Justice Bundle Reviews #5: Haque
Ever since the Chainmail era of fantasy wargames, fantastical hacky-slashy RPGs have grappled with the conceit of "magic" as "the ability to hurl battlefield-leveling artillery from one's bare hands". It's a lot of fun! But if this is a mode in which one can do battle, what room remains for the humble sword and shield?
Some designs put sharp limitations on how these powers could be used. The magus could wear no armor, use only very weak weapons, and had little "ammunition" for spellcraft; hurl one Fireball, put up a Mage Armor, throw two sets of Magic Missiles, and you were reduced to a bystander in a bathrobe. Problem was, while these factors perhaps "balanced" a wizard against a warrior in an abstract sense, it turned out not to be very enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, especially as the genre narrowed an individual player's sphere of control from an army or squadron to a single "character".
What does this have to do with Haque, the low-res quick-play Roguelike by SuperTry Studios? From my experiences playing a dozen or so characters before achieving a win, it appears that Haque has taken the route of waving away all those cumbersome limiting systems from fireball-slinging wizardry, only to dump them on the head of the beleaguered melee fighter instead. My winning Sorcerer could pop off a 9-tile burst of burning death every other turn, at 70% or better accuracy, then jog around the room once or twice to replenish magic points before wiping the next area clean of foes in similar fashion. Meanwhile, the best meleeist I ever managed to put together had to settle for poking one monster at a time, missing roughly every other swing, and needing to expose himself to enemy attacks (or chug finite potions) to get back the juice he used to sneak past too-deadly encounters. wat?
If you try the game and wonder, "why doesn't mine look as bright and easy to read as this?", turn off "CRT" in the A/V options
In fairness, "balance" is a bit of a bugbear in a single-player game without any kind of competitive leaderboarding aspect. You do what works to win, or you challenge yourself using something suboptimal, and the game goes on. But I would venture that it's important to make all the major archetypes available to the player at least viable for winning, and fun to engage with, and I'm not sure Haque quite pulls that off. Maybe every character is meant to pick up some form of "Arcane Blast" to manage the crowds with. But why do only the Sorcerers get to ignore MP resource attrition? Why does every tick you spend in Werewolf form drain your power, even when it's doing nothing for you? Why does the "focused" buff improving weapon accuracy not even last long enough for you to take a single step before swinging, while the debuff from an Evil Eye spell will outlive most monsters you inflict it on?
Ah well. Game balance is not an easy discipline, and Haque's charming pixel shapes and quippy codex entries keep it enjoyable enough to play to the end, caster supremacy frustrations aside. It's not often you get to play a Pumpkin Werewolf accompanied by a Tiny Pig pet, or an Eagle Burglar with her trusty Tree Stump companion! $15 on Itch will induct many an intrepid dungeoneer into the rolls of the dead.