9/10 A decent game with fascinating storyline.
This is the first of the heroes rise trilogy
Comparing to the hero project and herofall after it
The choice it provides in this one rather easier to be made
It is the very begining of you acting as a powered hero/villian
I've played twice along with the other two in the trilogy
It's just that great

The key to playing the Heroes Rise Trilogy is to understand there are only two paths: Paragon (Perfect Morality) and Renegade (Badass). The paths boil down to their associated romances and skills.

For Paragon, you will need to maximize Justice, Lawfulness, Defensive, and Team Player (in Hero Project: Loved, Underdog and Hero Points). Romances are geared towards Jenny (in Hero Project onward: Lucky.) For Renegade, you will need to maximize Fame, Lawless, Offensive, and Soloist (in Hero Project: Popular.) Romances are geared towards Black Magic (in Heroes Fall: Jury and Prodigal.) There is some leeway. Some achievements may be achieved by deliberately failing. In the first two games, you are permitted to play offensively for Paragon characters. Renegade characters may be team players. Romances that are clearly geared towards Renegade characters may taken by Paragon with limited stat hits (Prodigal, Jury and Black Magic).

The series finishes with two paths (and in Hero Fall: one hidden Renegade romance ending).

The primary joy of this game then, comes down to the journey. It is a long series. It is written in a very serialized, soap-operatic style. It is very dramatic. Superheroes are handled with fantastic flair. There are big battles, big powers, and big villains. There are great swings in fame and fortune, suprise tribulations, that pay off in a grand style.

There are also childish adults doing very stupid things, and events you can't change the outcome of.

I think the best way to go into this game is to recognize it's pulp, and enjoy the pulp for what it is. It isn't very good, but it might be great fun.

My favorite series so far from Choice of Games!

Heroes Rise The Prodigy is well written, with an amazing climax, I havent read a book that good in a while @_@
Price wise it's just about the same price as a decent book at Barnes&Noble if not cheaper, with the the amount of chapters inside its definitely worth $2.99 in my opinion.

If you like/love reading books and like/love games like ME you have to give Heroes Rise: The Prodigy a try.

You know, when I initially saw this game when it was released I paid no notice to it. I was pretty sure it would be horrible. I can't say for what reasons, but that was the state I was in.
After playing this, I can only conclude that not only does it bring me back to my childhood with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series', it has applied logic which was never possible in a paperback format.

The writing done in this adventure was very well done. There are parts where I felt things moved too quickly or weren't very smooth, but they hardly took away from the experience. Even with some cheesy sayings or material (which was sort of fun), it flowed elegantly together in a very enjoyable and suprising story line.
The two things I feel could have been improved upon are the romance and the diverse elements of the storyline.
The romance at times was very well done, but in other areas there was too much emphasis placed on it; even at bad times. It also didn't mix into things very well at certain points and gave the impression of being randomly thrown in.
The storyline at times gave me the impression of making a decision, but the result would inevitably be the same regardless of what I chose, or it would have literally no relevant impact on current or future events. In my mind and what I would love personally, is to see a story intricate enough to reflect every decision made; a story smart enough to step back from any sense of a linear story and see many endings, with many futures. As complicated and time consuming as this would be, it would be epic. From looking over ChoiceScript, it's definitely feasible if someone finds themselves interested. Hell, I'm kind of interested.

But in conclusion, fantastic work. I just finished the second one and I'm currently a few chapters into the third. I've heard there is a fourth one in the works and I am really looking forward to it. If it were up to me, I'd like to see this series continue on even after that.

Speaking as a body who greatly enjoys story focused games, this was a delight. I meant to give it five minutes and then accidentally stayed up all night whipping through it a couple of times in a row. For those of you who enjoy reading stories, exploring characters, and the knowledge of more chapters to come in this story, then definitely give this a shot.

I was really surprised by this. I picked up the demo and FLEW through the first five chapters. It allows you enough creative freedom in your origin story to craft it to how you would like. Reminded me heavily when you create your Commander Shepard character in Mass Effect 1. Look forward to finishing the tale.

If you like text based adventure games, like those Choose Your Own Adventure books, and like superheroes, you will like this. Granted the game is not perfect and a lot of choices don't matter as much as one would like it (something that was corrected in the sequel), still the story is interesting and has a lot of potential to go to interesting places.

If you enjoy making your own protagonist and still have fond memories of Choose your Own Adventure books then this game is a wonderful addition to your Steam Library.

It's a very good interactive story, with some really interesting choices and events. I'm picky when it comes to books and novels... and I liked this game very much.

This is truely an amazing game if you enjoy make your own adventure games, love the quirkey word play and the choices throughout this game.

But holy crap does this game get dark along the way!

It's great, but imagine you're told to carry a cute little puppy and a cute little kitten down the a path. You know, you're going "yay, what a cute little adventure I will go on with these animals~!" going along with the story, this game. Until after a while, the puppy and the kitten slowly start becoming more demonic, bleed from every orafice, head spinning and whaling "KILL ME~" at you, and you're freaking out but you have to carry these animals to the destination. And then, at the destination the guy who you're suppose to give these animals to, yells at you "What the crap did you do! WHAT THE CRAP DID YOU DO!?" and you can only reply truefully, "I don't know!" and start crying "I don't know!"

That's this game.

The Short of it:
Heroes Rise: The Prodigy a fun, short game (which is reasonable given it's price) that can give you one heck of an adrenaline and emotional rush if you let it. I would also recommend this game (and the series as a whole) to anyone who wishes for more sexuality and gender diversity in the superhero genre. Only down side is the thin line between simple and shallow the game dances on, and the hack job of "romance" implemented as an optional subplot.

The Long of it:
The best thing about The Prodigy, and the Heroes Rise trilogy in all, is that it doesn't reward you for being the writer's idea of a "Hero," but for being consistent in your morals (basically: don't play as a character that's all over the place). While the game does scale this consistency on dichotomies of "lawful" vs. "lawless," "fame" vs. "justice" and "soloist" vs. "team player" none of these scales are mutually exclusive (despite what the color-coded bars imply) to one another or are viewed as inherently wrong: you could have a defensive soloist with the law on your side but have a penchant to showboating, or an offensive team player that distrusts authority but will work for the best of the group. During my first run I felt like my choices really mattered, but I was let down during the rail-roaded chain of events nearing the (only) climax, but it does pick up the ball again near the very end of the final fight, though it may seem railroaded again because unless you have a wishy-washy character the final choice for the fight is practically chosen for you depending on the "lawlessness" vs. "lawfulness" scale.

This wonderful scale falls flat, again, with a shallow story that may only hold a twist or two for people not versed in the cliches of the superhero genre. The first time I played through, I was surprised at some of the late-game twists, despite having read comics since I was eight (but that may be because I myself am trusting), but afterwards it did all seem very droll, such as the main villain's motivation, and what they do to make your character lose faith in the world around them.

It also felt like only a minimal amount of worldbuilding was done as Millenia City wasn't fleshed out (you only get to see about two-to-three areas of the city while it's continually reiterated to be a sprawling metropolis), but the characters within are very diverse not only in their personalities, but in who they. I enjoyed meeting many of the characters like The Monk and Fistfull from the Millennial Group (the game's version of The Avengers/Justice League), the three choices you have as a sidekick, and others around the Eastern Fringe. Even the villains like the Splice Circle were interesting. But this leads me to yet another of the negative points: The "Romance(s)"

One of the characters in the game is specifically tailored to your character's sexuality and gender: straight male, lesbian, and bisexual heroes whose last partner was female have Fem. Main Interest, while gay males, straight females, and bisexual heroes whose last partner was male get a Masc. Main Interest. I can understand that this is so that every and any characters have the option of a love interest. But this is clunkily done because the game prompts you to input a real life celebrity's name as the sole descriptive of the love interest. It feels creepy because the never let that "descriptive" go. Every time they describe the character you just get a [celebrity's name] face/hair/eyes ect. ect. This traps the character within the realm of "love interest" and nothing even approaching individuality despite their unique backstory (and by "unique" I mean an actual plot twist), which is really grating. Especially if the Main Interest ends up female, which adds into the ever-present trend of women being solely present in the superhero genre for titillation and romantic (with creepy under/overtones) fantasy. It also grated on my nerve when the game didn't understand my character's no meant "NO, I don't want a romance" and I was forced to play out the scene where my character was coerced into going into the love interet's room under false pretenses which was remarkably sexually charged and ended up making me feel angry and creeped, while I was okay with it when I actually wanted the romance sub-plot.

The game would have done better if the "Main Love Interest" was like the other romantic choice. She's only available if you have a lesbian or female bisexual character, but Jenny Yu, your superhero-witness-protection-program agent, proves that the writer CAN right a good love interest. Jenny is her own character with her own motivations and goals. Most importantly, nothing about her changes depending on your choices in Character Creation excluding the possiblity she could be romantically interested in your character. While the reveal she is a romancable option is late game (after the climax), it did feel a bit more holistic, mostly due to the flirty lines interspersed in your character's interactions with her throughout the entire game and not jumping to the "~romance~" (and by that I mean blacked-out sex) after meeting the Main Love Interest not even five chapters prior. If you're planning on playing the full series, and desire to romance anyone, Jenny is widely preferable the "Main Love Interest" introduced in The Prodigy. This deals mostly with my experience with The Hero Project, Prodigy's sequel in which you can transfer up the Main Character along with their stats and choices, but that is not important to playing The Prodigy as a stand-alone.

What's best about that is that players don't feel obligated to buy the sequel as The Prodigy nicely ties off the main story, along with multiple sub-plot threads. The ending left me with an upbeat, optimistic feeling and a sense of wonder about where my character would go, which is the best way to end a game in my opinion.

This game is pretty great, there are a few things that I'm sure would turn off a lot of people, but for what it is this game is great.

It's a text based game that is set in a world where superheroes are a norm, and even ranked and followed by paparazi. While it being texted based, and having a few moments in the game where your decisions have little effect on the outcome, the game is extremely fun.

Even the fact that it's text based is amazing to me, because it allows you to form a world of your own instead of adhearing to the rules of someone else. It's not supposed to be a full sandbox game, it's a hero game where a few things have to be kept in stone for it to work.

Fully recomend this and the sequel to anyone who'll like this game.

i can definitely recommend this game, as its storytelling is impeccable. i personally like the twist, although some people could probably have seen it coming. i like that some of the choices actually impact the story's elements, but i feel like there's not enough variety and that some of the choices don't really seem to actually change anything; it's a bit too linear and very short.

one of my largest complaints is that sometimes when i'm faced with a choice it won't let me pick a different choice other than the first one... which, you know, sucks. especially because it happened to me twice during one of the most pivotal choices of the game. i'm very disappointed in that.

all in all, for a single playthrough, it's pretty cool. it gave me what i wanted: a unique, story-driven text-based adventure. i'd recommend a couple more playthroughs if you're curious about the other story trees, but other than that it doesn't have much replay value. definitely get the game on sale.

PROS:
- unique and refreshing
- fun to play

CONS:
- somewhat linear
- short
- little replay value
- bugs could mess up your playthrough

EDIT: seems like the choices that i couldn't pick were not a bug, but rather the implications of previous choices barring me from choosing a more preferable option. cool feature, but i wish i'd been told that could happen sometime during gameplay.

Having never played a choose your own text based adventure before I was unsure what to think but I found myself becoming entirely invested in the game and the storyline as it unfolded. I also enjoyed the inclusivity and diversity the game provided. I would very much recommend anyone to give this a try.

I really enjoyed this. Granted, it's not perfect. I am a huge fan of gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy and grew up reading every Choose Your Own Adventure I could get my hands on. This feels more like the latter and not FF books. You will get to make decisions on how to manage your health and power resources, but this doesn't create as freeform a feeling as some of the FF books. While I was going through the game, I was really engaged and felt like I could play out a lawless, anti-hero fairly well.
Would I play through again? No. It becomes very obvious that many decisions aren't really decisions. Either way I will end up going down the same path even if I take a detour of a single additional page. One of the frusterating thing about the CYOA books was that your choices were any that could be thought through. You could make a decision and some completly unexpected, unpredictable event would occur. This has a number of those moments.
Despite this, I did enjoy it for a single play through. I bought it with the complete package and on sale, so for the price it was a far better bargain than a lot of the garbage I've purchased on Steam.
If you were a real fan of CYOA or even FF books, I would say you will probably like this especially for the price.

this game is realy imersive, if u give it a cance u wil not be disepointed,

Excelent story with twists and choices that left me pondering before choosing an option many times. I feel that the creators have done well in creating a sense of reality. If you like a good story, and having super powers is the stuff you dream about (like me just about every night of my life) then this is a sure buy.

Absolutely AMAZING trilogy- the writing really takes you in!

If you ever read choose your own adventure books this is like that - but you can't cheat as easily anymore by saving pages with your fingers =P. If you don't like your decision you could restart the game but they are long enough with enough choices that doing so would mean you would need to scroll through lots of pages and decisions - in other words most people will probably live with their "bad" choices which I think is a good thing.

This first chapter has a definitive conclusion that felt satisfying. I feel you could buy it alone and you would get a clear idea whether you would like it or not.

So this is a game for people who like choose your own adventure or visual novel, which I like both. Unforunately the game is entirely text based, but the writing is very good. The game is set in a world where there are many people with superpowers, and to be a superhero you have to get a license. You start out as a video game tester who is saving money to pay for the hero license. You can be male or female, straight, gay/lesbian, or bisexual. You can use a pregenerated name or insert your own, and the same goes for your alias. The game is a decent length especially for its price tag, which the games are cheaper if you buy the series bundle. Supposedly you can import your save from this game into the second game, but I haven't tried this out yet. The story was great and enjoyable. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't just save anywhere, and the strain on my eyes from reading off a computer screen. These games and several others by the same company are on the IOS/Android store. I hope they bring the rest of their games to Steam, but if they do not then I will get them on my IPad.