Super Four Heroes

Super Four Heroes is a mobile game developed by Some Generic Game Dev and released in May 11, 2023. After 11 months, including 2 months of radio silence, the game was shut down in April 3, 2024 following its two-week shutdown notice on March 20, 2024

Gameplay
The game uses a hero rarity in the form of nat 1*, 2*, and 3*, similar to Princess Connect Re:Dive, Blue Archive, and Guardian Tales. In addition, this game utilizes a dupe conversion system where dupes are converted into Transcendence Shards.

Each hero has a Basic Attack and two skills, like King's Raid, each hero also has a mana bar that limits how often they can use their two skills and each skill also has a cooldown as well which resets on every new battle. They unlock a passive once they reach 5* ascension.

Battles take place in closed arenas, similar to Guardian Tales. When the enemies are defeated, a victory fanfare plays and you can move on to the next area. Auto battle is available. Each stage consists of multiple waves of enemies, with a boss at the end of each chapter. Gameplay-wise, it's similar to games like Guardian Tales and Dragalia Lost where instead of fighting wave after wave of enemies with heroes and enemies on opposite sides, heroes get to move around on the battlefield.

When it comes to gearing, heroes have six slots, Weapon, Armor, and Accessory, which are fixed to Attack, Defense, and HP, with the other three slots being random stats (HP%, DEF%, ATK%, CRIT DMG/RATE%, etc)

There are the following hero classes, each with weapons exclusive to them;
 * Fighter: The melee frontline hero. Some heroes can do magical damage, some are physical.
 * Knight: The tanker/defense hero. Some heroes can do magical damage, some are physical.
 * Ranger: The ranged damage dealer hero.
 * Mage: The magical damage dealer hero.
 * Healer: The healer/support hero.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Entering the gacha gaming industry and even the mobile gaming industry takes a lot of risk-taking to do, but this game tries and fails miserably. This game can be described as a textbook example of what not to do when developing a gacha game.
 * 2) The player starts day one with zero summons/currency, which is a rare but huge warning sign amongst these gacha games. This warning sign is often seen where the devs have very little faith or do not care about the gacha game at all and is the reason why pre-registrations have become a thing. In fact, a F2P won't be able to summon until about a week of gameplay, as the only way to get gems is by completing stages for the first time. Completing all the dailies will yield you only 25, which translates to 18 days for a 10-pull. There isn't even any AI vs. AI PvP, etc, or any competitive-focused mechanics in the game. There are no guilds and there isn't even a friend system, which makes the gacha game even more empty.
 * 3) *The game didn't even have any pre-registration or launch events on its first day, which made day one basically a normal day of operations instead of the typical launch day with events. This is why pre-registrations are a thing in mobile games.
 * 4) The game relies on AI-generated art from Adobe Firefly and Midjourney. Not only is it pandering to the fandom behind AI art, but it feels very insulting to artists alike. Its made even more so when the AI they used can't even get the arms right, as some of the character portraits are shown with six or even fingers in the wrong positions. There is no live 2D at all and there isn't even any voice-acting for the heroes, making these characters even more lifeless.
 * 5) The graphics used are the outdated mobile-style 3D graphics that have been seen in games like Seven Knights, Hello Hero, and even many short-lived games like Light: Fellowship of Loux, back in the age of Korean gacha games where many of them made it so you can summon a pre-evolved hero (for example, in a legacy gacha game from 2014, you could summon a 6* pre-evolved hero instead of just evolving said hero from 4* or going through the random hero fusion) and each evolution artificially padded out the hero codex. While games like Blue Archive incorporate chibi-style 3D, this game's graphics are so outdated that it feels like a gacha game from 2014, not from 2023.
 * 6) The gacha system. There are two types of summons; Premium Summons and Ruby Summons. Ruby Summons have an increased rate for SSRs/3* heroes in this game as this is one of those games where the rarity goes up to five stars as opposed to six stars. Ruby Summons are only given out throughout events, and you need 450 rubies for a 10-pull. In fact, you cannot do any single summons, you can only do 10x summons in the game because they guarantee a 2* or higher hero on the 10th pull.
 * 7) *When it comes to pulling 3*, they are reportedly to have uneven rates. Apparently, its stated that the rates for a 3* are 2.5% while the 2* rates are 10%, but what is even worse is that each of the 3* was reported to have different summon rates on the 2.5%. When a 3* box drops (rainbow card), it has a 50% chance to be one of the trash-tier heroes, Rick, a 3* Ranger who is a DPS with literally no buffs/debuffs at all, with the other 50% being comprised of the other 3* heroes. It's like the devs decided to make fun of the gacha system by making the heroes have unusual rates. There is no pity system on top of that. When a whale decided to spend 50$ for 100 summons as the $ to gacha rate is much higher than other games (50 cents per summon before tax), out of the 100 summons, he pulled 12 Ricks, 3 Mithys, 2 Jakes, 2 Jackalopes, and 1 Logan, and that's on top of Mithy's rate-up banner.
 * 8) While the game does not incorporate a stamina system, meaning you could play the storyline whenever you like, what replaces this is much worse; time-gated resource dungeons. Basically, that means for example, you can only run the EXP dungeon only 5 times a day, the gold dungeon 5 times a day, and the dungeon for ascension materials only 5 times a day. The EXP dungeon is mandatory for leveling up your heroes as your heroes do not get any EXP for playing through the stages. It should also be noted that because there is no stamina system for the main storyline, there is no gem revive when your party dies, going straight to "DEFEATED".
 * 9) In terms of the heroes, you’ll soon hit a point where the 2* and 1* heroes which some of which you acquire from the story, start to become useless in the main storyline. This is one of those games where only the highest rarity heroes (nat 5s, SSRs, etc) are usable not because of their kits/synergy but instead they have inflated stats compared to 2* and 1*. For comparison from level 1 to max ascension/level (excluding Transcendence), at max level and 5* ascension, as this game has a max star rarity of 5* from evolution as opposed to 6*.
 * 10) *Jake, a 3* Knight;
 * 11) **HP: 1000 HP at level 1, 65892 at max.
 * 12) **Attack: 150 at level 1, 2000 at max.
 * 13) **Defense: 50 defense at level 1, 670 at max.
 * 14) *Simon, a 2* Knight. This is an example of how a 2* Knight is worse than a 3* Knight because the 2* heroes have much less stats than the 3* heroes when maxed out.
 * 15) **HP: 500 HP at level 1, 23862 at max.
 * 16) **Attack: 90 at level 1, 1000 at max.
 * 17) **Defense: 20 defense at level 1, 270 at max.
 * 18) *Rick, a 3* Ranger. He is considered the worst 3* due to how low his damage potential is due to his worse stats.
 * 19) **HP: 650 HP at level 1, 35614 at max.
 * 20) **Attack: 280 at level 1, 3670 at max.
 * 21) **Defense: 23 defense at level 1, 314 at max.
 * 22) *Mithy, a 3* Healer;
 * 23) **HP: 750 HP at level 1, 43297 at max.
 * 24) **Attack: 260 at level 1, 3145 at max.
 * 25) **Defense: 28 defense at level 1, 388 at max.
 * 26) *Logan, a 3* Fighter;
 * 27) **HP: 850 HP at level 1, 55418 at max.
 * 28) **Attack: 270 at level 1, 3300 at max.
 * 29) **Defense: 32 defense at level 1, 465 at max.
 * 30) *Jackalope, a 3* Mage. Notice how this character has inflated stats compared to the other 3* heroes, despite being a Mage type.
 * 31) **HP: 888 HP at level 1, 59578 at max.
 * 32) **Attack: 327 at level 1, 5148 at max.
 * 33) **Defense: 40 defense at level 1, 537 at max.
 * 34) The game's growth/evolution system, Ascension, requires you to feed a hero Ascension Shards so they can evolve, which can be acquired from dupe conversion, like Blue Archive and Princess Connect. A nat 3* getting to 5* will need 525 (4* is 200, 5* is 275) Ascension Shards, a nat 2* getting to 5* will need 675 (3* is 150) Ascension Shards, and a 1* getting to 5* will need 775 (2* is 100) Ascension Shards. While this doesn't sound too bad, there is one catch to the Ascension Shard dupe conversion; you do not get any Ascension Shards if you pull any 1*, meaning your only source of Ascension Shards is from 2* (10 per dupe 2*) and 3* (50 per dupe 3*), which makes ascending heroes even more frustrating. What makes this even worse is that the daily Ascension Shard dungeon, is capped at 15 shards per day. Without pulling, you need 35 days to get a 3* to 5*. In terms of its gacha system, a 2* is only guaranteed on the last pull, which means per 10 pull, you can only get a worst case scenario 10 shards per 10x summon.
 * 35) *On top of getting the hero to 5* from ascension, there's also a system called Transcendence which further enhances the stats of that hero by 10%, up to 50%. The Transcendence system is only available on 3*/SSR heroes, which means 2* or lower heroes are straight up worthless in this game. To transcend a hero, you need 150 Ascension Shards for the first one, and you can do this again for 4 times. That means, to get a 3* hero to 5* and to be fully transcended, you need 1275 Ascension Shards, which calculates to 85 days in a row to max out one 3* hero without summoning.
 * 36) It has what is called forced power creep where in the endgame, you cannot beat the final stages/challenges without this specific hero. In this case, you have;
 * 37) *Mithy, who is a nat 3* Healer who has a skill that can accelerate the cooldowns of other allies by 1.67x via a buff that lasts 10 seconds on a cooldown of 18 seconds and even increase their MP gain from attacking. Not only that, her other skill gives everyone a 35% damage reduction party buff alongside a shield equaling to 25% of her HP. The kicker, her 5* ascension passive is where every 3 basic attacks she does heals all allies. The endgame revolves around constantly spamming skills, which basically forces you to use her. It got so bad that the devs had to basically give out this hero for free for all players and remove her from the summon pool.
 * 38) *Jackalope, who is a nat 3* Mage who has a very strange kit. His first skill revolves around casting exploding fireballs, but the other is a fire wall that buffs his allies' attack speed by 100% and damage by 25% when activated. His special 5* ascension passive skill? When allies' HP falls below 80/60/40%, their defense increases by 20/40/60% for 10 seconds which activates only once per battle. On top of that, his stats are insane for a DPS as he has the second-highest defense, behind Jake, who is a Knight-type.
 * 39) *The second banner they added during the game after two weeks after its launch was Feron, who was a Mage hero who had an absurdly broken kit. First of all, his first skill is a homing missile that bounces between enemies and serves as his main mobbing skill. But, his second skill, causes the enemy to take 50% more damage, halve their attack speed, and take damage over time proportion to 10% of their max HP (to be fair, it was capped at 10% of Feron's max HP so it wouldn't work on bosses) every second for 10 seconds. His 5* ascension passive is where he becomes really insane, the damage he takes is reduced by 70% once his HP falls below 50% (it has a cooldown of 60 seconds before reactivating, though).
 * 40) *While the third banner came a trash tier hero that was just a mediocre DPS with no buffs/debuffs, the fourth banner came Stevens, who is a 3* Knight tank hero who has two insane skills. The first skill is a shield equal to 20% of his HP that if it breaks, they will heal 10% of their max HP for 10 seconds afterward while their attack is increased by 50% for 10 seconds. The second skill is a skill that removes all debuffs on allies while increasing their defense by 50% for 10 seconds but also decreasing the enemies' attack by 50% as well. His 5* ascension passive is where if an ally's HP falls below 50%, they each receive 5 seconds of invincibility meaning for this duration they cannot take damage (cooldown of 60 seconds, separate on each Hero including himself)
 * 41) *With the release of Chapter 7, came a new 3* Fighter called Brandon. His first skill revolves around giving allies a 5% damage reduction that increases to 90% from taking damage (per hit) for 10 seconds, which is basically an infinite duration. His second skill is where he buffs allies to gain 50% critical chance and 60% critical damage for 15 seconds, while also giving them immunity to debuffs for 10 seconds. On top of that, his 5* ascension passive is where for the first 15 seconds after starting the battle, allies' HP cannot go below 30% of their max HP.
 * 42) Like many legacy gacha games, like Seven Knights and Hello Hero, it relies on the outdated 3-loop arc where you must loop through the first 6 chapters three times before you move on to the next. Newer gacha games have already ditched this trope as it proved to be nothing but artificially padding out the game. In this case, the story goes away after the 6th chapter and doesn't come back after you beat Chapter 6 on the 3rd Loop. Each Chapter is 12 stages long with a boss at the end, and on the map, its indicated on a dot-to-dot map with your main hero running in place.
 * 43) Certain bosses can be frustrating as some of them can stunlock you and drain all of your health in a second because there is no hit recovery or even knockback. That Evil Waifu for example has an attack that rains down hail on you which can hit you dozens of times to the point where dying is an inevitability, unless you have Brandon, a Fighter who gives immunity to status ailments but also has damage reduction from taking damage.
 * 44) Like Summoners War: Chronicles, the game also incorporates a "battle power" penalty system where if your combined hero's team is too low, they will receive up to a 50% stat penalty in battle, 1% per to how much lower the total team's battle power is. This is made worse by Chapter 4, where it has a big jump in battle power that it requires everyone to be fully evolved and geared onward, unless you have Stevens/Jackalope/Mithy/Feron combined. This was a new gacha game warning sign that was also seen in Nikke: Goddess of Victory and several other games. This trope was seen in Korean-only MMORPGs, but has arrived in gacha games in 2022/23. This mechanic is not to be confused with the other leveling system where it is based on account level, like as seen in Princess Connect. Jackalope ends up getting more battle power due to how inflated his stats are. He can gain up to 7000 battle power at 5* ascension and max level. Combining the meta four, you can only achieve a maximum of 26000 battle power with all of them being 5* and max level, which is way too short in the endgame, and that's before its atrocious gearing system and transcendence.
 * 45) *For example:
 * 46) **Chapter 1-6 1st Loop: 100 BP - 6000 BP
 * 47) **Chapter 1-6 2nd Loop: 6100 BP - 19000 BP
 * 48) **Chapter 1-6 3rd Loop: 20000 BP - 50000 BP
 * 49) **Chapter 7: 60000 BP - 70000 BP
 * 50) In terms of its gearing system, its way too frustrating to be even worth it. The game utilizes the outdated "gear destruction upon failure" mechanic that was used in many Korean F2P MMOs back then, and was already ditched in games like Summoners War, where runes cannot downgrade/be destroyed upon failure. The game utilizes the Summoners War and Epic Seven style of gear, where heroes have six types of gear, one being fixed to Attack, Defense, and HP. Instead of going up to +15, it goes up to +9, where it gets a huge boost in stats. The catch? Level 5 and onward, it has a chance to level down, and from level 8 to 9, there is a whopping 90% chance for the gear to level down, a 5% chance of the gear to succeed, and a 5% chance of the gear to break. To top it all off, there's no special item that helps you get it to level 9, meaning you have to hope it doesn't break or level down. The game even tells everyone in chat when you get a +9 gear successfully upgraded.

Reception
Super Four Heroes got negative reception from the Gacha Gaming community, stating that its a great example of what not to do when developing or pitching ideas for a gacha game. During its first week of launch, the App Store rating was 3.7, while the Play Store was 3.0 in the US, with most of the reviews criticizing for the lack of rerolling, how 1* dupes give no ascension shards after pulling from its gacha system, and the fact that it artificially pads out the story via including loops where the story goes away and comes back after the three loops.

Within the same day Super Four Heroes appeared on the App Store under the "New Games We Love" section, someone played the game and posted "Super Four Heroes: The Worst Gacha Game Ever" on the Gacha Gaming subreddit, stating that it combines all of the bad from the various bad gacha games and invents a whole new level of greediness, and even stated that in terms of its gearing system, the fact that it has the infamous "gear destruction upon failure" mechanic that Summoners War ditched (in this game, when runes fail to upgrade, they never ever level down/break because that mechanic doesn't exist in the game) and many other games, like Epic Seven, Genshin Impact, etc instead incorporate a gear EXP system from fusing low-level/junk gear to that gear to enhance it.