Hack, Slash, Loot
Description
Hack, Slash, Loot is a turn-based, dungeon crawling RPG with a retro pixel art style. It offers six scenarios (Tower of Magnus, Battle for Stormrise, Dark hearts and evil minds, They dwell beneath, Mask of the boy king, Journey to the Kimon) with three character classes initially: Saracen (warrior), Archer and Wizard. The scenario and the class can be chosen or left to random choice. The map lay-out is also randomized for every game session. The title accurately describes the gameplay; to complete a scenario various monsters need to be killed and the equipment and abilities need to be enhanced by looting items.
The gameplay area takes up the upper two thirds of the screen and it is possible to zoom. The lower part holds the inventory and items, an overview of the statistics, a minimap and general options. In the black backgrounds every action and result is described in text, in classic RPG fashion. Movement and actions are done in turns. Every character is formed through five stats: melee, ranged, magic, defence and health. When a new item can be picked up, the interface immediately shows the improvements or penalties. During fights the player can determine the focus if there are multiple enemies. Each character has nine slots to carry items: head, neck, torso, weapon hand, backup weapon, off-hand, hand worn, waist and feet.
The gameplay is based around seven damage types: silvered, fire, lightning, poison/acid, divine, necrotic and psychic. Various items and weapons provide additional effects and often the correct approach needs to be chosen based on the opponent type. As room for items is limited, the character often needs to return to a previous location and swap items. Certain effects provided through crystals, potions or scrolls are permanent and do not require an items slot. Next to everything listed above, various enchantments can be found. They reveal the map, increase the number of actions per turn, provide additional defence or a health bonus, or resurrect a character when he reaches zero health.
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Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 6 ratings with 1 reviews)
Nearly impossible until you unlock additional classes
The Good
If you persevere and start unlocking more powerful classes (mainly by dying at first, eventually by completing the quests) and finding artifacts which carry over between playthroughs, the game does actually become fun. You stop cursing at the unfairness of it all and start noticing nice touches, like the very good (for a rogue-like) monster AI, travel using the minimap, and humorous elements throughout.
The Bad
When you first start playing this game, it is almost guaranteed that you will NOT enjoy it. Not because of missing inventory, towns, shops, or leveling. This game is about simplicity, and none of that extra stuff is required for a good roguelike.
You will not enjoy the game in the beginning for the simple reason that you will die. A lot. Without reaching the second level on most tries. And it will NOT be your lack of knowledge of the mechanics, or any mistakes that you may make. It will be because the beginning gameplay is quite enormously unbalanced.
The first 3 classes you have access to suck, plain and simple. The only way to make any progress with them is to be extremely lucky with loot. After all, loot is the only way of regaining health in this game, and when the average monster will deal you more damage than the average health potion heals, that causes a problem. As the first 3 classes start out very ill equipped and with weak stats, they can only survive through either finding TONS of healing items or striking gold with items of Swiftness (haste, lets you kite lots of enemies forever) and Regeneration (self explanatory.) And that, IMHO, is bad game balance.
Also, the online help document is not very helpful. I didn't even know the game autosaved when you exit and could be continued with the Continue button (which is pretty small and not labeled unless you hover the pointer over it!)
[Full Disclosure: this review is based on my experience with the game in April, 2012. In the changelog of one of the patches since then is "Changed starting character slightly to improve their chances." I do not know the extent of this rebalancing.]
The Bottom Line
A roguelike that's unfairly punishing in the beginning, but somewhat fun once you've sunk enough time into it to unlock decent character classes.
Windows · by Kalirion (565) · 2012
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Game added by Sciere.
iPad added by Kabushi.
Game added November 1, 2012. Last modified July 16, 2023.