Slime Heroes Review — The Slimes are the Heroes

Slime Heroes is the Dark Souls of cute little slimes.

By that, I mean that Slime Heroes is a soulslike ARPG starring adorable little slime blob creatures—ones that look like they would be utterly delicious if you ate them, kind of like a fruit gusher. This platforming-heavy action game combines its charming characters with genuinely interesting storytelling and intense action. When mixed with optional co-op multiplayer, it creates an engaging experience that draws you into its vibrant world as much as its lovable slime protagonists.

If you aren’t familiar with what a soulslike is, the concept is pretty simple, and it happens to be one of my all-time favorite game genres. Popularized by the incredible Dark Souls franchise, from which the genre gets its name, a soulslike game is often characterized by difficult, reaction-based combat, big boss fights, and, most importantly, a level-up system unique to the genre. This system essentially replaces experience points with a currency dropped by defeated enemies, which is then used to purchase stat increases directly.

This is the core gameplay loop of Slime Heroes, a game that puts you in control of a titular slime hero as you venture forth to uncover the source of corruption spreading across the land and to learn the fate of the world’s missing guardians.

Slime Heroes takes the soulslike formula and simplifies it extensively—something you may love or dislike depending on your familiarity with the franchise that inspired it. Many of the stats are streamlined into four simple attributes: speed, attack power, spell power, and a fourth one that, for some reason, is slipping my mind as I write this review.

Calling Slime Heroes an entry-level soulslike wouldn’t be inaccurate. It’s a comparison I also made with Another Crab’s Treasure, and I don’t mean it to disparage the game or suggest that it’s trivial compared to the Dark Souls franchise it draws inspiration from. Rather, Slime Heroes is far more accessible in many areas than Dark Souls has ever been. Combat mechanics are simplified, giving players just two basic attacks, a skill, jumping, and dodging to master. These mechanics are explained in a straightforward way, and the game offers a variety of difficulty customization options to tailor the challenge to your preference.

That isn’t to say it’s entirely easy; on the contrary, I found the game on hard mode to be quite punishing. Enemies hit hard and can be tough to take down. The ability to shape the game’s difficulty to your liking makes Slime Heroes a great entry point for newcomers while still being enjoyable for genre veterans looking for something to mix things up.

Something genre veterans are especially likely to appreciate is Slime Heroes’s take on spells. Called “skills,” these projectile attacks and crowd-control moves drop from the various corrupted enemies you fight. You’ll quickly notice that each skill slot contains not one but three equipable locations, introducing an interesting customization system.

Skills can be combined to produce different, more powerful effects. To give you an example, I’ll use the first two skills you acquire in Slime Heroes—a projectile that damages enemies and a tornado that knocks them up in place. Equipping just the projectile gives you a ranged attack that deals moderate damage based on your skill damage modifier. Equipping just the tornado launches a stationary vortex that knocks up any enemies within range. However, combining the two changes things—equipping the projectile with the tornado as a secondary modifier transforms it into a wide-reaching, spinning projectile that orbits you. Equipping the tornado with the projectile, on the other hand, causes it to fire far-reaching projectiles that knock up everything along their path. These skills can then be further upgraded with the use of different elements, causing various effects when colliding with foes.

Like all soulslikes, Slime Heroes is better with a friend. Unlike most soulslikes, its co-op is highly accessible, allowing another player to join at any time for some slime-filled fun. The co-op experience is seamless, enabling players to jump in at any point during the game, and you can play through the entire campaign together. As excited as I am for Elden Ring: Nightreign, this is a feature I wish were standard in the genre’s foundational franchise. These games are simply more enjoyable with a friend or significant other, and Slime Heroes understands that.

Try Hard Guides was provided a PC review copy for Slime Heroes. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Slime Heroes is available on Steam and Xbox, as well as Playstation and Nintendo Switch soon.