by 
HOPE YA LIKE HITTIN’ GOBLINS
Okay, so Slasher’s Keep is one of those games I’ve been playing off-and-on over the years. We have a bit of a love-hate relationship, Keep and I. Initially, I embraced the concept of a cartoony first-person ARPG dungeon crawl. It had kind of a catchy theme song. There was uh, some voice acting. The gameplay was fairly smooth (well, okay that’s a lie, because you’ll get stuck on EVERY piece of geometry that ever existed in the Keep world, including the bodies of things you’ve JUST slain, but whatever, swinging weapons and eating food felt good at least). But as time went on, things soured.
“I’m sorry Slasher’s Keep… or uh… S’Keep, for short. You know, I like playing with you but there’s only so much patience I can have for opening up a treasure chest, being ejected off the treasure chest lid physics into the air and landing in an instant-death pit. I just… I just think we should see other games for a little while, you know?”
So we’d go our separate ways after a couple fond memories with the hope that one day we’d sort out our differences and meet again. And meet again we would, for there would be those strange days when the game would pop back into my head again and I’d think “S’Keep? … that sounds kind of fun.”
“Oh, right. There were a lot of skills in that game. I wonder how many there are? I wonder if there are any cool ones? Hrm… if I could min-max a couple, maybe I’d make it further?”
I’d go back, give a dozen-or-so other runs through the same 4 floors, over-and-over again (because that’s just the kind of grindy game this is) and see a bit more of what it had to offer. Eventually though I’d get tired, realize the game was kind of shallow and give it up for another year or so. This went on for about 6 or 7 years, until finally today I finished my first playthrough. What’s the verdict?
I mean… eh. It’s okay. Well all right, if I’m being fair it’s more than okay, but I just can’t place it beyond Tier II and I’m not sure why. Let’s start with the good. In no particular order, you can:
- Pick up tons and tons of gear.
- Smash peoples heads off so hard that they explode.
- Break boxes and vases (hey, it’s satisfying)
- Eat turnips for HP
- Eat sausage for HP
- Eat bugs for HP
- Look at pretty dungeon art
- See a goblin kiss her vulture
- Perform alchemy
- Hit things in the face and see the word “FACE” appear
- Appreciate British(???) humor
- Get bits of storyline each floor of the dungeon
- Level up all kinds of skills
- Smash floating skulls
- Disarm traps
- Enjoy distinctively procedurally generated rooms (there’s plenty to keep it fresh)
- Craft a hammer that is on fire and call it the Icebreaker
- Craft a metal ball on a stick and call it the Ballbreaker
- Save your wife
…Yeah, I think that’s probably most of the good. There’s some other stuff I probably missed, but eh, you get the picture. However, there’s just *too* many things on my bad list to make up for it. Here we go:
- Hilariously sticky environmental objects (your character might as well be made of Velcro)
- Shallow combat mechanics (hope you like “hold M1”)
- Unimpressive variety of enemy types (like… 6)
- Alchemy that is fun at first and annoying after 2 attempts
- Crafting that is fun at first but obnoxiously clutters inventory
- Half the skills in the game don’t really matter
- Constantly dropping all your gear down a laundry chute and committing suicide to grind up the same 4 floors again
- Gear progression eventually became a chore
- The fact that I spent 36 hours of my play time on floors 1-6 and 2 hours of my playtime on floors 7-12 (no joke, I feel bad that the dev made so many unique assets on those floors that I saw just once)
- The feeling that I was being manipulated into grinding my way to success instead of making meaningful choices
So yeah. I know I phoned it in a bit on this review with the bullet-point lists, but that’s the gist of it. Was it absolutely terrible? No, I guess not. If it was the only game I had on a desert island, I’d be okay. But that’s all I’d be–just “OK.” So I guess that’s my advice–if a cartoony-looking dungeon delve that doesn’t require much brain power sounds good to you, then maybe pick it up. Just be warned; it is exceptionally grindy.
