First Touch Games is known for its soccer games for iOS and Android devices, and you probably know a few of them, including the Dream League Soccer series. However, if you’re more into controlling the destiny of a single player instead of a whole team of 11 starters plus substitutes, you can check out their other popular title, Score! Hero 2 — the sequel to the original game.
This is a far more casual gaming experience, as you can probably infer from the original’s mention of “simple to play, tough to master” in the description, but that couldn’t be more true — it’s very simple to figure out the mechanics of passing the ball and shooting it, but actually completing the levels/stages is a completely different thing. Precision is very important here, and sloppy passing and lazy shot attempts will be penalized big-time — how about repeating the entire level no matter how far you’ve gone before making your first mistake? It’s an old-school arcade mechanic, and it’s what makes Score! Hero 2 so different from other games in the genre.
Score! Hero 2, as further indicated, comes with real-life teams and leagues for the first time in the franchise’s history, as well as a new storyline for the titular Hero. The new title, despite its new additions, plays very similarly to its predecessor, but if this is your first time to play the game, we’ve got something that might make it easier for you to complete more levels and also the first few seasons. This comprehensive Score! Hero 2 guide is mostly geared toward new and intermediate players, but read on regardless of your experience level if you need an extra edge in the game.
1. Understand The Basics Of Score! Hero 2
As you’ll notice right off the bat, Score! Hero 2 is not your average mobile soccer game. It offers a completely different experience from any of First Touch’s Dream League Soccer titles. It is not an 11 vs. 11 game as you may think, and you won’t be taking part in any simulated 90-minute matches. Instead, you will be put in control of a user character, an up-and-coming prospect trying to make his name in the world of international soccer.
And, as the name of the game suggests, your mettle will be tested in various situations where you need to score a goal, or at least be involved in a goal-scoring play, in order to help the team you play for. But before anything else, you’ll be asked to choose the appearance of your user character, or your “Hero,” as well as his nationality. In both cases, your choices will be purely cosmetic and based on your personal preference. None of the players have special skills or abilities or statistical boosts, as this game tests your ability to draw a flawless path to the goal, which we shall be explaining in the next paragraph.
Once you’ve created a character, you will be walked through the process of scoring a goal — simply draw a path toward the goal in order to take a shot. Try your best to replicate the suggested path as closely as possible — you can always draw your own once you get to the later levels, but this oftentimes won’t be the ideal path. Similarly, the next two steps of the tutorial will show you how to pass the ball to a teammate — the key here is to draw a path through space and not across any of the opposing players. But you’ll also need to draw that path in such a way that you cannot be intercepted or dispossessed by anyone on the opposing team.
As a reward for completing the tutorial, the game will reward you with 200 Hero Bux, which you can use to redo goal-scoring plays. You will also notice during your first attempt at completing a Season Mode level that you have five hearts, with each of them having five individual bars that represent attempts at completing the goal-scoring play. You will fail the level anytime you play the pass poorly and get intercepted or tackled by the defense — if this happens, you lose at least two bars worth of health, depending on how many moves you’re expected to make before scoring the goal.
If you’re unable to score once you’re in scoring range, then you lose one bar of health, but you’ll have to redo the entire play or series of plays from scratch even if it’s only the final move that’s unsuccessful! Therein lies the challenge of Score! Hero 2 — it’s all about stringing together moves to complete a flawless play without spoon feeding, and if it’s less than perfect, you need to redo everything from square one, no questions asked.
If you’re able to score a goal, then you’ve completed the level — you will then be awarded anywhere from one to three stars depending on how many of the requirements you completed. That’s another challenge that is characteristic of Score! Hero 2 — the game will not tell you what the requirements are for the level until it is completed, so you’ll need to take note of them before replaying the level and gunning for three stars. And you’ll likely need to replay your fair share of levels if you want to make it to the next chapter, or season — you can only move on to the next season if you’ve accumulated enough stars! (Based on the number of stars you finish with, you could also win trophies — and prizes, including Hero Bux and Boosts, at the end of a season.)
After you’ve finished the tutorial, you will be prompted to enter your player name, which can be almost anything you wish — again, we would like to caution you against using any offensive names, even if there isn’t any multiplayer element present in the game. The jersey number will be predetermined, though you will be allowed to change this later on in the game once you’ve completed enough levels.
In short, the game may look easy, and if you get the hang of the mechanics, there’s a good chance it will be. However, it may take a long time getting used to if you’re more accustomed to traditional action-based mobile soccer games.
2. Curve Your Paths Toward The Goal, And Aim At The Corners
If there’s one thing you really need to get used to when playing Score! Hero 2, it’s the fact that the opposing team’s players are essentially super-powered compared to the players on the team that you control. You’ll notice how quick they are to dispossess your team’s players, with a special animation highlighting their speed as they go for the tackle or run in for the interception. And when it comes to the goalkeeper, you’ll notice that all opposing keepers’ alertness levels are off the charts — these aren’t your average AI keepers whom you can throw off through one tactic or another in a traditional action-based soccer game.
Try a basic shot with a straight trajectory and the keeper will calmly save it as the game displays yet another one-word reaction — “Denied!” “Rejected!” “Keeper!” (Yes, that last one was serious.) It won’t be the easiest thing to do at first, but in order to have the best chance of deceiving the goalkeeper, you need to aim for the upper left or right corners of the goal, and curve your path as much as possible while ensuring that the end point is still within the parameters of the goal.
Take note that this doesn’t cover special instructions for certain levels, where you need to score in a certain way — we are referring to the first try at completing the level, where the optional requirements don’t come into play yet.
When curving the line toward the goal, it’s usually better to make sure that the curved part of the path goes a bit past the goal before returning to a target within the goal area. Again, the end point should ideally be in the corners unless you’re going for the optional requirements/two or three stars, but just as long as the path is sufficiently curved, you should have a better chance than usual of scoring.
3. Take It Easy With Your Hero Bux!
As we mentioned above, you can use your Hero Bux to rewind, or redo a goal scoring opportunity after you miss without having to spend more energy; this will cost you 10 Hero Bux and will save you the inconvenience of starting the entire sequence of plays from square one, especially during those stages where you need to score multiple goals. (If you score on goal number one but get intercepted before scoring goal number two, or fail to make that second goal, you have to redo everything from the very top!) You do get one free rewind per day, but otherwise, every other rewind costs 10 Bux.
In addition, once you’re all out of Hearts, you can pay 100 Hero Bux to refill your Hearts back to five immediately, without having to wait. Although it’s a common instinct to pay Bux to replay your goal opportunity, we would advise against doing that too often, and we would especially warn you against paying all that Bux to immediately refill your Hearts.
Although it is technically the common currency of Score! Hero 2, Hero Bux can also be considered a premium currency, and that’s because the easiest way to get a refill is to pay real-life money — for instance, getting 200 Bux from the in-game store will cost you a cool $3 or its equivalent in local currency. That’s something you want to avoid, and when it comes to getting free Bux, this only happens during certain levels and would usually require an excellent, highlight-worthy performance in order to get that onetime Bux bonus. So with that having been said, hang on to your Bux for as long as you could, because they won’t be easy to come by.
4. You Can Only Make Passes Within The Outlined Area
Another thing that’s worth mentioning about Score! Hero 2 is that every play in every level is scripted to be challenging, even when it shouldn’t be. Some of the plays you’ll be forced to make may look counterintuitive, and that’s because they are — even if you see a player who’s much closer and isn’t as tightly covered as the one you’re supposed to pass to, you won’t be able to make a pass to that player unless he’s within the outlined area during each play. Again, this is part of the game’s challenge — it’s not as much about taking the quickest, easiest, and best route toward scoring a goal as it is about taking the route that the game wants you to take.
So with that having been said, you should only draw lines toward players that are located within the outlined polygon on the field. Any attempt to draw outside that area will not be counted, so it’s up to you to imagine how the play will unfold and draw the path in such a way that you won’t get intercepted or tackled. Also, when drawing a path to the goal, the lines cannot go past the outlined area either, so while it’s still important to have some curvature in those paths, make sure it isn’t out of bounds, so to say, in order for the shot attempt to go through.
5. Think, Don’t Draw Outside The Box
On the other hand, it is possible to leverage the challenges posed by Score! Hero 2’s mechanics and use them to your advantage. The game may script the challenges in such a way that you cannot make the easy and obvious pass to a teammate who’s already in the opponent’s box, but you can work around this by diverting from what is expected and making an extra pass or two to get a better look and a clearer scoring opportunity once everything is said and done.
Of course, that may sound riskier if you consider how practically every level after the fifteenth requires you to score two goals, and how you need to start fresh even if you scored one goal, should you choose not to rewind after making a bad pass or failing to score a second time. But think about it this way — the extra pass could be what you need to avoid redoing everything, which could take up much more of your time in the grander scheme of things.
You’ll also want to ramp up your critical thinking after the first season, where offside violations become a thing! These are, in layman’s terms, called whenever you set up a scoring chance or offensive play that’s too good to be true (due to the lack of coverage), and getting called offside is tantamount to a failed play in Score! Hero 2.
In other words, you may be better off for thinking outside of the box, even if you’re not allowed to draw outside the box in most cases.
6. Avoid Making Overly Long Passes
On one end, there is a benefit to making passes that slightly overshoot the location of the target player. This often allows them enough room to operate against defenders, especially those who always seem to be at the right place and at the right time with those lightning-quick headers or tackles.
However, what you should generally avoid are those passes to faraway teammates — it can be argued that these are high-risk, high-reward situations, as there may be times when the teammate could receive the pass successfully and have a good chance at scoring the goal.
But more often than not, especially if it isn’t a pass leading to a scoring opportunity, making an overly long pass allows the defense to catch up and react quicker once the ball is within range. That means it may be better to save those long, heroic passes for situations that could lead to a decent scoring opportunity at the very least; if you’re simply trying to move the ball around faster, then it’s best to stick to short passes.
7. There Is No Time Limit When It Comes To Making Moves In The Game
This may be the simplest, yet most important tip when talking about the gameplay of Score! Hero 2. After playing a few levels, you should notice that the game does not have any time limits when it comes to making a move. You can take all the time you need to decide how to go about things and how to draw the best possible path to a teammate or to the goal.
The game won’t react by making an arbitrary, nonsensical move or by making you lose the challenge — just as long as you don’t leave the game unattended for hours, time shouldn’t run out on you. This may also be helpful in another way, as this just might allow you to gain energy while waiting to make a move, though this might not happen too often. Just remember that you aren’t under any kind of time pressure, because if you were, that might make the game too hard for comfort.
8. Customizing Your Hero
After completing the tenth level of the first season, you will be able to customize your player in a number of ways — this may include changing their hairdo and/or hair color, changing their jersey number, or changing their name, among others. You can also select their uniform design and opt for a new pair of shoes if you wish. All these options can be found by clicking on the Hero button on the bottom of the screen — this is the second to the left, right in between the store and Season Mode icons.
Although it might sound like a cool idea to make some changes to your player to jazz up his look, you should remember that any changes you make to his appearance will be merely cosmetic. These do not improve his skills in any way, and do not improve his chances of making successful passes and scoring more goals. And it might not be that good an idea anyway to make those changes, unless you’ve got a lot of Hero Bux saved up — for some options, such as your character’s hair and facial design, you will need to pay 50 Bux in order to unlock one of the alternative hairdos or faces.
Other options, however, such as the name and the uniform, can be changed for free, though at this point, there are only two uniform choices available, and the player name is probably the most cosmetic of cosmetic details in Score! Hero 2 anyway. (As for your shirt number, you will have the option to choose a new, predetermined number after completing a season.)
9. Buying Stuff With Real Money – Should You Or Shouldn’t You Do It?
At this point in Score! Hero 2’s long history, Hero Bux are still the only thing you can purchase in the in-game store, which can be accessed by tapping on the Shop icon on the bottom left of the screen. Packages come as cheap as $3, which could get you 200 Bux, though if you’re willing to pay more, you can get some bonus Bux — for example, the $5 package, or the “Stack,” comes with 400 Bux total, which includes the basic 330 plus a bonus of 70.
The most expensive package is the Mountain, and that’ll set you back by $30 — it comes with a total of 2,850 Bux, or 1,940 plus a bonus of 910. We don’t always advocate for players spending real money, but if you can afford it, you might as well go for it, considering how hard it is to earn free Hero Bux in the game.
Although in-game currency is the only thing available to purchase at the Shop, there is one purchase that might be particularly useful if you’re trying to complete a season — you can pay $3 to get unlimited health for 24 hours. You won’t get any free Bux to allow you to replay goal scoring attempts, but the good thing here is that you can keep playing for one whole day without waiting for your hearts to refill.
10. You Won’t Be Alone In The Game If You Have Enough Boosts
At the end of certain levels, or if you are able to finish with enough stars and end the season with a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Trophy, the game may reward you with Boosts, which are power-ups that we would advise you to use very wisely, considering how hard it is to earn them. These include the Rewind Boost, which gives you a 50 percent discount on Bux in the event you need to redo a failed play; that means you’ll be paying 5 Bux instead of the usual 10 for rewinding a mistake.
The Energy Boost freezes your health/energy for an entire stage, essentially allowing you unlimited tries for that stage alone, and the Checkpoint Boost lets you save your progress during those multi-goal levels, preventing you from redoing everything after you fail just one pass or goal attempt.
Out of those boosts, we’d say the latter two are the most valuable of them all, as they can both help you avoid a ton of rework. But either way, it’s best to hang on to any Boosts you may have for as long as possible and to save them for those truly difficult levels where there’s seemingly nothing you can do to overcome those super-powered defenders and inhumanly quick and alert goalkeepers.
And that’s all for now as far as our Score! Hero 2 tips and tricks are concerned. Have you discovered additional tips while playing the game? Let us know in the comments below!