Heart & Slash Review
The GOOD, the BAD, and the ROUGE, ROUGE-LIKE!
Heart & Slash reeled me in with it’s retro aesthetics, but no amount of nostalgia can save game play from an older era.
Heart & Slash Experience
Played about 8 to 9 hours
Played on PS4
Have sunk in TONS of hours into games like: The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon.
THE GOOD
Heart & Slash is absolutely teeming with personality. The game hearkens back to a forgotten era of games like Megaman Legends and Ape Escape. Every 90 degree angle looks finely crafted to fit into this world and animations are subtle and smooth.
This retro aesthetic extends to every aspect of the game. Weapons, enemies and effects all posses a unique blend that pulls you into the universe.
Not to mention the music hits all the right notes. It is unfortunate that the songs are few and become repetitive in consequence. But should you enter a brawl, the game will compliment the action with a catchy tune.
Weapons are curiously fun. Discovering a weapon for the first time can feel refreshing as it will change up the way you approach each encounter. One minute you’re swinging a health-stealing blade, the next, you’re hurling grenades.
The small amount of story that is here, is both interesting and hilarious. Though the narrative serves mostly as a means to which the game takes place, the small snippets make for an interesting distraction.
Sense of progression. The game has quite a bit of replay value, as do most rogue-like dungeon crawlers. With an assortment of weapons, achievements, and secret characters to unlock, you’ll feel as though there is something to be earned in each run.
Boss battles are awesome! While they can be a bit stressful, overcoming an intimidating foe can be a reward in of itself.
The high risk and high reward upgrades. The way Heart and Slash differentiates itself from others of the same genre is in it’s approach to an upgrade system. Upon defeating enemies they’ll drop parts that, after collecting enough, can be used to upgrade your weapons, armor, or even your personal stats. Not to mention, should you have any extra parts that you didn’t spend prior to defeat, can be carried over to the next run so that the player not feel completely defeated.
Addictive gameplay. I may be biased in this regard, but I absolutely love rouge-like games. I found Heart and Slash to be no different. The challenge and the promise of discovery kept me coming back for more.
THE BAD
Just because it has addictive game play elements does NOT mean that it is good. Combat is clunky, the dodge roll can be unresponsive, and weapons can come off useless, whether intentionally or not. Jumping, a core mechanic in the game, is a frustrating action to preform and is needed in order to battle airborne enemies–enemies you encounter almost every skirmish. Jumping immediately reveals another kink in the game which is…
THE GOSH-DARN CAMERA! I can’t begin to describe how excruciatingly painful playing with the camera is. It constantly pulls up when you back into a wall or when simply increasing in elevation. In the opening hours, you can see Heart and Slash’s camera as a nuisance, but it isn’t until the later hours, when the game introduces light platforming, that it becomes a real chore to navigate. It caused many-a-rage-quits throughout our play through.
Terrible, terrible hit boxes. The game emphasizes timing when it comes to dodging and blocking but what you aren’t prepared for, is the nearly unpredictable nature of damaging collisions. This is apparent, not only from your hits and slashes, but in the enemies’ as well. Right when you think you’ve successfully dodged an incoming attack, the strike registers and you pay the price.
As you can see above, the death explosion animation begins before I’m actually hit. The hearts even dissipate before the smash!
Weapons do not always compliment each other. Heart and Slash emphasizes weapon combinations, whenever you pick up a weapon you are given a chance (ONE CHANCE, mind you) to assign it to either of your shoulder buttons. When you have a weapon like the Rocket Hammer accompanied by some Hand Blades, you end up overshooting with your hammer and swinging at nothing with your hand blades. Double hammers or a pair of boxing gloves and a shotgun, all come off as odd combinations and in the end, I chose to stick to one weapon and upgrade the others to sell for hearts.
Overall, the game does a very poor job of explaining itself. Even with the half baked tutorial, I found that the loading screens gave me more useful information than the actual tutorial mode. While rouge like games thrive in the discovery of items, I would still like Heart & Slash to tell me what kind of car I’m driving, not just how to drive.
THE ROUGE, ROUGE-LIKE
This is an odd game to review. As a beat em’ up-rougelike-dungeon crawler, it has all the makings of a fulfilling title. Procedural generating stages, assortment of weapons, ton of unlockables all look great on paper yet are poorly sewed together as a cohesive experience.
This is a niche game for a niche group of people. Ultimately, I can’t recommend this game to just anyone. This game is unforgiving, hardcore, and a little rough around the edges. It will frustrate and challenge you. The average gamer might put this down after a sitting or two, and if said gamer really wanted to fill that rouge-like fix, there are other alternatives that are more rewarding.
That being said, I can’t put it down. I can’t stop playing it. There is something that developers A Heartful of Games accomplished here. With clunky combat, you still have rhythm. With stubborn enemies, comes challenge, and with frustrating encounters comes the satisfaction of accomplishment and while the product as a whole can feel incomplete and under developed, it still has enough charm and challenge to keep some players, like myself, entertained.
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