Fallen Hero: Rebirth

I was provided a review copy of this game.

This is one of the most popular Hosted Games of all time, and, by extension, one of the most popular Choicescript games of all time. On the Choice of Games subreddit, it's a running joke that people will sincerely recommend Fallen Hero for literally every possible recommendation request that gets posted. Want to play a game with an older love interest? Fallen Hero. Experiencing meaningful gender transition during a game? Fallen Hero. Play as a villain? Fallen Hero.

So it's difficult approaching the game objectively, after hearing it built up so much (and also not having, at the time of this review, played the second game). But I can certainly say that if I had found it with no prior warning, I'd regard it as one of the best Choicescript games out there.

In this game, you play as a villain who was once the telepathic hero Sidestep. Due to a traumatic event in your past, played out in small flashbacks throughout the game, you have decided to go full villain and commit terrorist attacks in service of your true goal. Things get rough when the heroes that haunt your memories start crossing your path in real life.

Complicating things, you have a second body, a comatose individual that you pilot telepathically. You are boring; your other body is exciting. You try to hide; your other body tries to stand out. You can meet people in this other body. You can romance people in the other body.

This is another facet of the game, which is that it allows truly villainous acts. But, since the game hides your true purpose, it allows you to imagine any justification for those acts. I was on board with almost everything my hero was doing until I was given the option to just straight-up murder innocent bystanders; I can't imagine any background that would justify that. The issue of deceiving others into romantic relationships with a fake body is also addressed. We can also manipulate people telepathically, and commit a whole assortment of crimes that are more common in fiction (theft, assault, embezzlement, violating OSHA, etc.)

I started playing the Hosted Games to see the contrast between them and the commissioned Choice of Games line. One thing that really stood out (and this was true for Wayhaven as well) is the lack of the classic CoG lineup of 4+ powers that are used in different encounters. Choice of Games style is to have a variety of attributes, including skills that go up and opposed personality attributes that go back and forth. A lot of CoG games (including both I worked on) tend to use these powers heavily, with a large number of encounters relying on you choosing your best 2-3 powers and using them each time. The best CoG games mix this up a lot more, adding unique flavors to each element (I loved how Choice of Magics gave a curse to each power), but I've struggled as an author on how to mix it up.

In this game, we only have 2 real 'power bars', and a small number of opposed stats. The vast majority of choices are just 'mixing it up', which in this case looks like strategizing and then carrying out a plan. Often there are just binary choices or 3 choices. The most common choices are to be risky or to be safe, or to affect a romantic interest (getting closer or pulling away). There are also moral choices like trolley problems (do you possess an innocent bystander to keep yourself safe?) and style choices (like the design of your villain outfit).

Perhaps the biggest positive aspect of the game as compared to the lowest-rated Choice of Games games is that there is almost no messaging of 'you, the player, messed up and failed'. Things definitely go wrong in this game, but it's usually due to outside circumstances. Other people's failures. You can make wrong choices; on one playthrough, I stole an item without a hitch and got an achievement; in another, I got critically and barely managed to scrape by and got an achievement. The achievements are part of that good design; you may have made risky or bad choices, but the game frames it as a cool thing that you did. And that's throughout the game. Compare this to my own game In the Service of Mrs Claus, where most choices, if you pick an option you're not good at, have failure text that makes it clear that you, the player, are at fault here. That failure text doesn't reward gameplay. Fallen Hero: Rebirth, on the other hand, doesn't divide the game into pass/fail; it divides into one version of a good story vs another version of a good story.

To be clear, I'm not saying that it's better than all official Choice of Games titles. It definitely ranks highly with them; but there are several high quality official games that share in some of the same qualities as this one. Here are some recommendations:

-For people who liked the edginess, ability to be a jerk, and darker/mature tone, Werewolf: The Apocalypse -- Book of Hungry Names would be a good choice. It has a very dark tone, with the ability to do things of dubious moral quality, and with heavy violence and a lot of relationships. While completely unrelated, the other Werewolves triology has similar good attributes.
-This game has a really strong central storyline that elevates the overall game quality, and which has the nature of a gritty hero's quest. Choice of Rebels, Vtm: Night Road, and Champion of the Gods have some similarly excellent storylines.
-This game lets you be a strong villainous character. The games Grand Academy For Future Villains (much less dark and more humorous) and Choice of Robots (allows you to be pretty ruthless) have good villain paths.
-For games that handle failure with grace and fun, I really enjoy both Creatures Such as We (which actually doesn't track stats at all) and Mask of the Plague Doctor (I loved the ending I got which would have been just a death/failure in other games but gave me a lengthy epilogue instead).

There are several other great games I didn't mention, but that's because they're good in different ways than Fallen Hero (for instance, Creme de la Creme has a huge selection of romantic interests, while Fallen Hero only has 2. They're great ones, but the focus is different).

Does the game live up to its reputation? Certainly. The story was gripping, the mechanics were seamless, and I look forward to the second book, which I've heard is even better.

Fallen Hero is one of the most popular Hosted Games, and it deserves its popularity entirely.

Fallen Hero came during a glut of superhero stories for Choice of Games/Hosted Games: there was the Heroes Rise trilogy, its spinoffs The Hero Project: Redemption Season/Open Season, and The Hero Unmasked, as well as the Community College Hero series and Paradigm City from Hosted Games (there are probably others I forgot, plus tons of WIPs). Something about superhero stories makes them well-suited for the CoG style: the power fantasy, the customization choices, the ability to easily slot your OC into an existing world. Fallen Hero doesn't entirely defy these conventions, but it does twist them in a way different from all the other superhero choicescript games.

As the title implies, Fallen Hero is about, well, a fallen superhero turned potential supervillain. You play as a former freelance superhero named Sidestep, who went through a traumatic experience leading them to turn against their former allies. The main path of the story is about the steps taken in the quest for revenge, and there is no way around it; you can decide whether Sidestep is reluctantly or eagerly embraces their goals, but their major actions will usually be the same. Most of the choices are reflective: how does your character feel about what they just did. In many games, this wouldn't work, but here, it absolutely does. The character of Sidestep shines through, and is always just so fascinating to read.

The writing in the game is superb, in my opinion. The prose is just really good and really memorable and enjoyable to read. As is the characterization, pacing, and so on. There's an excellent balance between fast-paced action, quiet reflection, pure horror, and even occasional moments of comedy. Speaking of which, your power is mind control, and you also control a puppet, another human body that you use for your own purposes. One of which could be to pursue another character romantically at the same time as your actual body. Yeah. There's an achievement for that.

It has somewhat of an unreliable narrator; there is plenty that the protagonist knows, but the player doesn't. What exactly happened to Sidestep to make them turn is never described (there will be a sequel). There are a lot of mysteries left. I enjoyed the process of trying to put together the backstory in my head; it took the second playthrough to really get it.