You know a game is going to be good when the tutorial is shorter than the time it took to download it. Haste: Broken Worlds is the fastest game I’ve played this year, and the demo kicks off in less than 30 seconds.
The premise is extremely simple: The world is falling apart, and the only way to survive is to run real fast. Haste doesn’t waste time giving you a lecture about why any of this is happening. It drops you into the shoes of Zoe, a girl with the world’s tightest pair of glasses, and has you sliding and gliding down slopes before anyone says a word.
Sonic the Hedgehog should be jealous, because Haste is all about living in that blissful moment of uninterrupted speed. Once you get going, it’s basically a one-button game: Your spacebar helps you gently descend and kiss the ground before you lift off again. Perfect landings fill a gauge that lets you ride a hoverboard, which helps you recover from smashing into rocks or getting caught by waves of corruption. The only moments where you’re not flying through the world are when you stop to buy some upgrades or talk to your friends.
Haste is a roguelike where you get to choose where to run on every, uh, run. Every time you cross the finish line, you’re given a choice about where to go next. Some levels have you racing through a black-and-white world to paint it with life again, while others have you dodging black holes as you search for the exit before time runs out. Trails of sparkling crystals guide your way through each level, and you can spend them on upgrades when you find a shop. Many upgrades give small boosts to your speed or health, but some, like one that restores your health when you collect crystals, direct your path through a level.
The demo ends with a boss fight against a big robot who rains lava down on the level. You have to thread the needle until you can ram straight into him. Maintaining your speed is the only way you can escape from the spreading lava, incentivizing you to search for opportunities for a perfect touchdown to increase your hoverboard bar. And you might want to scoop up small clusters of crystals to keep your health topped off, which adds to the complexity.
In a game with clunkier mechanics, a boss fight with that much to manage could go off the rails, but Haste’s fluidity keeps it on track. Swerving through its levels feels effortless even when you’re not doing so hot, and it rewards you for making risky plays. When everything is going right, it’s like playing a rhythm game where you can’t seem to miss a note. It only breaks the flow when it ends.
Developer Landfall — which released the goofy multiplayer horror game Content Warning not that long ago — expects to release Haste: Broken Worlds sometime later this year.
-Reviewer-Photo-SOURCESOURCE-Julian-Chokkattu.jpg?w=150&resize=150,150&ssl=1)
