Years have passed since I’ve played my beloved Hyper Light Drifter. I wanna say I played this in 2016(?), a shrimple 14 year old girl who only knew it from a 20 second twitter clip that was rlly emotionally evocative. Didn’t know one thing about the gameplay, went fuck it we ball mode and played it. It was, back then, one of my favorite games ever, and over the years I began to doubt that. It’s no-dialogue story gimmick, good music, and catchy title were the only bits that stuck with me as years passed. I thought I’d been duped a bit emotionally by some easily marketable ideas, and that I wss some kinda ‘cool games poser’.

Do you know how happy I am to report that I was right in this case? I’ve been right a lot in this way recently- replaying Soul Hackers and Bastion lately showed me that I actually underrated or didn’t fully grasp how good some of these games were, and I’m really glad I hissed away my initial urge to avoid childhood joys out of embarrassment.

Here’s some history I think is an interesting little primer: I like three of the Zelda games. Played most of em. Like 15 of them probably? I genuinely hate all but three: Zelda 1, Minish Cap, and Four Swords (I’m a bit of a Game Boy Bitch it seems. Never had one growing up but I am!). Zelda 1 is like- one of the first games I recall playing. My dad’s parents sold their childhood SNES and it’s games but I did grow up using their old NES for some reason. They amassed a pretty good selection I think given the fact some weird poor kid from the middle of nowhere was making the buying decisions: Zelda 1 and 2, Blades of Steel, NES Golf, Final Fantasy 1, and Mario 2. I played the hell outta Zelda 2 the most I think. It was kinda infuriating! I wanted all the answers!

Later on in life, I really took a liking to Zelda 1. It’s simple, everything’s pretty to the point, and there ain’t many games like Just Zelda 1 made today. Like- you’ll have kinda similar things, right? But then there’ll be an extended segment that makes you go “….Oh. That’s Link To The Past, right.” and it kills the enjoyment I have, genuinely! Just think of LttP- ugh! What a- what a fucking specific and weird and unapproachable dull thing. Link to the Past.

Anyway- what I like in Z1 is it’s specificity and simultaneous lack thereof. Every time I get an item in Zelda 1, I know what it does immediately. If it’s long enough since I’ve upgraded a piece of equipment, I can feel a hankering for the eventual upgrade of it. If I ain’t seen a secret area in a bit, my mind tunes to look for them effectively.

Most importantly, though: the plot (however simple it is in Zelda 1) is a transfer of information. You don’t make a lot of active plot progress until the end of the game in Zelda 1. You have the NES game’s manual to tell you what is happening, and you have whatever story clues are contained in the individual moments. What’s happening here, though, is a structured pattern of plot-by-learning. Not exposition, really. Just other people having info, and the story forming as you’re given more context for how it all concludes. Nothing is ‘happening’, though. However, this is story a type of story I find universally compelling. Especially once you get into the nitty-gritty- who else knows that thing you just learned, and why didn’t they tell you before?

Zelda 1’s story isn’t that interesting, really. Like let’s be honest- I’m not gonna call it the masterclass in simple plot communication. But like…..I certainly remember it more fondly today than anything that happened in Ocarina looking back. Hyper Light Drifter takes the addicting and lovely parts of this structure to the extreme: information is conveyed through pure emotional connection. You see images, hear some tone-setting music, your heart does the rest of the work. You really do not need to hear words, you just need to understand at the base level what is most important in each individual scene.

Heck, it’s even got the hyperfocus on an underground dungeon world!

There’s a tendency to call this game cryptic that I really despise, though. It’s not. There’s this stupid thing where you can get the story of the game by obtaining these tablets that translate everything about the backstory and uh…you don’t need that. I’m the Hyper Light Hypewoman and I’m probably never doing it, honestly! Each part of this game is perfectly communicated. If you think there’s something missing it’s likely not that you misunderstood anything- it’s just That Simple, and your brain expects more.

What happens, as I see it- is incredibly simple. Our main character, THEE Hyper Light Drifter, awakens to find a disease they’ve had for a while worsening. They start blacking out for portions, seeing these visions of a beast killing them and sparking the end of humanity. Usually, at the end of these visions, a scary ass dog appears leading them in different directions. The Drifter trusts this dog for no good reason. Really, they shouldn’t based on the facts: these visions of the future they start getting feature the dog adjacent to themselves drowning within another creature’s maw, and civilization as a whole getting blown the fuck up.

We get context for the creature that will kill us and it’s supercomputer papaw throughout 4 episodic chapters. Universally, people are hurt by it after thinking they could approach it like any other situation. Not even the computer in some cases: just other species of lil peoples that suddenly get possessed by murderous ideology. These people have NO reason to trust others. Neither do you, kinda!

Another driftin’ sick fellow, though, dies shortly after risking life and limb to protect you. This reaffirms the Drifter’s inherent trust in others, and once the time comes, their trust is rewarded. They defeat the beast and escape alive and healthier after the scary ass dogthing leads them to safety. They’ve protected the world, but disabled their method of escape (the supercomputer that controlled the elevator system between the lower world and the surface). They will die, but alone with the dog and no one else now. Not from their painful sickness. It’s not perfect, but it could be considered better. And not to mention, life-affirming: it’s so difficult to trust others. I’ve been burned basically every time I’ve done it. It’s nice to consider this impulse still might not be worthless.

Hyper Light Drifter, overall, is a game about constant trust. It is a game full of secrets, where the artist's touches prompt you and reward you for trusting them. There's a universal Secret Symbol: you see it, you know something's there. Sometimes it's just a room with a key for ya to take. Isn't that nice? A lot of the times you land in a three-screen dungeon leading up to, you guessed it, a key. Sometimes it feels like you're being tricked. Could be a trick, even, honestly. But you always get a lil treat for your efforts. A reward for handing over your trust. There's a lot more about the game's design I think supports this philosophy but like- number one, I'm just gonna be repeating my words for like six more paragraphs if I do that, and number two: you don't want that at all. Like duh. That would blow. Not sure if what's about to follow is better, but like you'd hate it either way so I'll take those odds.

Okay, we already toyed with doing some Tim Rogers self-obsessed storytime bullshit during the Zelda Talk, but like- you either closed this review cuz of that or you’re itching for more. Ya want more? Oh, I got more.

In 2019 I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I have never told my family this, and I didnt tell a single person in my life until 2023. It's like- a fairly well known fact now. In my everyday life, things have gotten harder to manage vis-a-vis that, but y’know, back then it was simple: my inner monologue was hateful towards myself, and I would sometimes say things out loud and immediately recognize I was having a vivid memory-hallucination so strong I forgot where I was. Between then and now, we’ve got one major difference: trust issues. It’s about to get a little heavy so y’know. Trigger warnings and what not. There’s like- usually two or three things people talk about when they say that, so I hope you know to save this tab for later if that hurts right now.

In the years between then and now, I’ve lost every person I trusted for the most part. Most of my childhood friends killed themselves or were killed by their families. One of these particular suicides, which happened in 2017, I walked in on after it had happened. Which was a lot to work with as a teen. There were things I promised them I’d do I never got to, and vice versa. Obviously I dont like- blame any of them. Thats a really unfair thing to do, I think. But it really hurt my ability to trust others. Still, though, I had to actively try to trust people when I could regardless of how much it was hurting me to do so. I've always been a hopeful little soul, and people looked to me constantly for inspiration or to uplift their mood. When you're met with all that, you can't let that crack at all. You have to be this perfect emblem for others, even though it sucks. For a long ass time, I did trust like- one particular person a lot (genuinely!) and that isn’t true any more. You’ll remember when I threw out 2023 earlier? They helped me a lot starting in like- 2022 to help me get past a lot of this shit. We talked nearly every day for like a year. They were kind in the moment when I tried to talk about the symptoms of my schizophrenic disorder which was like- pretty new to me! Hadn't had much of a chance to talk about it before, but now here's someone who knows all the terminology that I'm having to use right now!

So, early 2024 rolls around and I have a crazy schizophrenia hallucination episode. I live alone with no in-person support network at this point. I try to kill myself the same way my old best friend did back in 2017, just in a public park at night instead of a house. At some point shortly after I tell them this, they just never talk to me again. I shouldn’t say never- I still text them sometimes, they might respond with a simple sentence once every month. If I try and ask how they’re doing or if we can talk soon, it’s left on read. If I say “Hey I watched that movie you mentioned.” there’s a one in five chance they say “Cool, that one’s good.”

Needless to say- much of my day now is spent grappling with trust issues. Like most of the day. It’s my fulltime job type shit. caused not exclusively by this new issue. But it's certainly not helping, right? I do not trust any one which, y’know, sucks! That used to be like- easy to do! However stupid it might be, though, if someone asks me to trust them with something I do as asked. Always.

I am a quitter in a lot of ways, and a real self-aware idiot, but let one thing be known: I try the hell outta it when I do that shit. I have crazy trust issues that make me think that every kind act done to me is part of some larger ploy. That they only intend to use and betray my trust later. Every time I’ve ever had the “oh this person’s playing nice they Actually Hate You” alarm ring, I’ve been correct.

But like- it feels stupid to let the Brain Disease Currently Putting Me Down win, right? That’s my Real Fucking Life Vow to the world right there: I will never stop trusting people no matter how hard this shit gets. That’s what the got damn game is about. #HyperLightMentality #AntiHaterLifestyle

I guess the conclusion I want you to draw from all this info is: talk to people in your life, even if it hurts or sucks to do. Ya gotta trust people, I think, maybe. And uh- Hyper Light Drifter is a really great piece on how the power of trust extends beyond logical reason sometimes. Not in a like- sometimes you just gotta have faith bullshit happy ending way. More like- you'll have these self-aware moments where you recognize your trust in something is illogical or really unfair towards yourself, but you live with it regardless. Shouts out Heart Machine, heard they're making a weird spiritual sequel roguelike to this now? Kinda weird, right? I'm super down for whatever that is.

Atmosphere is a really important part of a game. The way that things feel, how it can weigh upon you as traverse its areas. Games are miniature worlds, after all - make them feel like them in some capacity, as live or dead as that ends up being.

One great example of this in action is a game that I couldn't finish due to how heavy it was: Disco Elysium. Everything in that game feels uniquely heavy, even the funniest interactions like convincing an old man to give you his sandwich carry a somber weight to them due to the washed-out color palette and worn-down instruments that make up the game's presentation. The city is tired, it's been through so much pain and violence and generational trauma that nothing seems worth doing anymore. It's a masterclass in creating a thick atmosphere that you can't quite get off of you, one that you won't stop thinking about for years after experiencing the piece.

Hyper Light Drifter is a game where the atmosphere reigns supreme. It's both inviting and dangerous, a world where anything can kill you yet there's a serenity to its beautiful, lonely vistas. Nobody ever speaks in written dialogue, only showing you images as a substitute for it. There are no real friends in this world, none that you can understand at least beyond images - the only things that you do truly understand are the monsters that try to kill you. It's an empty land, but it's beautiful in that emptiness. Gorgeous, hostile, and a husk of what came before.

However, I don't think that I can truly enjoy a game on its atmosphere alone. Disco Elysium's potent atmosphere is a great foundation for the game, but there's a lot more going on there. Each character represents different political beliefs, and they're all incredibly interesting to have philosophical discussions with. From the union leader who has given into the vices of capital but still pretends to be fighting for the working class to a dice maker in a chimney who just trusts in the system because she's too exhausted for anything else. The world is more than just an interesting vibe, it has substance to back that up. There's purpose here.

There's not much going on in Hyper Light Drifter to keep me interested. The atmosphere of this dead world is potent and feels heavy and lifeless as you play, but there is a major drawback to the game's minimalist storytelling: there is no motivation for anything you're doing. You're simply plopped into the world and given free reign of the place with no reason to care about any of it. There is no attachment to this main character or their struggles when I don't even know what their struggles are. Why are we going on this quest?

Maybe that's the point: this dying world is yours to take care of, regardless of if you know why you're taking care of it or not, and I just failed that test.

+gorgeous architecture, excellent pixel art, distinctive character designs
+once the combat options open up it feels pretty rewarding, especially once you get meatier guns that can server the majority of your damage output
+overall I think the text-less nature of the game suits it, partially because each area follows a pattern in terms of progression so there's never any confusion over what to do
+I actually quite liked the final boss in this game, it's easy to fumble a final boss by trying to make it too wild or insane but this boss felt challenging and momentous without throwing the combat design out the window. the bosses in general succeeded when they took inspiration from bullet hell games to create interesting obstacles for the player, and/or had dynamic patterns as the fight went on; the bosses that did this really struck a chord with me
+other than the west quadrant each other quadrant felt like they had a natural progression when figuring out where to go next and what to do. it's more linear than the zelda games it was based on no question, but it felt comfortable to be always moving forward
+exploration is virtually always rewarded, whether with upgrade currency, extra health packs, or even keys or hidden modules

-the west quadrant... wow what a terrible start to the game for me. the modules in this area were significantly more hidden than in the others, and the backtracking to comb over areas where I had already been was not fun at all
-certain aspects definitely reflect the indie game maker development of this game. what stuck out to me most were objects with incorrect priority that would hover over the drifter when they were supposed to be behind him
-boss design is a little all over the place, some seem very undercooked and trivial to take down
-didn't really care for the enemy and encounter design that much. the enemy patterns didn't feel distinctive in how they were meant to be taken down, and "difficult" encounters just consisted of throwing a bunch of enemies at you at once
-aiming the gun sucks lol. aiming in place is never worth it and even when I would move and shoot in a direction sometimes it felt like the bullets would skew

I really did not like this game initially because of the issues I mentioend with the west quadrant, but for the rest of the game I found it to be quite relaxing because of the ease of progression and pretty locales. afterwards I really felt no push to continue exploring, but for the 7 or 8 hours I spent playing it otherwise I was quite content. it's not a long game and pretty cheap, so I would absolutely recommend as a quick game to go through if you're proficient with 2d combat and looking for a solid entry in that space

This game has grown on me massively since I abandoned it early in its release, its a lot better than I initially gave it credit for.

I still dont like the dash system, despite the practice from playing through I still struggle to pull off the rythms needed to take full advantage.

Overall though its a neat game and I finally get why so many people are very fond of it.

Every 12 months, it seems like all of gaming media conspires to get together and collectively select THE hottest indie darling of the year. In 2022 it was Cult of the Lamb, before that It Takes Two (2021), Hades (2020), Outer Wilds (2019), Subnautica (2018), Hollow Knight (2017), etc… Well, those of you who were gaming back in the day no doubt remember which release took the cake circa 2016, that of course being Hyper Light Drifter. A visual throwback to third and fourth gen titles, Hyper Light Drifter was interesting in that its gameplay was more reminiscent of contemporary hack-and-slash titles, producing a hybrid that appealed to both retro buyers and newbies alike. Seven years later, the question remains: does it still hold up as a gold standard from the AA market?

Based on my experience, the unfortunate truth is not really, though it does have its pros, the first of those of course being the graphics. If there’s one word that perfectly describes the aesthetic drafted by developer Heart Machine, it would be calming. Take a gander at any screenshot or piece of footage from this game; let the soft hues envelope your ocular globes, the pixel-perfect geometry captivate your soul, the dark neons ease you into a slumber…

Jokes aside, this is a genuinely serene world. Every color under the rainbow has seemingly been incorporated into the environments about you, yet it all feels equilibrious, as though some god sculpted everything from the same slab of digital clay. That said, there’s no doubt HLD shines best when it embraces more aphotic overlays. These typically sprout whenever you’re underground (more on that later), and man are they a sight to behold: whether it’s decrepit tech or spunky rock formations, the red/blue/purple motif bathes it all with cool tranquility. If there was ever an argument against photorealism scapes in video games, HLD would be a pristine candidate: a promethean extravaganza of somber chroma. We’ve all played games that had one or two hubs decked in such placidity- HLD is the first time I can say 90% of its content could fall under the same label.

The biggest drawback in this category is the poor environmental storytelling. As you’ve no doubt heard, HLD doesn’t feature a narrative in the conventional sense- there are a few cutscenes you’re periodically hit with (more on that later), but it’s otherwise a tale you largely have to interpret based on the imagery around you, and the problem is HLD is all over the place in terms of its physical layout. You’ll find Metroid-esque labs, mountaintops adorned with tribal totems, crystalline forests ala Secret of Mana, etc…and it never once comes across as a cohesive package. In fact, I’d go so far as to say creator Alx Preston was more interested in paying homage to those aforementioned titles than conceiving a unique mythos for his baby, and while it may result in a bunch of visual treats, it does come at the cost of narratological cohesiveness. Each venture you take is less about learning about this society and more about finding a new 90s throwback to gaze over if that makes sense.

I also would’ve appreciated a lot more blood splatter effects given the sheer amount of slicing-and-dicing you’ll be doing, which brings me to the gameplay. Like I stated before, HLD is a slash ‘em up, meaning its mechanics are based entirely on skewering opposing forces via your laser sword. To prevent button-mashing monotony, an instantaneous dash feature and firearm have been incorporated, and, at its best, HLD truly feels like a gun kata film: bursting into close quarters, slivering some thug, and blasting his buddy at a distance before leaping back to safety in the span of 3 seconds is absolutely exhilarating, and you’ll have to master this technique should you want to proceed through the harder areas. But unfortunately, that initial excitement wears off fast the moment you realize you’re going to be doing the exact same action again and again and again. The core problem with HLD’s loop is its failure to spice it up -- enemies aren’t radically different to warrant new tactics, the grid doesn’t deviate from its standard size, nothing. It’s just nonstop action. A lot of comparisons have been made to A Link to the Past given the presence of Zelda-esque dungeons and the ability to tackle 3/4 of them at your own pace, but the difference is those dungeons provided puzzles to jumble up the constant action. In HLD, the best you’ll get are activating switches, which are either way hidden behind guys you’ll have to, yup that’s right, KILL. And contrary to what Wikipedia claims, this is not an action RPG- all that murdering doesn’t give you experience points, and customization/inventory is limited to a few basic outfits and guns. While the upgrades (more on that later) make fighting easier, they fall short of innovation, and as a result, HLD drags, feeling just as long as ALTTP despite being half its length.

Not helping either of these is the perpetual backtracking you’ll have to do. See, unlocking boss stages and upgrades requires you to harvest special collectibles strewn throughout the world, and minus two pointed out to you by a local ally, there are no pinpoints on the map, meaning you gotta explore to find them. This doesn’t seem bad on the surface, but where the issue arises is the lack of a completion mark indicating you’ve already acquired something (again, save the two aforementioned ones), meaning you’ll often find yourself revisiting the same tunnels and closed-off areas in the hopes of uncovering an additional secret. And should you leave and return to one of the main junctures, all those gremlins you slew are brought back to life.

The larger qualm with HLD’s exploration is that the developers just didn’t do a good job arranging the spaces with distinguishable strata. In most top-down video games, you can tell where a hidden ingress is located by way of how certain objects appear: there’s a strange break in the wall, the trees are organized like an arrow, why is an odd boulder in the middle of nowhere, etc…In HLD, you’ll see TONS of these in every square that don’t lead ANYWHERE. And yet, that very same tactic has been used to conceal the canisters you need, meaning you’re going to be wasting your time slamming every suspicious-looking nook and cranny until you happen upon the right one. It’s not a compliment when I have to recommend employing a walkthrough to avoid needless frustration.

It’s a shame because an easy fix would’ve been simply giving the map a normal interface alongside the ability to set waypoints, instead of this confusing excuse of a menu with multiple levels and colors that barely show anything and don’t correspond to your actual location (one section saw me enter/exit a cave, only for the map to depict me radically moving an entire yard….what?).

As you can guess, the minimalist plot doesn’t make these excursions worth the trouble. A handful of beautifully-rendered pictel cutscenes hint at an interesting backstory for the unnamed protagonist, but it’s deliberately left vague for players to input their own interpretations. If I was younger, I probably would’ve found such an ordeal enticing, but as an adult, I gotta be honest- I consider these approaches to be more lazy than anything else. The devs either couldn’t pay for writers or thought they could tell a better story with pictures over words, the result, regardless, being no fruit borne. It shouldn’t be my job as a consumer to fill in the gaps of the world’s and/or character’s backstory- even the most carte blanche RPG provides some concrete method of understanding what’s going on. Heck, even Limbo, which HLD no doubt took inspiration from, had the wherewithal to implement a clear premise- after 7 hours, I still don’t get why anything was happening or why I was doing the actions I was doing.

If I can end this review on a positive note, it’s that the soundscape is pretty dang good. While there is SFX (more on that momentarily), HLD takes the Gravity approach of boosting action beats with the score, a smorgasbord of synthesizers that pump ethereal harmonies whilst you make your way across the different realms. The various compositions you hear resemble a midway point between No Man’s Sky and Secret of Mana’s OSTs in terms of electronica complimenting the unknown zeal of your forthcoming adventure.

A decent assemblage of sound effects have been programmed for your tools and weapons. While I would’ve liked to have seen more collision noises for the sword swipes in relation to enemies and static items, there’s enough oomph to make the relentless action non-iterant (not to mention bosses are uniquely sonorous).

In the end, though, I personally cannot vouch for Hyper Light Drifter. It’s a gorgeous game full of fantastic moments, but those are sadly unable to counter the incessant gameplay loop that fails to diversify your playtime.


NOTES
-The Drifter looks cool in cinematics. However, in-game, I can’t be the only person who thinks his helmet looks like an owl?

The atmosphere in this game is unparalleled to me. The grandness and beautify of this tragic world is communicated so clearly to the player, all without a word being said- That’s right, there is NO dialogue at all in this game. It leaves it up to the player to find their place in the world and the story, letting you piece together the bits you find and make your own meaning.

The gameplay is slick, dashing around slicing with your sword to charge up bullets in your gun is a very fluid experience. It encourages you to actively be cycling through your abilities as you dance around the enemies.

It’s not as hard of a game as you might initially think. Yes, you will die a lot, but you have plenty of check points to keep you from losing progress. You’re never really going to be set that far back by death, so you can get right back into the action and try that fight you lost again.

The visual language of this is stunning. I was absolutely enraptured by the art, general atmosphere, and ambient music. It's a home run with all of those elements. It's also a joy to play. Being locked into challenge areas was always chaotic and satisfying to complete. And every boss here is a winner. Very cool designs, not too difficult, but a suitable challenge.

Hacking and slashing with a sword is a joy and having to come in close for a shotgun blast creates these awesome moments of tension that I would crave for. It's a steadily ramping challenge throughout. It can get a bit hectic and hard to see everything when you're in the middle of a fight, but the upgrades (like a multi-dash) give you the upper hand.

Where it falls apart is in its wordless storytelling. I can very easily be taken in by abstract stories, but this gives you so little context and the environmental storytelling isn't enough to give you a sense of urgency or any real grasp on what's going on. You need the things. You're gonna get the things. You don't feel well, but that's not super relevant. Some things are in your way. Kill them.

I just found myself wishing there was more under the hood than there is. That doesn't stop it from being a wonderful piece and, while you may be left wanting for more, it's a great journey to go on.

What a game. I'm genuinely not sure where to even start with this game because it's so hard to put this into words.

The atmosphere is IMMACULATE. It's so interesting going to every area and seeing the world the game presents to you without any instance of dialogue. There's so many times I've been so blown away by the small moments in this game I was speechless.

My hangup with this game is the combat. It's kinda wack. I like it but it is pretty wack. It's simple, being all about timing your attacks and dodges and deflects, but wow you can just DIE super quick in this game with little say in the matter. It fits with the game but it's annoying to play around at times.
It can also get kinda hard to find where to go in both a good way or a bad way. Good way because you get to find more areas with more stuff and more pretty things, bad way because it has taken me literal hours to find areas in this game.

I hold a lot of love for this game and I heavily recommend playing it ONLY if you're fine not fully completing this game or have patience for games where you die fast.

I was watching a bunch of game trailers and came across the release trailer for Hyper Light Drifter and was immediately drawn in by the mysterious visuals and the deliberate, foreboding synth ambience. The atmosphere in this game is so cool. There is no dialogue, so any lore to be unearthed is delivered in either slideshows or a cryptic alphabet that I didn't even know could be translated until I watched a YouTube video about it.
The map was confusing, the upgrade system didn't click until I started collecting the little upgrade chips and made the connection, and the purpose of the game wasn't clear until I activated the first obelisk. At first, I was a bit put off by it. I'm no stranger to vague lore and mechanics, hell, Dark Souls is one of my favorite series, but even that had dialogue and item descriptions you could go off of. However, Hyper Light Drifter is a game in which you could wander off in any direction and end up making progress, so in the end, I didn't mind the vagueness. I just started exploring and fighting things, and before long, I knew what I had to do, I understood how to upgrade things, and I even figured out how the map worked.
The gameplay is pretty simple. You have a sword, and you have a gun. Hit things to recharge your gun. Pick up life packs and use them when you need a heal. Simple, but it feels good. Combining sword combos with gun attacks feels great, and taking on a horde of enemies and seeing the drifter victoriously stab his sword into the ground is super satisfying. Boss fights are pretty fun. In terms of difficulty, it can be a bit challenging at times, but nothing super crazy. Dying is either a non-punishment, or it resets you to a pretty far back checkpoint. Just depends on the level.
Overall though, I had no idea what was happening story-wise, but I loved how it looked, sounded, and felt, so I ended up really enjoying it! I wanted more once I got to the end.
Definitely will recommend this one, especially since it's decently short. Apparently you can do co-op but I haven't tried it yet.

The art is gorgeous with an incredible attention to detail, the storytelling so keenly focused on being told without words, the ambient music that works so well building a quiet moody atmosphere that then kicks into high gear for the big challenging fights that make you keep going, all trapped within a game that I wish I actually liked playing.

The health system genuinely ruins so much of the experience for me, because making your health recharges an item with limited pickups means that risky maneuvers with combat and exploration are thoroughly discouraged because you have zero guarantee of when the next time you'll come across another is. That and combined with the player having zero recovery frames and can be endlessly stunlocked by either long attacks or groups of enemies leads to an experience that rather than being delightfully challenging, felt like it was purposefully trying to waste my time and be purposefully dickish for no good reason. Finding medkits as a reward for exploration also just blows and makes it so much less interesting to look around.

It feels a lot like the developers looked at the Souls games as an inspiration for building a world that you want to explore and push through the challenges, but then thoroughly and utterly misunderstood what made those challenges feel rewarding. Having to pick up every item in a room over and over again with each death is obnoxious and genuinely feels like it was done to pad out the playtime. I don't see how it was done for balancing or trying to make sure the player doesn't cheese through things either, because it's not like the game could have been sequence broken by doing so either when the vast majority of those rooms are required to actually finish the game.

There's an Easy difficulty option that does raise your health bar from 5 points to 6 and changes a small handful of fights to have less enemies compared to Normal, but neither of those were my issues with the game's challenge. Being able to survive one more hit doesn't really help in a game that moves lightning fast and also still doesn't give you recovery frames after getting hit, and does nothing to change the actual core issue of how you even receive your healing charges in the first place. It's also incredibly shitty to lock off achievements that say you finished the game if you play on Easy difficulty; I may have played on Normal, but essentially telling the part of your player base on a singleplayer only game who played on Easy that they "didn't really finish the game" comes across as the most stupidly elitist shit that just didn't need to be there.

Also some bizarre technical design choices and issues with the PC version: the game stutters nonstop unless you switch your monitor to run at 60Hz because the game doesn't do it for you for some reason, and there is no cloud save support on Steam because saves are encrypted to your own PC for some truly asinine reason. You can fix it with an online community tool which I did to continue playing on a Steam Deck, but this is a singleplayer offline only game and I don't buy the developer's excuse of "Game Maker Studio is just like that" when plenty of other indie titles use the same engine and don't have this limitation, there's zero excusable reasons why this should've been done.

I wish I could like playing Hyper Light Drifter more than I did because everything else carries the game so much, enough that I didn't hate it but I just feel indifferent to it. I really hope Hyper Light Breaker next year does something more interesting with the world at least and changes up more by being 3D.

yesterday i felt like i should really get to some of the stuff in my backlog, there's tons of stuff sitting there that i would have a great time with that i really have no excuse not to play. so what did i do? i replayed the game i had already played 4 or 5 times instead.

usually when i play a game too much, get really familiar with everything about the game, i start to see its cracks more clearly. i might cool down on it a bit. i guess that happened with Hyper Light Drifter, but only in that it went from my absolute favorite game to just a solid top 10. this game does everything that matters very, very well. the aesthetic and presentation alone could carry the game - the visuals are phenomenal, the music isn't something i'd usually go for but it perfectly fits into the game, and everything comes together to create a perfect atmosphere for just about every area. the gameplay has flaws, but is well designed, with the combat the highlight. there are certainly a few issues, bugs and things mostly, but they don't really detract from everything the game does great. my single biggest issue with it is occasional input inconsistency, which can turn one attack into another and throw you off if it's a particularly intense fight. apart from that infrequent issue, the combat is just about the best i've ever played. the harder fights can get pretty damn hard, but they feel great to master. challenging fights aren't even something i usually care much about in games, but something about HLD's combat just perfectly clicks for me. it's pretty simple at its core, but variety in enemy design gives plenty of depth to encounters. gameplay outside of combat mainly involves exploring the ruined, decaying world, searching for secrets. there are some non-combat challenges, mainly focusing on precise sequences of dashes. these are, to be honest, the weakest part of the game, made worse by the rare input dropping. the longest of these challenges is inconsistent enough that the 99% category is much more popular among speedrunners than 100%. however, none of these dash challenges are required to beat the game, and are only necessary if you really want that 100% achievement. for the most part, you're just wandering around, getting in fights, and finding hidden passageways, and the game is great for all three of those things.

Hyper Light Drifter, even after i've played it over and over and found every single flaw, remains one of my favorite games. i'm really excited for Solar Ash and, unless that turns out to be a huge disappointment, i'll probably throw my money at whatever the developers do after that as well.

also um it turns out there's gonna be an HLD animated show by the castlevania guy? not sure how i feel about that

acho que uma das piores decisões que tomei na minha vida foi ter demorado 7 anos pra jogar esse jogo.

em 2016, inside ganhou indie do ano em uma categoria que continha firewatch, the witness, stardew e hyper light. a pior coisa dessas premiações (tga, oscars, enfim) é afirmar a "superioridade" de alguma coisa. tenho certeza que os desenvolvedores desses jogos possuem entre si um respeito imenso e, que sabem que ninguém ali fez algo melhor ou pior do que ninguém. pra mim isso é sempre muito mais emblemático na categoria dos jogos indie (hoje já um pouco distorcida por jogos não tão independentes assim). querer colocar uma obra de arte como hyper light drifter, que chega a ter uma honestidade que mareja os olhos ao conhecer a história de seu criador e ver o tanto de expressão que ele colocou aqui, em uma competição pra ver qual é o melhor, é muito triste.

eu poderia passar HORAS discutindo sobre as 4 regiões, como elas interagiam entre si, os conhecimentos de cada raça, as trocas culturais... mas não é sobre isso. esse jogo é especial, não apenas pela sua pixel art incrível, trilha sonora, level design, combate, história não-verbal, suas raízes em zelda, ou suas inspirações em dark souls. hyper light é especial pela sua mais sincera transparência. transparência essa, claro, com muito perfeccionismo e polimento, mas que nunca abandona a instância máxima que toda arte possui: sua inescapável humanidade.

This game taught me a lesson on Hype: Don't follow it, you'll only get dissapointed.

While I still find the combat and world enjoyable, I felt that the player lacked any sort of motivational drive to continue. A wordless narrative is a very tough thing to achieve and it felt like HLD couldn't figure it out. Which resulted in me getting to the credits and just feeling conflicted and bitter. The final encounter lacked any real immediacy and context for the player to chew on. I just defeated it and moved on....

I overhyped the game internally and as such subconsciously imagined and expected a completely, more grandiose experience than the developers were going for. Hype killed HLD for me.

this game has ruined almost every other game i've ever played, and i mean this in the most endearing way possible

Hyper Light Drifter is one of the most visually pleasing games i've seen, the stunning pixel visuals have held up so well over the years. i've certainly found other games with incredible visuals of a similar or better caliber (Owlboy is a big contender for that imo), but the way that HLD utilizes fully saturated colors to bring the world to life makes it much more impressive to me. it can be challenging to make vibrant palettes work without them being too distracting or eye-bleedingly harsh, but HLD avoids this issue with the usage of dramatic lighting or by placing more natural, muted tones to bring the saturated colors to greater attention. a friend of mine gave me the art book as a gift recently, and seeing the amount of work it took to ensure everything was in it's proper place only made me appreciate the world of the game even more.

i'm also incredibly impressed by the masterful worldbuilding the game offers, especially due to the entire lack of dialogue and understandable written language that persists everywhere except maybe the title screen. i've always been a sucker for media that make you analyze and piece together a story's puzzle instead of being told everything right out the gate, but HLD is definitely one of the more easily understandable examples of this trait that doesn't come from a completely abstract narrative. my biggest praise of the story would have to be the intro cutscene and the ending cutscene. it seems like a pretty obvious thing to point out, i'm sure many before me have talked about them at length, but i feel the need to enumerate just how masterful they are as well. it's hard for me to put into words how i felt when i realized how the two cutscenes mirrored each other at certain points. while it's definitely made more obvious by the two music tracks that play during them, it still caught me off guard and sent me crying.

speaking of the music, Disasterpeace did a real number on every track in this game. the environments really feel alive with the atmospheric score, and the transitions between the area theme's different layers was always so seamless that, quite often, i wouldn't even noticed it changed until much later. the battle themes are also all plenty intense, and while i personally don't often relisten to them (not exactly my usual taste in music), they serve their purpose incredibly well and set the scene for the hard-as-nails boss fights wonderfully. i could also go on and on about how Panacea is the most perfect ending theme one could hope for, but i'll spare the details and simply say that the amount of times i've played a game with a friend and said something along the lines of "this ending theme is good because it reminds me of HLD's" is far more times than one should.

overall, this game is not for everyone, and i recognize that things like the difficulty or vague story might be complete turn-offs for people. these are definitely valid points, and i can't say i blame people for being hesitant to try this game because of it. regardless, though, i feel like HLD is about as close to a perfect game for me as one can get, and i'll gladly stand by that for years to come. maybe my vision is rose-tinted, as i did find the game at a very pivotal point in my life, but i'd like to think that i'm at least a bit unbiased in my views. i encourage everyone to at least give it a shot, even just watch a playthrough or something, i don't think you'll be disappointed by doing so

Hyper Light Drifter é um jogo que mora no meu coração, principalmente por ter me tirado, há anos atrás, de uma semi depressão em que absolutamente nenhum jogo estava me cativando ou me divertindo mais (o que quase me levou a uma depressão verdadeira, já que jogos sempre foram a minha principal fonte de lazer). Mesmo diante desse cenário, Hyper Light Drifter conseguir atravessar e quebrar completamente essa barreira de monotonia, me ajudando a sair e me recuperar de um período difícil.

O primeiro aspecto que acho interessante mencionar de Hyper Light Drifter é a sua ausência de linguagem. Após as explicações do tutorial básico do jogo, você é solto em um mundo onde toda a comunicação é passada por imagens e símbolos - e aí entra o primeiro desafio: descobrir e aprender o que significam todos os símbolos e representações perdidos pelo jogo. Isso se mistura a outros dois grandes desafios, que compõem a essência do jogo do começo ao fim, que são a exploração e as batalhas - Assim resultando uma jornada por um mundo hieroglífico assolado por criaturas rápidas e fatais, assim como repleto de items e caminhos secretos escondidos em todos os lugares (até mesmo em plena vista).

Impossível deixar de falar da parte artística do jogo, com sua pixelart paradoxal que, ao mesmo tempo que é simples e crua também é incrivelmente rica e detalhada, e com sua SoundTrack fantástica e imersiva, que consegue intensificar a ambientação de todas as áreas do jogo (Cara, a música de Midnight Wood é um deleite sonoro).

Hyper Light Drifter é uma experiência fenomenal que vale muito a pena ser jogada, especialmente por quem curte alto nível de exploração e batalhas dinâmicas desafiadoras.

After trying and failing to get into this game a couple times in the past, I finally hunkered down and finished it. As much as I want to love this game, it just doesn't quite get there for me. The music is stunning and the pixelated visuals are so, so pretty. Despite no words being spoken, the game is able to quite effectively tug at your emotions from time to time. The combat is extremely fun and fast paced, the mix of gun and sword play is something I really enjoyed. despite that, some deaths can feel a slight bit unfair as you can be stunlocked and take damage from consecutive attacks due to a vanishingly short invulnerability window. There is also some awkwardness with the 2.5D art style where you will collide or get hit with things that visually shouldn't be able to from that far away - especially when positioned above them. These two gripes are mostly minor though, my main problem with this game is the sheer amount of secrets that I feel don't really respect the player's time. There are some areas where you'll just want to run up against every single wall to see if there is an invisible gap you can pass through. A good amount of these passages contain items necessary to progression as well. This is somewhat alleviated by there being 8 total, and only needing 4 in each area to complete the game. However, it can still be time consuming and frustrating if you don't know the tells, which are not necessarily obvious and left for the player to figure out. The sheer number of them also deflates the feeling of discovery a bit, especially when the rewards are usually just 1/12th of an upgrade. Overall, I still think it's worth playing simply for the amazing art and fun combat, but don't stress too much over finding every single secret unless you really care about a recolor for your player character.