Sit through seemingly countless deaths, and you'll either break through the system, and master the stats--or bounce off the game and never go back. [Sept 2012, p.71]
The interface uses only the mouse, and you start out with three available classes and the option to chose different quests. Your aim is always to survive and make it to the end of the dungeon. Unfortunately, the extremely limited scope of the game is quickly made evident. Hack, Slash, Loot does nothing wrong, but it fails to impress. Limited foes, a handful of items, small maps and zero character development (no experience/skills/levels). [May 2012]
Can't believe the user scores here. I don't know what was expected of this game before most people played it, maybe it's a communication error on the dev's part. This game is a ROGUELIKE. That means it's meant for quick play-throughs and makes the user subject to luck and chance. That's the appeal of a roguelike. And for those who are turned off by the art, I find it perfectly charming. I think it actually shows good sense to use the open source sprites (that many other games use) at **** rather than make his own. Overall this kind of reminded me of a looser version of Desktop Dungeons. The art is charming and the interface is streamlined. All-around well-done. If you are into roguelikes, and like to see the genre spawn different variations, then this is for you. It's certainly for me.
I don't think this game deserves all of the zeroes that it's been receiving. Granted, the game can certainly be frustrating and luck definitely plays a factor, but I think some people are coming into this game with the wrong mindset or may not see how the developer handled the progression and difficulty in this game. First off, characters are not permanent and they do not level up; your stats increase through loot, and permanent buffs (permanent until you beat the dungeon or your character dies). This innate hardcore mode suits the game because at longest a map is going to take a couple of hours to complete so it's not super frustrating to die; I actually found it to be the opposite - where I have been progressing well and things started to get really hairy and intense, knowing how hard it can be to clear a map and how easy it is to die made for some very suspenseful and intense fights. This game with 8 bit graphics evoked more suspense than something like Skyrim ever did for me because there is no form of save at all.
There is no real character progression. If you think you're going to beat every map with the base starting characters (which I think a lot of people are angry when they can't) then you are playing this game wrong. The difficulty between the maps are not the same (the first one is not the easiest) - some are much easier and some are much harder; it's up to you to figure that out and to choose the best class for the job if you want the best chance of success. By beating maps and dieing a lot, new classes are unlocked which are a little bit more powerful than the previous ones. This lets you do a little bit better each unlock until you are beating those ridiculously hard maps. Also, beating some maps will result in "artifacts" which are then given to new characters when you start a new map, giving you an advantage which is honestly needed to make it past some of the harder maps.
As for there not being any strategy or balance, I am going to have to say I disagree with this statement. Every map has a set type of mobs IE "The King's Castle or whatever" is going to always have lots of mobs using poison. Knowing this when playing the map, my top priority is to find poison resist gear and hold onto it for dear life - otherwise I know I'm not going to make it far. Yes, luck plays a role in finding the gear you need, but once you have put in some time, unlocked some artifacts and new classes, luck has less and less of a role. If you think you need to clear every level of a map to beat the dungeons then you are wrong. There are times where because of bad luck, you won't be equipped to fight the mobs on your level, so it may be prudent to take what you have and head straight for the boss instead of clearing levels and levels looking for loot and buffs. The game asks you "do I keep exploring, or do I try to bring this to a conclusion? What are the benefits and risks of one over the other?" Sometimes if you are lucky with gear drops these questions are irrelevant, but more often than not you have to decide to cut your losses at one point and just go for the end goal of the dungeon.
The second point I want to make about strategy is that it does get deeper when certain item enchantments drop. You can't plan for this, but when it happens, some of these items absolutely change how the game is played IE regenerating health, or gear that lets you have 2 turns to the mobs 1 turn. Usually it just results in you moving around more to stay alive better, but you do then need to take into account what your environment is like and how it can benefit you even more. In conclusion, don't let the lack of a leveling up system make you think that there is no method or progression to this game - there most certainly is. The more thoughtful you are about it, the easier of an experience you will have. This is not a heavy game, but is good for some quick light-hearted fun. I think it's deserving of a 7 or 8 but it's getting a 10 to try to counter-act a lot of the zeroes it's been receiving.
Hack, Slash, Loot is not a good game, and I couldn't even recommend it to the most hardcore roguelike enthusiasts. It's dull, it's frustrating, it's entirely dependent on luck and, most significantly, it's not even remotely fun to play. The graphics and sound are appalling, and a little variation in dungeon types isn't enough to save this horrid title. Go spend your money elsewhere.
Initially, you'll die again and again, be patient and the game will praise you with a lot of fun and characters, the more you die, the more you recive new characters to be used. It's a classic RPG with a nice pixel art with a simple and deep gameplay, full of secret and artifacts to collect. For me, it's an outstanding game.
Hack Slash Loot is a good dungeon crawler, but nothing else. A fine time waster, but it fails to provide a particularly deep experience. Still, it's worth the small price tag and nearly every should be able to get a kick out of it.
Looking over some of these reviews I've realized that giving silly people access to a massive multimedia medium to express their even sillier opinions only leads to things like 7 people writing reviews that would have you thinking you'd just looked up a Custer's Revenge-esque **** simulator.
Seriously, was this purchase life ruining or something?
It's a game with a fluctuating price of 3 to 7 dollars, with simple graphics and occasionally fun gameplay.
If you're that upset with your purchase I recommend you fly out to northern Iraq and join the rest of the capitalist-hating terrorists. Otherwise, please try and understand the implications of giving something a zero.
With Love,
America
So disappointing. Hack, Slash, Loot is frustrating, repetitive and a below-average game. In other words, it takes a lot of generic roguelike elements and doesn't do anything right with them. I can't work out if it's a tribute to or a parody of roguelikes, but either way it doesn't disguise the fact that this is a very poor game.
If you're looking for a graphical roguelike this is not it. 'Hack, Slash, Loot' has only what the title says, tho even that is dumbed down. That's why the title has hitting enemies mentioned twice. You hit enemies, they hit you. One of you dies. Actually there isn't looting since what ever items you find you may choose to swap them with your old gear and that's pretty much it. This is to boost your damage since majority of the items just add to your stats without giving you any new options how to play the game. There are several "quests" that you may choose from with themes varying from descending into a dungeon to dungeon descending. Very bland and boring. The game is so bad that it gives you more characters as you die so that you don't want to touch the old ones ever again. So bad that it's insulting to call it a roguelike.