Genre: Action&adventure, 3d brawler, rogue-like
Developer: aheartfulofgames
Publisher: Badland Games
Platform PC, Mac, PS4 and Xbox one
Heart&Slash – Review
Play as Heart, a malfunctioning robot, who fights for its identity against the minions of standardization in a world dominated by machines. Their sole priority is to ensure everything complies with the obscure standardization protocol, under the supervision of the all-seeing robot leader Quality Assurance System (QuAsSy).
Story
After the robolution (revolution of robots) no human survived. Heart, a robot made by Dr. Sympathic, fights the evil robots controlled by QuAsSy while searching for love. Slash, the roaming rebel rogues and QuAsSy’s lackeys are the enemies who try to defeat you with their hammer or guns. Heart is not dominated by the Quality Assurance System and can control himself, thus live his robotic life freely, albeit with constant attempts at his life. Slash is sadly one of the rogue robots, wants to defeat you. The other rogue lackeys come in different sizes and forms, but don’t really add that much story value. Your goal is simply to defeat all the robots and protect anyone from their destruction by discovering the factory, weapons, body parts and all the special abilities
The story is really only a prologue and it stays with that. It is not very elaborated and the story doesn’t really evolve all that much, which is quite sad for a game with this theme and introduction. After the introduction it’s pretty much all up to you, if you want to think of a story that is. If you just want to clobber robots into submission, that’s fine too.
Graphics
The design and style of the is reminiscent of Trove and other titles from an era long forgotten, giving the game a rather nostalgic atmosphere. The game has flash-like graphics and it suits the topic of the game perfectly. The environments aren’t all that detailed, but they have a certain witty appearance, adding to the lightness of this robot brawler. The walls of the laboratory are one-sided and very dark in contrast to the flashy robots, weapons and body parts, making the latter stand out. Nonetheless, the developers added some small details ‘that matter’, making the game feel more alive, even though it’s all about artificial beings. The 3D tools and robots are well created, and Heart’s heart shaped head for some reason struck us in our own heart, making the character very likeable.
Sound
The music of Heart&Slash was clearly chosen with care, as it falls in the retro/elektro genre, which goes hand in hand with the theme and the graphical style of the game. While during your digital escapades you won’t hear that much diversity when it comes to the different songs, they are quite enticing and catchy for them to get stuck in your head. Sadly, there is no ‘voice acting’, but you’ll certainly make do with the music blasting in the background when you punch your robotic foes into oblivion.
Gameplay
Heart&Slash is a 3D brawler/roguelike, action and adventure game. The game itself is rather simple but you have a decent arsenal at your disposal which immediatly adds a lot of extra elements to the overall gameplay. You have 75 weapons, 60 body parts and special abilities like teleport, stop time, fly with a jetpack, wall running… to unlock and play with, which creates something extra to hide the simplicity of this title.. Each of these items have their own characteristic look, making it quite fun to experiment as you progress. On your route through the lab different robots will attack you, because they are installed with QuAsSy and thus lack better judgment. As Heart you have the goal to defeat those robots with multiple combos with your sword or spear to receive ‘love’ from someone. You can perform a dodge roll and jump to attack flying robots. the dodge roll works with a timing system marked by a red exclamation point, which is rather common in many games today.
As you’ll be beating up your robotic foes more than once, you’ll get screws as a reward. These screws are in turn used to strengthen Heart, by upgrading your weapons, body parts and skills. The game keeps things simple, just like the rest of the gameplay, and thus you’ll just have to opt for the items you love using the most, or explore new things you’d like to use with Heart. Go nuts (or screws, bolts and whatever).
The rest of the game’s controls is equally as simple as all the rest. You have also a mini map with a little pink heart to indicate your position, red areas you haven’t yet explored and green areas which you’ve already been through. While playing there are no real indications of a ‘level’ switch, providing a rather smooth transition. You just play and discover the laboratory/ factory on your own and that’s about it. Overall, the game is one big level and if you die, you simply start at the beginning of the game again, hopefully with a better knowledge and understanding of your enemies.
Conclusion
Heart&Slash is a very funny indie title that made its way to both our current generation of consoles and Steam. While this robotic brawler can get under your skin from time to time, the arsenal of weapons and body parts will motivate you to keep pressing forward. If you have a love for games such as Trove, this equally pixilated title will surely win your heart over. An amusing title to play between bigger titles and one to perhaps pick up later again.
Heart&Slash - Review,
No Comments