Video Game / Not a Hero

Literal battles on a campaign trail!

"Bunnylord has travelled back in time to falconpunch crime in it's depressing balls! The rabbit needs you to vigurously murderize stereotypical (and somewhat xenophobically casted) crime bosses: Bogdan Nabatov, Akemi Unagi, and Upgraydd!"

— Launch Trailer

NOT A HERO is a pixellated indie platformer and cover shooter developed by Roll7 and published by Devolver Digital. You play as Steve, a former assassin turned campaign manager, set out by Bunnylord, a purple anthropomorphic rabbit from the future, to clean up the city by shooting crime in the face. Taking on additional crew members as the campaign picks up steam, Bunnylord and Co shortly find themselves murdering their way through gangs and police officers alike in the pursuit of winning him the Mayorship.

The gameplay is essentially cover-based shooting in glorious 2.25D, where combat consists of gunning down enemies, moving into cover, and sliding into enemies to score a quick execution. You have infinite ammo but can also collect various secondary weapons (usually a grenade). Additionally, primary weapon powerups tend to last until you reload. There are nine playable characters, each with a gameplay-affecting gimmick.

Following the success on PC, the game saw an "Super Snazzy Edition" on Xbox One, complete with exclusive content that allows you to play as Bunnylord and gives three exclusive missions wherein he travels through time and tries to fix things. The DLC was later ported to PC as "Me, Myself and Bunnylord."

Interestingly, the developers of Broforce considered NOT A HERO what their game would have become if it was English. The soundtrack is also a cocktail of music found on Bandcamp similarly to Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. View the Steam launch trailer here and the (much milder) Xbox One trailer here.

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NOT A HERO contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Samantha and Kimmy.
• Affably Evil: To a man, Bunnylord's Fun Club are all dangerous killers, but they're quite friendly to the player in the character selection screen and have a lot of humorous dialogue.
• Afro Asskicker: Stanley. He even keeps spare magazines and a knife in it.
• Anticlimax Boss: Bogdan doesn't have time to even get out of his chair before Bunnylord starts bludgeoning him to death.
• Anti-Hero: Referenced by the game's title. Bunnylord, and by extension the player, fights crime for the sole purpose of getting votes.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Characters often have their pros and cons listed as this. For example, Samantha's stats are "run and shoot", "run and reload", "fast executions", "inaccurate when moving" and "Welsh".
• Artificial Brilliance: Enemies will advance on your position when they see you reloading, which is sometimes indicated by their dialogue.
• Badass Longcoat: Samantha wears one.
• Bilingual Bonus: The slide introducing Bogdan Nabatov during one of the briefings has a line written in Russian, "ПРИВЕТ РУССКОЯЗЫЧНЫЕ", which translates to "HELLO RUSSIAN SPEAKERS".
• Boom, Headshot!: The result of a critical hit.
• Boring, but Practical: Steve, since he has no real special ability beyond being a Jack of All Stats, but is still a very useful character.
• Bowdlerise: The Xbox One trailer trades the facetious, off-colour humour and strong language, and instead opts for milder alternatives, presumably so it can earn a milder rating and marketed towards younger audiences. Examples include trading the shock cancer punchline for the term "respiratory problems", using a non-swearing alternative to the term "shit a brick", and censoring the appearance of cartoon testicles alongside a disclaimer:
  IMAGE OF TESTICLES CENSORED DUE TO THE RIDICULOUS NOTION THAT OUR NAKED BODIES ARE MORE OFFENSIVE THAN THE GRATUITOUS VIOLENCE THAT PERMEATES EVERY PART OF OUR TERRIBLE CONSUMER CULTURE.
• BFS: Bunnylord uses one during his Duel to the Death with Akemi.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The flavors of milkshakes served at Aunt Ruby's. Bunnylord's PowerPoint at one point shows three of them: Vanilla, Strawberry, and Wombat/Turtle.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Bunnylord is not normal at all, as you can see in mission briefings alone.
• Corrupt Politician: Bunnylord is willing to do anything to gain votes, even going as far as to murder his opposition. Even his ostensibly good deeds, like saving hostages and busting drug trades, are just PR work.
• Critical Hit: Being near an enemy when you shoot performs one, complete with the enemy's head blowing up.
• Cute and Psycho: Bunnylord.
• Defiant to the End: When Steve is killed, he'll give the "slit throat" gesture to the one who killed him before dying.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Mike, the fastest character in the game, has an extremely quick execution which doesn't take up ammo. However, his gun only has two shots, and while it can kill most enemies in one he's still vulnerable while reloading. Most special ammo is also either not much use or completely redundant for him. If a player is skilled, he's one of the better characters, but there are still situations he struggles with.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: Only Samantha can move and shoot or reload at the same time, everybody else has to stop to do either. Jesus can shoot while sliding, but can not reload while sliding as well.
• Duel to the Death: The final battle with Akemi.
• Elite Mooks: The large mooks with machine guns are immune to slide tackles, have more health than other mooks, and can push you back easily with a shot or punch. Quite noisome when you don't have a grenade.
  • The Yukata enemies fire very quickly and can teleport whenever they get hit.
  • As can the foxheads in the DLC.
  • Samurai and ninjas. Both of them can kill in one slash. Both are very fast, and bullets don't slow them down. The latter can dodge and roll away from bullets.
• The End of the World as We Know It: According to Bunnylord, if he isn't elected mayor, then the world will end in some non-specific way. Once he's elected mayor, Bunnylord's future self arrives to tell him that he actually needs to be elected to more powerful positions to prevent the apocalypse, until he's finally elected "Global Megalord".
• Exploding Barrels: Red barrels are explosive. Occasionally, the player can use its blast force to launch to other parts of the level.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Jesus is constantly hip thrusting at all times, and according to Bunnylord, will dry hump anything.
• Faceless Goons: Some mooks wear bandanas over their faces.
• Falling Damage: If you fall for too long, your character will hit the ground with a sickening crack, and be unable to continue.
  • Despite the voice lines and message about broken legs, the characters actually land on their face. Their legs don't touch the ground at all.
• Finishing Stomp: Cletus and Jesus's execution moves when they're out of ammo.
• Functional Addict: Mike calls himself a "Functional Alcoholic" when selected, though it's pretty clear he's on something else.
• Funny Background Event: The plant in Bunnylord's office grows day-by-day (which is to say level-by-level). By day nine it collapses under its own weight and it soon starts growing up the wall. By the end of the game it's covering most of the brickwork next to the door.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Unlike with Bogdan, the Bunnycopter drops you right outside Upgraydd's window. The level is about chasing him down when he makes a run for it.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Cletus and Mike's weapons, both shotguns, will blow away enemies at short range (but not too close or they'll gib). If another enemy is close enough to the first, they will be knocked down or even killed.
• Guns Akimbo: Clive's special ability allows him to fire two pistols either in one direction or both.
• Hammerspace Hair: Stanley stores his extra mags and combat knife in his afro.
• Infinite Ammo: You don't have Bottomless Magazines, but you don't have to collect any ammo.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Parodied with the Pan-Asian Triad Yakuza.
• Invincible Villain: The final stage of the DLC involves the Killinator, which cannot be destroyed but can be slowed down by enough bullets.
• Jack of All Stats: Steve, who reloads quickly, is accurate, has good range, and twelve bullets in his pistol.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Kimmy has a katana in one hand and a machine pistol in the other.
  • In addition, various members of Akemi's gang use katanas and Akemi herself uses a pair in her Duel to the Death with Bunnylord.
• The Mafiya: Bogdan Nabatov's mob in Vodkaville.
• Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: Averted. Both female characters gun down everyone just like the male characters.
  • Akemi also puts up more of a fight than both of the male bosses.
• Mighty Glacier: The playable characters Cletus and Stanley carry a powerful shotgun and a fast-firing machine gun respectively. However, they're both considerably slower than other characters.
• Neck Snap: Samantha's execution move when she's out of ammo.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How Bunnylord finishes off Akemi... and all the bosses frankly.
• No Kill like Overkill: The whole game, but whenever Bunnylord himself shows up this goes up to eleven.
• No-Sell: Large enemies are immune to sliding attacks and will punch away your attempts.
• Ominous Message from the Future: At the end of the game, assuming the player has not achieved 100% approval rating, future Bunnylord will arrive at Aunt Ruby's and announce that Bunnylord's rule will be short-lived unless he becomes Global Megalord.
• One-Hit Kill: Critical hits scored by the player.
  • Also, the samurai enemies can kill in one stab.
• One Last Smoke: Clive's death animation has him light one last cigarette.
  • Jesus' death animation has him pull out a cocktail and raise his glass to his enemy.
• Patrolling Mook: Some mooks can be seen pacing back and forth across corridors and rooms when the player hasn't been spotted. A good gameplay strategy involves waiting for their back to be turned, going up behind them, and scoring a free critical hit.
• Pistol-Whipping: Clive's execution move when he's out of ammo.
• Police Brutality: Averted; while some stages have the SWAT team involved, the massacres that Bunnylord's mayoral campaign leave in their wake probably warrant more police intervention than the few times they show up.
• Promoted to Playable: Bunnylord becomes playable in the "Me, Myself and Bunnylord" DLC.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Aunt Ruby, Bunnylord, and the playable characters.
• Regenerating Health: Your health regenerates so long as you aren't getting hit.
• Rule of Three: The launch trailer:
  Narrator: Steve! A man with a balaclava that looks like a beard and a gun that smells like glorious death!
  Steve: Door to door, canvassing and murdering!
  Narrator: Cletus! Smack talking, smack taking Cletus!
  Cletus: Shotgun problem solver!
  Narrator: Clive! ...probably has lung cancer.
  [Klaxxon sounds, "DON'T SMOKE" flashes onscreen]
• Scare Campaign: In the second stage of the DLC, the FBI (not the one you're thinking of) uses this tactic against Bunnylord.
• Secret Character: The ghost-like character Henderson can only be played in the fourth bonus stage, which is not surprising considering he's a Comically Invincible Hero.
• Secret Level: The Stats page shows three special stages that can be unlocked through strange doors found throughout the regular stages. There's also a fourth joke stage that the Stats page doesn't record.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Mike's and Cletus's weapons.
• Shows Damage: Averted during normal gameplay, but if you drop to one hit point during the level, your character will be bruised and bloodied in the after-level meeting at Aunt Ruby's.
• Smoking Is Cool: Clive is always smoking to the point where his reload while in cover is to light up a new cigarette before pulling out a fresh pair of guns. Defied and deconstructed in the launch trailer where he's said to "probably has lung cancer."
• The Sociopath: Bunnylord doesn't seem to care for the death of anybody. Even during the hostage rescue mission, he is perfectly fine with saving only one hostage, as one is enough to make a good story for his campaign.
• Soft Glass: The player can easily go through glass windows without injury.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The three paintings in Bogdan's office, most likely of past men in his family, look exactly like him with different haircuts. Even the moustache is identical.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: Ronald Justice wears one. It's as homemade-looking as the rest of his costume.
• Take Cover!: One of the key mechanics of the game. Taking cover makes you immune to bullets but susceptible to punches.
• Teleport Spam: The knife-throwing Yukata in Sushitown and the DLC's foxheads will teleport away when the player hits them or tries to knock them down, making them a nuisance to pin down. The Yukata at least lack a melee attack, but the foxheads will punch the player if they get near.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Bunnylord and milkshakes, apparent in that he brings his gang to get some after every mission.
• The Triads and the Tongs / Yakuza: Akemi Unagi's gang, the Pan-Asian Triad Yakuza in Sushitown. That said, it leans more toward 'Yakuza' than 'Triad'.
• Twitchy Eye: One of Mike's quirks as seen in the character selection screen.
• Unorthodox Reload: Bunnylord uses teleportation to dispose of used weapons and produce new fully-loaded ones while Kimmy reloads by tossing her SMG in the air, pulling out a spare magazine, and catching the SMG on it.
• Violence is the Only Option: The city's gangs, politicians, and police force seem to have this mentality.
• The Yardies: Upgraydd's gang in Bredrin Park.
• Your Head A-Splode: Occurs during a critical hit.