"SlashZero" is one of the most anticipated roguelikes of the quarter. The reason is simple: while top-down hack-and-slash titles dominate half the roguelike market, I hope retro side-scrolling designs can further enrich the choices in this genre, ensuring that protagonists in high-speed action games aren't just fighting against various "bullet hell emitters."
What I mean is, even though the "Hades-like" gameplay model is already quite mature, each quarter still needs some roguelikes that delve deeply into the action genre, like "Astral Ascent" from a couple of years ago or "Absolute Drift" from last year.
The most distinct difference between side-scrolling and top-down games lies in the utilization of the Z-axis, and the ability to jump serves as the highest distinguishing watershed between the two.
After all, jumping adds an aerial dimension to the game. If you want to focus on the depth of a high-speed combat system, exploring the Z-axis is almost unavoidable.
Thanks to this, "SlashZero" adds a considerable number of move modules to the build pool, allowing characters to perform advanced derivatives in both ground and air dimensions. Players can thus construct deep and skillful combo chains.
It's worth mentioning that the game doesn't use complex input commands for special moves, but instead uses short and long presses with higher precision requirements to differentiate between move branches.
For example, pressing up + attack briefly on the ground triggers an uppercut, and holding attack further triggers a quick finishing move; whereas holding up + attack on the ground triggers a leaping uppercut, which can then be followed up with an aerial spinning normal attack.
This design allows players to execute flashy combos without requiring高超 skills, but to avoid inputting the wrong branch, players still need to adapt to the input window between each hit frame.
And this was the first problem I encountered during my experience: in pursuit of flashy and fast-paced sensory presentation, the game equips every basic attack with multiple high-speed hit modules. These well-crafted animations look impressive but are slightly lacking in practicality.
This certainly makes basic combos look exceptionally flashy, but it also makes individual hits feel bloated and sticky, lacking clear阶段性 pauses. Consequently, the input windows expose some flaws in the floaty feel of controls.
For example, in various move branches requiring cancellation at HIT1, HIT2, HIT3, and at rhythm points requiring combination with blocking, ultimate skills, and dashes for offensive-defensive transitions, players may slightly feel that the command input interval doesn't match expectations, occasionally resulting in discrepancies between "what the player wants to do" and "what the character actually does."
Therefore, although "SlashZero" is a high-speed, flashy action game, when facing enemies that cannot be killed in one hit and you want to suppress them continuously, extreme operations like mashing the attack button to react to the last frame of a traffic light signal probably won't work here. Most of the time, players need to actively choose to drop frames or simply interrupt the ongoing combo to avoid lengthy hit modules occupying the input timing for perfect parries, dashes, ultimate skills, and other commands.
This makes the overall feel of "SlashZero" lean more towards breaking down offense and defense move by move. Players need to respond to every threatening attack individually, rather than relying on a single powerful move to deal damage continuously, as is common in similar titles.
Of course, "SlashZero" is not a pure action game. If the super armor of monsters and swarms of enemies leave you exhausted, the roguelike elements are there to boost the game's satisfaction and increase its replay value.
Interestingly, although "SlashZero" makes a completely different orientation choice in gameplay design compared to "Hades-like" games, it chooses to retain a large portion of the progression framework and overall arrangement. Therefore, apart from its deep dive into the action genre, all element applications will feel familiar to "Hades" players.
For example, boon slots designed around normal, special, ultimate, and dash attacks, story progression dependent on NPC affinity, numerous meta-unlocks, and main/side quests and world-building embedded in level design and character dialogue.
In terms of build construction, "SlashZero" doesn't offer many surprises beyond expectations, mostly making self-consistent improvements to existing mature systems. For example, lightning blessings are linked to chain lightning, water focuses on slowing down, and fire emphasizes burning. Different playstyles align with players' stereotypes, allowing roguelike enthusiasts to quickly assemble mature strategies based on past experience.
A slight difference is that "SlashZero" allows players to permanently unlock some module builds outside of runs, simply by carrying corresponding options for a certain amount of level time. This greatly reduces the pressure from opportunity costs in the game, preventing players from feeling overwhelmed by the dual construction pressures of action modules and effect combinations.
From a certain perspective, the build pressure in "SlashZero" is quite low. Players can easily breeze through the first few levels using initial module chips, then snowball to acquire key builds needed for subsequent stages, completing rounds of positive advantage accumulation.
However, it must be pointed out that the game is filled with many coined terms. What hinders my smooth experience isn't the depth barrier, but various ambiguous fields.
I spent considerable time distinguishing between upgrade boons, upgrade modules, boon selections, and their corresponding meta and in-game resources. These coined terms don't have the widespread consensus of mythological systems, requiring players to gradually adapt. If seeing "Zeus" immediately brings lightning to mind, what does "Padma of True Self" strongly correlate with? What are the characteristics of the "Bloodburn" provided by branch options, and what effect does the "Slow-Release Life" granted by Bloodburn have?
I can directly quote a line from the developer's description on the Steam page: "Comprehend the Key of Authority, collect Authority Boons, decode Authority Scripts." Just from this sentence, you can roughly imagine the overall tone of the game's text.
Honestly, even though I can handle the gameplay with ease, I often struggle to distinguish the specific effects and functions of each field and item name. Moreover, the game lacks explicit hints for many key information points. For instance, the tips for "Fierce Fire Special Attack" include "Bloodburn," and "Bloodburn" mentions "Slow-Release Life." So where are the tips for "Slow-Release Life"? You have to find boon options involving "Slow-Release Life" in the primary projects, where its tips are finally mentioned.
I understand the compromises in convenience necessary to serve the game's atmosphere, but it goes a bit too far. Most interactive content in the game lacks sufficiently prominent hints, which can somewhat affect the smooth flow of gameplay.
For instance, the trigger point for scene transitions is designed as an inconspicuous streetlamp. Players accustomed to rushing through levels will likely have to backtrack after clearing a stage to find the trigger area for the next scene.
Or consider the meta-progression facilities in the hub, which are highlighted only by an exclamation mark placed in the center of the screen.
On the positive side, this design does enhance atmospheric immersion, such as the nearly seamless transition from the hub to levels, achieving a high degree of unity in art style. Of course, the sacrifice in convenience has become the biggest compromise in level design.
This trade-off is clearly a deliberate choice by the developers, resulting in players receiving oversized levels far exceeding similar titles, exquisite and smooth scene transition animations, tense boss battles, and a narrative structure with parallel light and dark storylines.
If you've complained about repetitive levels and minimalistic scenes in similar roguelikes, "SlashZero"'s production quality will surely satisfy you. The game even features multiple layout structures within a single floor, allowing players to experience distinctly different battle arenas within one level.
Overall, the experience lost in convenience is basically compensated by the scale of content. The game's solid gameplay content indeed allows players to make certain compromises regarding less user-friendly designs.
However, I still have one complaint: bottle caps, which serve as the same in-game resource as coins, are automatically picked up in large quantities as red bottle caps after defeating enemies or breaking environmental objects. Meanwhile, some enemy bullets in the game are also red.
Therefore, players are often inadvertently hit by enemy bullets hidden behind bottle caps.
Such awkward cases are not rare. Unlike "Absolute Drift," "SlashZero" does not design invisible walls for the current combat arena, and enemy attack ranges often exceed the visible screen area.
Even if players max out the FOV in settings, enemies can still be knocked off-screen. In the scrolling side-view perspective, just as the screen moves but hasn't reached the enemy yet, enemies off-screen may have already charged their attacks, skipping the wind-up and lunging directly at the player. Players can only rely on experience to anticipate and counter these invisible attacks.
While not unsolvable, suddenly seeing a tail, breath attack, or bullet flying towards your character from off-screen without any wind-up is always frustrating. It makes one wonder if the enemies' detection range is a bit too wide.
This is clearly an awkward situation that can be largely avoided in top-down games, but becomes particularly treacherous in side-scrolling games.
Similar to "Hades," a massive amount of meta-progression content forms the bulk of the game. The nearly identical progression design means that affinity items and hub upgrade items carry opportunity costs comparable to build options. Fortunately, "SlashZero" additionally provides permanent unlocks for some module builds, as mentioned earlier, which is a self-consistent adaptation of the "Hades-like" framework.
Looking back, "SlashZero" clearly aims to pursue greater depth in the action genre, while retaining part of the mature framework model of "Hades" in its progression structure. It attempts to fill familiar design patterns with differentiated gameplay mechanics, allowing the game to present a completely different feel while being more easily accepted by roguelike enthusiasts.
However, whether it's "SlashZero" or other roguelikes focused on action, they all face an unresolved chronic issue: where should an excellent combat system be applied, and how should the proportion of roguelike content be balanced?
If the depth of the combat system is emphasized, the increased importance of combos will inevitably lead to excessively long mob fights and a lack of roguelike satisfaction; if roguelike satisfaction is prioritized, the achievements in the action genre will be infinitely diluted.
Currently, "SlashZero" has done well in filling both ends of the content spectrum, giving the combat system a certain depth and the roguelike builds a degree of self-consistency. However, there is still a considerable journey ahead to discover how to present the chemical reaction between the two, ensuring neither side is neglected as the game progresses.
Even so, it remains one of the most anticipated roguelikes of the quarter. Its sincerity in combat depth and level scale can somewhat mask those minor flaws. Perhaps the current version isn't perfect, but it has reached a state worth trying.