Haxor is a 2D Action Platformer that puts us in the shoes of Kla, an amnesiac woman that finds herself having to battle her way through four hostile and distinct planets. Even with the loss of memory, she is far from defenseless. Not only does she have both a rapid-fire gun and a missile launcher, she contains two very powerful abilities right off the bat. The first turns her invisible to some of the defense systems found throughout and also freezes all enemies in place. Her second skill allows her to become completely invulnerable to any damage, be it from attacks or traps laying around. As long as her energy meter has power in it, she can dive straight into lava if she wishes.
You will frequently be putting both of those abilities to use as the levels are designed in such a way as to make traditional platforming occasionally impossible without suffering some damage. Invincibility, in particular, will be used as much as any weapon to power through a plethora of traps or simply activating it when you jump into a deep pit with no idea as to what it contains. Your energy meter fills up quickly, so you can use your powers whenever you need it. The real danger comes from underestimating how much energy you can make do with without having to stop and let it recharge, only to find your shield drop as a bloodthirsty alien pounces on you.
Being able to become invulnerable at the press of a button does, unfortunately, make this an extremely easy game. As long as you can manage your energy, you have nothing to worry about. If you do find yourself taking some damage, it is usually an incredibly negligible amount as well. An example being lava, you only take 5 points of damage out of your 100 overall health. Any damage taken is then followed by quite the generous amount of invincibility frames. It is not until the final world that it starts to give a slight bit of challenge, and that is entirely due to using far more of the yellow lasers which are the only thing that can actually hurt you when invincible. They don’t do that much damage either, though you can easily see your health whittled down to zero over time if you try to be reckless.
The combat found here not only lacks challenge but just feel like a waste of your efforts. You see, enemies are all damage sponges and will take a while to go down. Using your basic rapid firing weapon is not advised since it does so little damage to your foes. Trying to take down a foe in that manner will have you slowly pelting it to death for ages. Only the rocket launcher is a capable killing weapon, with even it taking far too many shots to take something down. The rocket launcher does slowly refill its ammo, but it is also a vital piece of movement as shooting it under your feet is required to reach high places. It is no fun having to wait for it to refill. With how near useless the primary gun is, it would seem a far better idea in terms of gameplay flow to cut out the middle man and have the rocket launcher as your only weapon, omitting its need for ammo.
This title is certainly not a good choice if you want either action or even the faintest hint of difficulty. Where it really starts to come into its own is in its exploration aspect. All of the levels require you to gather various sigils and occasionally some gate keycards as well, in an entirely open-ended environment. For as many objects that you typically need to collect, the level design is splendid, and I never felt lost or had a situation in where I didn’t have some idea of where the part I missed could be. That in combination with the rocket jumping which lets you launch yourself through the air, then shoot another rocket just before you hit the ground to retain your moment makes movement a real joy. You can easily zoom your way through levels, get past sections that the devs may not have even intended you to, and quickly shoot yourself up from any pit you find yourself in without the need for platforming.
Rocket jumping does not damage you, so your only limit is the number of rockets you currently have refilled. Minus the last stage, there are no death pits to fall into either, allowing you to freely look like a pinball as you bounce all over the place with the strength of high powered explosives. It is a beautiful sight indeed. They may have gone a little far in the pixel precision required for some jumps in the last world, however. To my knowledge, it is intended that you use a power you gain later on to briefly create copies of yourself. Shooting at the ground will have them all to fire alongside you, and the resulting explosions send you higher than ever before. The results of this height boost actually working were so random that I’m unsure if it was an intended feature or if I was actually meant to rocket jump like usual somehow.
Scattered throughout the levels are a multitude of both coins and gems. These have no effect towards anything, they are just there to give you something else to shoot for by going for a 100% completion rate. The sound effects as they are picked up are quite pleasant, and it is always difficult indeed to try to ignore the allure of shining collectibles in the distance. There are a large numbers of stages to get through with each world containing their own theme to spice things up. Haxor’s visuals are another one of its strong suits. It has quite the pleasing art style all around, from its CGA like cyan/magenta color scheme, monster sprites, and environmental details. The 8-bit soundtrack is equally impressive in its ability to create an atmosphere of isolation and feeling of danger from the hostile sounding melodies. They knocked the ball out of the park in its presentation, to put it bluntly.
Your regular foes, as previously mentioned, are hardly a threat. Luckily for us, this game features quite the number of bosses. Every planet has at least two of them laying in wait for us. They are towering monsters who are capable of attacking anywhere in their small arena on a whim. Given that you can completely negate their damage by turning invincible, it still isn’t a huge challenge, yet they can very easily overwhelm your energy meter with their combination of constant projectiles, physical attacks, and minion summons. Your primary gun is still as useless as ever, but the tension of hoping that some rockets refill as the boss is charging up for an attack and is wide open for a good shot was a highlight of the combat. Rocket jumping past his attacks then matching his speed to keep up the pressure with your onslaught of attacks is also great fun.
Most of the story is told via brief exchanges between yourself and the bosses. It is nothing to write home about, though it does deliver an interesting payoff at the end. In total, it took me around five hours to complete. You can play through any level again at will, and it shows you the parentage of collectibles you’ve picked up the first time around to encourage replaying it. If you want, you can even jump straight to the boss fights themselves to battle against them once more. Haxor is a title I quite enjoyed for its exploration, rocket jumping mechanic, and atmosphere. Unfortunately, both its extreme lack of challenge throughout most of it and damage sponge enemies that make encounters unnecessarily lengthy does hamper the experience. None of the powers are anywhere near as useful as invincibility and even the invisibility to get past the motion detecting barriers introduced in the beginning is quickly forgotten, ensuring you never have to risk your neck. Still, if you love exploring well crafted open-ended levels, Haxor has more than enough to offer and looks mighty stylish to boot.
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