rudolf's cloning.
- Eyes Out of Sight: Most basic Mooks wear helmets or other headgear that keeps their eyes in shadow.
- Fat and Skinny: Titto and Giggs respectively, the first two Phoenix lieutenants you encounter. They proceed to often fight together later on in the story mode.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Phoenix Tribe's Big Three, Iczzy, Heater, and Raye, have ice, fire, and lightning powers respectively.
- Mounted Combat: The game has steeds that can be used by various characters, ranging from horses to dinosaurs. Some characters' skillsets make them more adept at fighting from horseback than others. Cavalry mooks also appear, and can be devastating in mass charges. They can be dismounted, causing their steed to run off before returning a while later.
- Resurrection Sickness: Heroes revive for free after 5 seconds in Battle Mode when defeated, but only for a certain number of times which can be increased by defeating enemies; after that, each revival will cost money. If the player does not have enough gold, they will automatically revive after 25 seconds instead, and with only a sliver of health.
- Sprint Meter: A new addition in this entry, this meter limits how much a character can run, jump, or dash.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: As taught by Gordon in the story mode: infantry beats archers by charging them en masse and fighting them at close range, archers beat cavalry by shooting them off their horses, and cavalry can break through crowds of infantry.
- Terrible Trio:
- Giggs and Titto are both subordinate to Sinan, a powerful witch and general for the Phoenix tribe.
- Iczzy, Heater, and Raye are a more equal example, though Raye does seem to have some authority over the other two.
- The War Sequence: Oh, yes! While its predecessor was already pretty good at portraying massive battles with lots of fighters on both sides, Hero Fighter caters much more heavily toward big, epic, Dynasty Warriors-style battles, though smaller head-to-head battles are still a playable game mode.
