Heroes of Tomorrow: Hidden Potential

Heroes of Tomorrow: Hidden Potential is Choice of Games' latest text-based interactive novel, a 600,000-word superhero story that drops the player into Evos Academy as a newly-minted student hero. There is no art, no voice acting, no soundtrack — just branching prose and a stat sheet — which puts all of the pressure on writing and systems design to carry the experience. Steam's "Mostly Positive" tag undersells how split the response actually is: this is a game reviewers either found genuinely absorbing or actively punishing, sometimes within the same playthrough.

A cast worth building relationships with

Where the game earns its praise almost unanimously is in its characters and setting. One reviewer wrote that they "really loved the aspect of forging friendships and managing your team dynamics," praising a "great cast of likeable characters among both fellow students and mentors, cohesive and immersive worldbuilding that doesn't loredump much, smooth writing." Another compared it favorably to genre peers: "Superhero CoG games tend to be hit or miss. While we have good stuff like Heroes Rise series and Fallen Hero series, we also have… not so good stuff," before concluding Hidden Potential lands in the good category, citing that "It’s fairly long, but very engaging and fun to read" and that "The story actually achieves resolution and has a proper ending, which you have to be thankful these days." A longer, more measured review agreed specifically on the cast, calling it "definitely one of the better CoG titles for characters" and adding plainly, "Overall, characters are the high point of this title."

The game's central mechanic — its "Outlooks," paired personality stats that shift against each other as you play — also drew real enthusiasm. "I thought it was cool that there were statistical consequences to your actions," one reviewer explained, describing how "the stats (called 'Outlooks') are balanced against each other to add up to 100%, so that when you increase one, the other must decrease," which in their playthrough "gave my decisions more weight." Another player framed the same system as a roleplaying constraint they came to appreciate rather than resent: "I understand why it would feel like punishment for some to sacrifice one skill to raise another but it was narratively explained quite well so it felt like I was shaping my playstyle."

When the stat sheet fights the story

That same system is the game's most contested element. One of its harshest critics wrote, "This game was good as a story, but felt bad as a CYOA. The stats system detracted from the CYOA aspects by making the majority of choices in any particular set unviable to actually choose without punishment," adding that by the end they felt "my character wasn't becoming any stronger throughout the story, and like I had no agency over my character's own choices." Another reviewer voiced a similar frustration with how granular the checks get: "I disliked how virtually everything your character says changes the personality values - especially Composed/Reckless. And sometimes it feels like you're guaranteed to fail, because the choice might test three of your weak stats." A detailed two-playthrough review landed somewhere in between, praising the talent-based checks while singling out a specific layer as excessive: "The only thing I really criticise here is that the 'personality' skill checks feel unnecessary and limit role-playing... It gets to the point where you are looking at your stat pool for every line of dialogue you click, and it can be tiring."

The writing quality itself splits reviewers almost as sharply as the stats do. Several found it inconsistent at a basic craft level — one wrote that "it is constantly contradicting itself, making references to things that have never come up before but I am apparently supposed to be familiar with," while a blunter review called it "one of the worst written choice of games story I've ever read," adding "I assume there was no editor on this to give notes." Others pushed back hard on that reading: a more forgiving player admitted, "There are some flavor inconsistencies but they are very minor and it's absurd how some people used them a reason for negative review," while a lengthy, generally positive review conceded only that "the writing stumbles a bit until the author really gets into the style and pattern of what they're making," before it "flowed well enough" a few chapters in.

Bugs, missing saves, and a lack of polish

Beyond the writing debate, the most frequently repeated practical complaint is structural: there's no way to save mid-chapter or revisit earlier sections short of restarting entirely. "Unlike Ren'py there isnt an option to save or back up incase there is something i missed," one reviewer wrote, arguing that "the over all ui/ux and story paradoxes make it a bit difficult" to recommend despite otherwise enjoying the story. Another reviewer, comparing it directly to the developer's back catalog, noted "unlike some other games from this dev, you can't replay or go back to individual chapters; your only option is to restart the game from scratch." A more analytical review credited the underlying system design even while docking points elsewhere, writing that "the system is impressively well constructed. The mechanics feel deliberate and balanced," and later found the prose itself merely serviceable: "The writing is clear and sincere, but often more descriptive than evocative."

Worth it for the right reader

For all the disagreement over its stat system and consistency, Hidden Potential's value proposition is one of the few things almost everyone agrees on. "For the price of a fancy coffee, I think it's well worth the money," one reviewer wrote, going on to say "I'd give it a solid 7/10 experience, and an 8.5/10 on value" and praising a cast where "most characters are well fleshed out enough for me to want to see them do well." That roughly summarizes the game's actual position: a text-based superhero novel with a genuinely strong cast and an ambitious consequence system that occasionally works against itself, sold at a price that softens most of its rough edges. Readers who come from other Choice of Games or Hosted Games titles and are used to punishing stat checks and imperfect prose will likely find plenty to like here; anyone expecting a save button or bulletproof continuity will want to temper expectations first.