Heart & Slash is a 3rd person hack/slash/rogue game that throws you into the mechanical body of Quassy who was once a Q&A robot that development self awareness. When he became sentient he led a robot revolution against his oppressive human masters and wiped humanity off the face of the world.
At the start of the game your lifted into a test chamber that serves as the game's tutorial. Behind darkened glass two humans have a discussion about a coffee machine which is suppose to be funny. It's one of the most mind numbing sequences I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through and there is no way of skipping it and to make matters worse there is no speech it's all conveyed via text in complete and utter silence. When that torture is over you will have to follow a series of orders to familiarise yourself with the controls. After you have completed this tutorial you have to fight another robot named Slash and defeating him/her is the trigger that sends you crazy.
After a short story sequence has finished you are once again in the metal boots of a robot. You chance upon a console and somehow the scientist who created you is able to speak to you through it. You are instructed to upgrade but to do to you must salvage the parts from junk that is lying around or by defeating enemies. You can keep track of how much junk you have collected by the icon In the top right corner of your hud which is represented by by a car which fills up. When it full a box appears underneath to notify you that an upgrade is available.
When you start each level you must choose which weapons to use and which upgrades. This is the same at the start of each level. Each weapon is allocated a slot and is accessed by using the trigger buttons. But instead of just pressing the trigger once to select it you have to keep it pressed down which gets very uncomfortable over long periods. The object of each level is to get from one checkpoint to the next and it can be a frustrating experience. You will constantly come up against much more powerful enemies who can defeat you quite easily and health pick ups and few and far between which only adds to the challenge. 
Heart & Slash is a tough game and that isn't helped by the woeful camera. When you jump the camera zips above your head and and back down again at such a pace it's disorientating. During combat which is where a game like Heart & Slash live or dies the camera decides to take a overhead position but it's fixed at such a strange angle it's hard to judge what the hell is going on and it's so difficult to judge jump attacks against flying enemies. You can manually control the camera but I've never know such a sensitive control scheme. One touch and the bloody thing flies off as as you've pushed the joypad to the moon. It's ridiculous and renders the game almost unplayable especially when you're surrounded by a gang of much harder and aggressive enemies. The distance between checkpoints also frustrates and the constant replaying of levels because you just fell short is a grind.
Overall if you can put up with the awkward and overly sensitive camera and harsh difficulty there is a fun game buried underneath. The procedurally generated levels strive to keep every play through fresh but for me the game's shortcomings overwhelm the positives.
Size:1.37 GB
Release Date: 24/06/2016
Developer:aheartfulofgames
Publisher:Badland Games
Genre:Action & Adventure, Fighting
Heart & Slash is available now for £15.99