Game Reviews

Heart Breaker

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| Heart Breaker
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Heart Breaker
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| Heart Breaker

RPGs are commonplace on Android. Some want to craft long and winding epic journeys, while others conform to JRPG conventions.

And there are some that do neither, and go for accessibility and instant fun instead. Heart Breaker is one of these.

Heart Breaker harks back to the hack 'n' slash RPGs of yore. Imagine the dungeon-crawling of Diablo and Neverwinter Nights but in your pocket and you'll have a good idea what to expect.

Soulless journeying

Choosing to play as a Warrior, Mage, or Rogue, you're tasked with venturing down through the bowels of hell to wreak vengeance on the Archfiend by claiming their souls.

Of course, this pretext isn't necessarily evident in the gameplay. In practice you're just wading through dungeons killing beasties, and facing off against a boss every five floors.

This isn't a bad thing at all. Thanks to a relatively simple, yet surprisingly deep, combat and equipment system, hacking through swathes of enemies and picking up Hearts is a joy.

Heart on your sleeve

Picking up Hearts from certain fallen foes means you can imbue your weapons with their traits for bonus damage. You can also grant yourself a new ability by equipping it to yourself - although don't ask me quite how you equip a heart.

It's simple to make use of these effects too thanks to the clear on-screen controls, which allow you to guard; use a special attack; deploy a heart-based power as well as your normal attack; and eat the hearts of fallen foes.

You can also switch between two weapons at the touch of a button, which really helps in crowd-control situations, as long as you've got the right weapons equipped.

You'll also be healed at the end of each floor using the blood you've collected from dead enemies. Eventually this goes down and you'll need to return to town to stock up and heal before carrying on your descent.

This occasional necessity does stymie your progress, as you'll be thrust back a few floors from where you left.

If you have the chance to play Heart Breaker on a tablet you should seize the opportunity. And it would be even better on a TV - not because it doesn't work on a phone but because it has so much in common with dungeon-crawlers of yore that the big screen feels like a more natural fit.

Heart Breaker

While Heart Breaker is perfect for on-the-go play due to its snappy floor-by-floor structure, you can easily sink hours worth of play time into it
Score
Vaughn Highfield
Vaughn Highfield
Quite possibly the tallest man in games, Vaughn has been enamoured with video games from a young age. However, it wasn't until he spent some time writing for the student newspaper that he realised he had a knack for talking people's ears off about his favourite pastime. Since then, he's been forging a path to the career he loves... even if it doesn't love him back.