GAME REVIEW: Haiku, The Robot (Switch)

 (Half Life - Essenger)

I love 'Hollow Knight'. It's one of my most beloved games of all time and I'm not alone in my intense affection for it. (You can read why here in my 'Hollow Knight' game review!) What I -don't- love is waiting on Team Cherry's follow-up, 'Silksong'...and boy, have we all been waiting. And what is one to do while they wait? 

The obvious answer, in this case, would be, "Play more Hollow Knight, or other Metroidvania games to keep your whistle wet!" A sensible recommendation with one flaw: Hollow Knight is arguably the greatest game that the genre has seen since the OGs came out. There just aren't that many games that can keep up with it and...well, I've played them all at this point in my waiting. Cue the first-world despair of a nerd in a game-hole.

Then my wife came to me with a kickstarter for a little game that folks were already talking about being a wonderful balm while we waited for Silksong, something called 'Haiku The Robot'. Fast forward about six months; while Silksong has failed to materialize, 'Haiku' has finally arrived.

How does it stack up?

THE SHORT VERSION: 

It's pretty much excellent, and a wonderful example of the breed.

THE LONG VERSION:

'Haiku' -- and, if I'm being honest, a lot of other titles -- have never really had a chance to shine on their own merits. I want to talk through that real quick.

It's no secret that I love a good 2D Metroidvania. There's something about platforming and the other elements of the genre that really appeals to me. It has since the heady days of Super Metroid and Symphony Of The Night. Based off of the absolute flood of Metroidvania titles that have popped up over the last decade, I'm not the only one that feels that way. On one hand, it's wonderful to see my favorite genre grow in popularity. On the other... well, there's such a thing as, "Too much of a good thing." Not only do you end up with a lot of folks thinking they can push mediocre content to the masses and have it sell just because it's in the genre -- I'm looking at you, Skellattack. -- but the bar for what constitutes 'good' content is so incredibly high. Sooner or later, folks are going to get gunshy about making new titles simply because the metrics for success are so insane.

And then there's that business of me referring to 'Haiku' as a balm while I wait for Silksong. As amusing as that sentiment is, it's not fair to Haiku. Haiku is a GREAT. GAME. It's not a balm. It's not a hold-over. It's its own beast and it's worthy of your full focus. 

Silksong can wait its turn.

GENRE: As mentioned, 'Haiku, The Robot' is a Metroidvania, specifically a 2D platformer.

GRAPHICS: Haiku's art style is very unique and very, very clever. If you haven't watched a trailer for the game, check it out to get a better grasp of things:

I'm an art style snob. As a child of the '80s, I started my video game journey with basic pixel 'Pong' and watched the industry evolve through Ataris and Nintendos and Segas and Playstations. While I appreciate the older, less-refined art styles from the '8-bit & before' era for what they are, I tend to gravitate towards art that has a little more detail. Good pixel art is very hard to do -- Look to 'Fez' if you want a master-class in it -- without making your game look so retro that it's less appealing to me. Haiku's art style is deceptively retro. Its color pallet is muted and, for the most part, limited to dreary, dirty, sepia-adjacent visuals but that hasn't stopped the designers from somehow managing to create detailed and distinct environments. Like 'Fez', this game walks the delicate line between retro pixel art and 'looking old'. It's wonderful!

SOUND: Haiku's music ranges from 'excellent background instrumentals' to 'hauntingly memorable'. It's not a back-to-back monster score like 'Hollow Knight' or the 'Ori' games but it's still one of the better scores I've heard. The sound elements for the game are as equally lo-fi as the visuals, but also equally as clever about it. Haiku in particular is just so stinking cute when he does anything, even getting injured. (It's weird when I phrase it like that though...)

GAMEPLAY: The controls in games like this range from the Ori games' soft, floaty, forgiving style to Hollow Knight's knife-edge sharp system. When you're new to the game, you move through it especially slowly as you get used to things, and then you speed up as you grow more comfortable. If you've ever watched a speedrunner move through really sharp games like 'Hollow Knight', you were probably stunned by just how fast and how precise their movements were...and why can't -I- ever manage to move like that?!

I bring all of this up because Haiku's controls are somehow even sharper than HKs, to the point that they might just be problematic for some. If you have the reaction time and twitch reflexes, Haiku will take whatever you can throw at it and just keep smiling at you. Getting proficient at navigation feels INSANELY good and I'm already rubbing my hands together in anticipating of watching someone speedrun this game. I'm not a pro and I'm already flying through each room with shocking precision.

Haiku's general gameplay doesn't deviate very far from established genre formulas. The world is a well-mapped, multi-zoned realm that connects back on itself through a maze of tunnels and secrets, standard fare for any 'Vania. There are a variety of biomes to explore, each with a main element that makes it unique.

The power-ups discovered are relatively run of the mill. Before it's all said and done, you'll have obtained seemingly pre-requisite upgrades like Double Jump and Wall Jump, along with a slew of other quality of life upgrades. Where Haiku stands out isn't what it does but how it goes about doing it. Your power-ups and abilities are all cleverly skinned in the cute robot world that Haiku exists inside of. The genre has been around long enough that it's impossible to see certain things in the game and not immediately think of other titles. Critically, Haiku seems to have made a habit of re-using only the GOOD mechanics from other games in the genre and it implements them in a seriously polished fashion.

Haiku's mapping system is a mixed bag. You have access to a map whenever you ask for it but the manner in which the map is disclosed to you can be extremely frustrating. If, for example, you enter a really large room, the WHOLE ROOM now shows up on your map. This makes it difficult to tell where you've been in said room, something that's HUGELY important when you're playing a game that loves to hide things in all of its nooks and crannies. "But Steve," you cry, "There's a thing for that!" I know. I'll talk about it in the Spoilers section. Suffice it to say, this makes keeping track of what you have and have not looked at a massive nuisance. This will very specifically come back to bite you in the ass in the end-game so take note, and take notes!

Then there are the parts of the game where it elects...not to automatically map you. Those areas are blacked out until you unlock part of the game through a natural progression. This is a neat idea in theory in that clever veterans can look at a map and use it to determine where secrets or other entrances might be...but for the other 95% of us, it's just irritating. This function of the game serves absolutely no purpose other than irritating the player. The argument could be made that the map needs to be hidden at some points to keep from spoiling the fact that there's more there than meets the eye...except it's a Metroidvania. There's always, always more there than meets the eye.

Something that Haiku does exceptionally well is making sure that you don't get lost. Haiku starts out as a fairly linear game before it opens up for the majority of the play-through. The game design itself makes it easy to understand where you have and haven't been and where the next logical destination is. Does it stop you from exploring? Not at all. It's also not trying to be clever or sly with which way is forward. You're fairly well led around by the nose but you'll never actually feel the tug. That's no mean feat!

Unfortunately, getting from point A to point B in this game can be time-consuming. The world of Haiku is pretty big. There's a fast travel system that doubles as a genius 'Hub' point in the game, allowing you to not just quickly move from one point in the game to another, but to perform upgrades on your character while you do so. The problem with the system is that each of Haiku's major map sections only has ONE fast travel segment which means even fast travel isn't really...that fast. This isn't helped at all by the fact that, even in late game, you're not exactly a massive powerhouse that can just plow through low level scrub enemies on your way through a room. You never really get -stronger- in Haiku, you just become sturdier and more resourceful. This means that every room you walk into usually de-evolves into a slugfest before you can safely pass through it. 

STORY: Like many games seem to be doing these days, Haiku doesn't really give you much of a story. You learn the majority of what there is to know in the first few minutes of the game and what comes after is dolled out slowly. Hollow Knight was guilty of the same thing, with one critical difference: HK's world was -filled- with Lore-related content. You couldn't walk anywhere without some piece of art or gameplay element screaming, "SOMETHING HAPPENED HERE!" Hollow Knight -made- you want to know more and then it dolled it out to you in a frustratingly limited capacity. It's saving grace was that the lack of lore exposition didn't hinder the primary story and driving elements of the game itself. In this, 'Haiku' has a lighter touch. You know that a bomb went off several hundred years before the events in-game and that robots have survived and thrived in the absence of whatever came before. The game doesn't really go on about much beyond that so you don't end up frustrated with your lack of knowledge. This is an excellent way to manage expectations. Things -do- start to get a little more interesting towards the end of the game though as the reality of your situation becomes more obvious.

As a game, Haiku is a strong balance of re-using old concepts in new ways versus acknowledging which mechanics are just so bulletproof that it simply steals them wholesale. (Trust me, you'll know when you see it.) As I mentioned earlier, it's difficult not to look at certain elements of this game and immediately think, "They lifted that from X game." The difference is, Haiku never really tries to hide it, and it does it so well and with such respect that you just end up smiling. This, combined with its buttery smooth gameplay and other excellent production values makes it an effortless game to recommend for any fan of the genre.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:

- I wonder what the decision-making process was in only giving people two green chip slots as opposed to the three red and three blue ones? I would have KILLED for access to an additional green chip slot earlier in the game.

- The Map Seeker chip would have been a ton more useful if it would have disclosed where things were in any room that you'd already been in as opposed to forcing you to keep it equipped. It won't log the secrets in rooms unless you have it on when you enter a room. I gave up all pretenses of trying to be clever once I'd reached endgame and just leaned on the internet for finding those final capsule and power cell pieces. And speaking of power cells...

- Not that I wasn't hugely well-funded by the time the game ended but I was really hoping for something more once the Power Cell puzzle had been completed. That is all.

- The 'gathering money' situation in this game is terrible until you get the chip that sucks money to you. That is also all.

- I'm not sure how much I liked the fact that I never really got more powerful. Yes, I picked up the bombs, and yes, you end up getting some chips if you want to prioritize bomb combat but your coolant recharges SO SLOWLY until about the last third of the game that it's just not worth it when you might need your coolant for healing or dashing. I want to feel like I'm getting more powerful!

- For the love of God, put some save points near the 'hot' sections of the game so I don't have to hike a mile to swap out the damned heat chip!

- I'm...not sure how I feel about the story that gets told at the end of this game. The closer you get to the end of the game, the more story you get, but then the game is over and there's no real conclusion. Makes me want to go play the game through again, to be sure.