In 2013 a little flapping bird took the world by storm, so much so that the game was pulled forever. Roll on seven years and we have new feathered heroes this time from developers Subtle Boom, I had a chance to see if Fledgling Heroes built on the foundations that were laid before them.
Fledgling Heroes is a side-scrolling flappy bird game that sets place on three different worlds. You start off as Biscuit the Macaw as he glides his way across the first world of Pirate Island. Each level you get to flap your way across the landscape taking out the evil LizARRrds and dodging obstacles while collecting golden feathers, coins and freeing caged rabbits.
Soar between worlds
Each World has two different types of bird that has his/her own path through to the end boss race with a dragon. Once you beat the dragon you will receive a portal key that can bring you to the next world. Each bird is unique in look and also ability, the levels on their paths are tailor-made for their moves whether it be flying, diving in and out of water or sliding along the ground. In doing this it made the game less repetitive and kept the fun going as you progressed.
The devil is in the detail
The visual aspects of Fledgling Heroes are beautiful. Each bird is done in an almost childlike drawing style that is fully custom-able and it really works with the style of each world. The Pirate Island world is bright and warm, the Winter elf world, in contrast, is icy and blue and then you have the Sunken Temple world that is dark and dangerous. The animated backgrounds of each world are just as part of the game as the level itself especially the elf world where you will see elves riding around the level on the backs of giant corgi dogs.
The worlds themselves have different type of levels for our feathered friends to navigate. Each level will have a little challenge to win you more feathers like knockdown x amount of LizARRrds or collect x amount of coins. You will need to get feathers to unlock doors and in doing so unlock more levels for your birds so level replay-ability is a must.
Along with just basic levels there are also racing levels where you will have to beat a time set to get more feathers, there are also endless levels where you can try and beat a distance set. Then there are the “boss” levels against the dragons. These are a lot like the racing levels but this time you need to race the dragon to the end and win, these weren’t too difficult at the beginning but the last two there is no margin of error or you will not win.
The learning curve isn’t too bad, the first few levels are a kind of tutorial to help you get the basics down but I did find the difficulty level from world two to three are worlds apart maybe because the last two birds are much harder to manoeuvre with and this made some of the levels really frustrating to finish especially if you need those feathers.
Two birds are better than one
One of the selling points of Fledgling Heroes is the two-player capability and the chance to play it with my kids. I loved the fact that they could just jump in and out of the game at ease and to help their old dad. My youngest son really enjoyed it and took to it with like a fish to water and is now restarting the whole game to finish himself.
I was also sold on the level building in-game. In most levels you will be able to find blueprints and colour palettes that unlock various bits of scenery, obstacles, enemies and traps, I would suggest finishing the game before you do this as you will have more to play around with.
Building the levels themselves was a bit fragile as I found it hard to lay things down in the right spot but it was enjoyable none the less. You can also save and upload your level creations and let the world at them and rate them as you can other people. This brought another fun dimension to the game that was unexpected.
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