Co-op, in a nutshell, works much like a single player game, just with multiple players. Each player is able to carry their own power-ups or relics and can only share their powerups if they pick up one and drop the other. On the plus side, any and all XP collected within a level is shared between all players, so there's no reason to be fighting over who's collecting all the XP orbs that liter about. Another thing that is convenient is that any and all relics or characters unlocked via a multiplayer game are kept forever. Essentially, you are playing the best version of the game possible when playing as friends, as there are hardly any drawbacks and they can help in killing zombies faster than when alone.
The cohesiveness of your team and building the right zombie killing squad is also a fine way to play cooperatively in this game. For example, I'd recommend teams of two should include one melee-type hero, such as Lincoln or Montezuma, and a ranged-type character, like Tesla or Napoleon. Normally, the melee attackers are much better at hitting multiple zombies and have greater DPS, while ranged attackers are great at precision strikes from afar and aren't as quick. In teams of four, I'd suggest two go melee while the others go ranged. Other than that, the only other co-op mechanic that seemed noteworthy was the ability to revive fallen players when they die.
I was a little bit disappointed in the limited amount of upgrades players can purchase for their characters, especially since there is so much XP to collect in this game. Players will spend XP to purchase a total of two different kinds of upgrades: increasing a character's maximum health or their attack power and speed. Since each character has their own upgrade gauges to put XP into, replaying stages for XP is almost necessary to survive into the later levels. I didn't find that upgrading my maximum health was all that necessary, as there were plenty of power-ups to replenish my health along with my chosen relics. On top of that, the left trigger lets players dash forward a small distance, which can be spammed to for easy hit-and-run tactics. As my favorite character, Nikola Tesla (a slow, long-range attacker), I could easily circle around big groups of zombies and keep myself at a safe distance with that mechanic alone.
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Second Chance Heroes is a nice distraction from the much larger and more serious zombie titles out there, but it has its limitations. While co-op gameplay does liven up the experience quite a bit, there are only a small number of mechanics catered specifically towards it. As an indie title, Second Chance Heroes strength lies in its simple, action-oriented play style that doesn't force you to think too much while playing; a perfect "sit back and relax" game. I commend the developers for certainly put in a lot of love towards the character and enemy designs, as they are refreshingly comedic. More variety in level design and additional characters customizations would certainly boost this game's replayability as well. Overall, Second Chance Heroes is a fine game to kill time and decompress with friends after a long day.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Players team up as historical figures in an action game against zombies and other strange enemies.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.