As unfortunate as it may be, Heart&Slash is not some new collaboration between the ’70s sister duo Heart and the guitarist from Guns & Roses: it’s actually a hack-and-slash roguelike. You play as Heart, a robot that has been rebuilt 100 years after robots overtook humanity. Having no idea what’s going on, he must discover the truth while fighting off waves of evil robots. His adventure is an uphill battle, one that would frustrate him to no end – if he could feel emotions.
Here’s what I liked:
Extensive armory – The available weapons are impressive, to say the least. There’s a huge selection of swords, hammers, shields, guns and more all waiting to be unlocked. Every item feels unique, having at least one special combo or ability that nothing else has. This makes finding new items fun and exciting, as you never know when you’ll find your new favorite tool of destruction. The weapon switching system is pretty genius: you can equip up to three weapons, a main and two alternates. At any time, you can switch weapons by holding the left or right trigger, and you switch back to your main once the trigger’s released. It’s incredibly fluid and feels great, especially when you get three weapons that perfectly complement one another.
Here’s what I didn’t like:
Ugly randomization – A roguelike should thrive on its randomization, but this one does not. Throughout the game you’ll be exploring arbitrarily assembled levels composed of pre-built rooms. Unfortunately, there are few types of rooms: 90 percent of what you’ll see are the same few combat rooms repeated over and over. The only major variation is the enemy layout, but even that’s not done well. It’s all too common to venture into a room that spawns an unmanageable amount of bad guys. Before long, you’ll find out the best strategy for survival is just to run to the next room – unless the room decides to lock you in and force you to take out everyone. Like many roguelikes, great runs in part come down to luck, but bad luck comes around way too often here. Every run begins with you gaining three random equipment items, so you can easily get stuck with the worst weapons for your upcoming trials. You may only get boxing gloves and have to fight flying over a death chasm, or be handed an elemental weapon to which the majority of upcoming enemies are resistant. The game is constantly working against you, and not in the way it should.
Fire the cameraman – The camera is an unruly beast. Its controls are very sensitive, it flies around wildly at times and it gets stuck in the corners. It’s also very pulled back, which was likely an intentional move to allow you to see all the enemies in an area, but cheap shots still fly in from off-screen. Text falls off enemies to tell you the attack’s effectiveness, but the camera is so far away you can’t read it.
Lover, not a fighter– Everything else in
Wrap-up:
Heart&Slash probably would be a lot more fun if it wasn’t a roguelike. Its weapons are really cool, the combat has some potential and the light RPG elements are rather neat. If the level design was more deliberate and there were checkpoints instead of permadeath, it may have negated some of Heart&Slash’s biggest issues. A good roguelike is constantly challenging but always fair., This one is just provides cheap frustration.
Score: Limited Appeal
Heart&Slash was developed by aheartfulofgames and published on Xbox One by Badland Games. It was released June 26, 2016 for $19.99. A copy was provided by Badland Games for review purposes.
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