GameDynamo says, "After a number of delays and a small but vocal community left wondering if Dawn of Heroes had become vaporware, the long-awaited strategy role-playing game (SRPG) finally surfaces on Nintendo DS. Was it worth the wait?"
Admiring Dawn of Heroes from a distance is fairly easy, as it does some different things and carves a distinct identify out for itself. It frequently plays more like a puzzle game than a tactical game, however, with large doses of luck being required to come through some encounters. The bothersome interface aspects ensure that playing the game is more a chore than entertaining, relegating it to the status of yet another disappointing DS game.
CheatCC says, "All in all, Dawn of Heroes is a fun game with a lot to offer gamers on the handheld platform. Tactical RPGs aren’t abundant and ones that are both fun and have character are even less common. The game certainly isn’t perfect; combat can get repetitive at times and battles take longer than it seems they should, but it is hardly enough to distract from the overall fun factor it offers."
I'll admit, I'm one of the few people who have had Dawn of Heroes on their radars. Its publisher, Majesco, is most well known for DS titles such as Cooking Mama, and counts quite a few quality games to its credit. This is the company that published Tim Schafer's Psychonauts and the brimming-with-potential Advent Rising. It also published Away: Shuffle Dungeon, Mistwalker's unique DS dungeon crawler. Because of this, I was intrigued when I saw Dawn of Heroes slowly creep across the release dates map, until it finally debuted on 9/9. So, what have the Montreal-based Wicked Studios crafted for Majesco? A product that would be a great fit... as an iPhone game. Dawn of Heroes just feels too shallow and lacks the polish needed to be a top-flight title.
