The robot revolution took place, and mankind was completely eliminated. All that remains are machines, blindly following their designed purpose. Quality Assurance System, or QuAsSy for short, sees and controls all. A cute little robot, Heart, is rebuilt and remains free of QuAsSy’s control. Instinctively, Heart equips itself with nearby weapons and sets out on a journey to find true freedom. This is the premise of Heart&Slash by Aheartfulofgames, a challenging 3D roguelike brawler. As Heart, you navigate through maze-like dungeons and slay enemy robots with the goal of finding true freedom.
Similar to other roguelikes such as The Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy, procedurally generated levels combine with real-time action. Players navigate between rooms, defeating enemies and finding new equipment to prepare them for future trials. Death is permanent, requiring you to start from the very beginning when defeated. The random nature of weapon and armour pick-ups does a great job of forcing the player to adapt to a new situation each time a new dungeon crawl begins.
“Make no mistake in thinking that Heart&Slash is an easy game. Letting your guard down in a seemingly less-threatening encounter will have you rapidly losing hearts”
Weapons and armour range from typical weapons like basic swords and axes to dumbbells and rubber ducks. Yes, rubber duck body armour. You unlock most new equipment by fulfilling specific conditions (defeating a specific enemy a set number of times, defeating a boss, and so on). The fact that most weapons play at least somewhat differently adds a great deal of replay value. Equipment that you pick up during a run is randomised, and the thought of receiving a previously unseen weapon is tantalizing. There are a total of 75 weapons and 60 pieces of armour in the game, and unlocking all of them will surely keep you busy for quite some time.
“Boss fights are thrilling and demand the player to use every tool in their arsenal to succeed”
When jumping, the camera pans upward to add a sense of verticality to combat. This is at some points enjoyable and other times very frustrating. The problem is that, in some situations, a mid-air weapon strike requires you to be at a comparable height to the enemy, and the overhead camera can sometimes make comparing heights difficult. This leads into what is Heart&Slash’s biggest issue: the frustrating camera. The camera’s over-sensitivity is immediately jarring and makes finite adjusting difficult. The lack of a sensitivity slider in the options menu offers no way to fix this problem. When too close to a wall or corner, the camera will often zoom to the top of Heart’s head. This leaves the player completely blind to everything happening around them. This often left me frantically jumping and moving the camera to get out of the corner before enemies obliterated me.
“Heart&Slash successfully transitions roguelike gameplay into the third-dimension with its fluid, fast-paced (and challenging) combat”
Heart&Slash successfully transitions roguelike gameplay into the third-dimension with its fluid, fast-paced (and challenging) combat. Fiercely battling through hordes of enemies is thoroughly satisfying, thanks to the diverse supply of weapons unlocked at a consistent rate. Its retro-reminiscent graphics and soundtrack are both very stylish, though some more musical diversity would certainly be welcome. Aside from some glaring camera issues and the odd technical blemish, Heart&Slash presents exactly what the title suggests: a lot of slashing, and a lot of heart.
