Haste

I was wavering on whether to give this game a positive or negative review for a while, but after contemplating it, i think unfortunately it's gonna have to end up a negative. Now before i get into the main issues which drag this game down for me, i want to say, the core gameplay is great, like genuinely superbly fun and i really wish to see it used in another game, as it's a crying shame to be stuck here. Hopefully we can see a sequel or a spin-off at some point. (Plus bonus points for a great soundtrack!) But, and this is a big but... The rest of the game sucks, just genuinely blows. Now it's not Mindseye bad where it's clearly just unapologetically terrible, but rather, none of the game mechanics flow well into each other, or are done well enough for them to be fun. Considering that outside of the main gameplay, everything has issues, let me split this into a few chunks: Story - I'm sorry to say, but this one is the only point where i can't say it could have worked with more polish. It's just incredibly boring, none of the characters have anything interesting to say (or are interesting), and about halfway through the game i just started skipping through all the dialogue. The worlds falling apart concept can work, but the writing here is just dead on arrival. The roguelike aspect - Yeah this... just doesn't work here. Maybe it's just me being tired of the "pick 3" formula, but this is genuinely the most "this didn't need to be a roguelike" game i've ever played. It is the main crux of the game, and the one that causes it's most major issues. These being: Boring and repetitive worlds - The game would have been so, so much better were there less levels, and they were each hand-crafted unique challenges. Items - Just as a whole, the items are pointless here. All items you pick up during a run do not have a decisive impact on gameplay, all they do is either increase your speed, money or health, and that is all. At the beginning and end of a run, you will still be playing the same way, only be slightly faster, or immune to damage, or have an instant revive. Nothing about your gameplay will fundamentally change, which is the sauce that makes most roguelikes so fun to replay, and which makes this one fall flat on it's face, and become a drawback that ends up holding it's gameplay back. Shards - This ends up looping back around to my issue with this game being a roguelike, but the shards are just annoying. At first they're short and simple, but by the end of the game they get so long that they just end up being a slog of samey levels, repeated over and over just so you can buy some basic items to make the boss easier. It just ends up feeling shallow and boring. And a honorable mention to the bosses of which there are 4 in the game. (Yes 4, even though the game has 10 shards, and 1 of these is the final boss. So 3 bosses repeated 3 times.), all of which end up feeling utterly boring after your first time fighting them, and honorable mention to the final boss which is the most boring and stupidly easy of them all, only made difficult by the addition of cheap insta-kill void spaces. All in all, Haste is a game with a great base gameplay loop, made mediocre by the entire rest of the game surrounding it. Recommend on sale, if the issues sound like something that wouldn't bother you. Otherwise pass.