First hour: I don't really get this, the setting is cool though I guess.

Next 3-4 hours: oh I'm done and it has been an entire day, woops.

When it gets it's hooks in ya, it really gets it's hooks in ya, y'know?

A gorgeous game, from the story, to the gameplay. But in particular, I must add a note to the design and look of the Hyper Light Drifters art style; for being only what I can describe as one of the best looking uses of the pixle art medium I have ever seen. Besides the art howerver, Hyper Light Drifter does almost everything else almost perfect as well. The gameplay is tight, and seems relativly fair, with bosses being capable of stunlocking you pretty good if not careful. Such being, from time to time, a slight annoyence, but not to such a degree that is ruins the experiences of fighting. Overall, A must play game.

El juego visualmente es precioso, el pixel art es bueno, pero es que los colores que utiliza lo hacen mucho mas bonito. El juego tiene cuatro zonas distintas y todas utilizan una paleta de colores diferente y todas las zonas son muy bonitas, quizá la mas fea sea la del desierto, pero aun así le da esa sensación de pobreza que debe de tener una zona tan deprimente.
La banda sonora no se de que género musical se trata, pero consigue ambientar muy bien y encaja perfectamente todo el entorno psicodélico que pretende tener el juego.
La historia del juego es contada mediante la narrativa ambiental, lo primero que ves del juego es una cinemática que no te dice demasiado, y es el jugador que explorando y hablando con los npcs tiene que desentrañar los secretos. Por ejemplo, cuando llegas a una nueva zona suele haber un npc que te cuenta que es lo que le ha pasado y suele ser que el boss de esa zona llegó a ese lugar y expulsó y/o mató a los habitantes que habían allí, lo curioso es que en vez de contártelo mediante texto utilizan imágenes muy bonitas que se entienden perfectamente lo que te cuenta. Personalmente no soy fan de este tipo de narrativa porque, al menos en este juego, al principia me veía avanzando, y activando unos artilugios sin saber por qué lo estaba haciendo, ni tampoco que hacen esos artilugios. Luego ya al final pues comprendes un poco mejor que es lo que ha pasado, pero tampoco tanto, porque no lo he entendido del todo bien. Si os gusta este tipo de narrativa pues perfecto, a mi me ha parecido un poco meh la historia.
La jugabilidad es simple porque solo tienes un botón de ataque a corta distancia, luego desbloqueas una pistola y una granada para atacar a larga distancia y un botón para hacer un dash. Pero se siente entretenido y el juego es desafiante, ya sea por el diseño de las zonas o como son los enemigos he muerto muchas veces, lo bueno es que reapareces justo al lado de donde has muerto y no se hace para nada tedioso. Lo que sí, es que me hubiera gustado un botón para hacer parrys a los enemigos, creo que le hubiera dado un pelín mas de profundidad a la jugabilidad. Y sobre eso también decir que puedes obtener nuevas habilidades, como hacer dashes múltiples, un ataque en área, devolver las balas con el ataque, que durante haces el dash seas inmune a las balas, poder hacer un ataque mientras haces el dash… Estas habilidades son útiles (yo recomiendo la de los dash múltiples y la de devolver las balas atacando) pero el juego te sigue suponiendo un reto aunque las tengas todas.
Para desbloquear esas habilidades hacen falta encontrar unos objetos que suelen estar ocultos o que rara vez suelta un enemigo. Sobre las zonas, aparte de decir que son muy bonitas, suelen tener muchos secretos que premian al jugador que es curioso y explora, ya sea con los objetos para mejorar, diferentes tipos de pistolas, curaciones y más secretos.
Una queja que tengo con el juego es que se divide en cuatro zonas, cada una tiene su jefe y el jefe final del juego, además de tres minibosses, el problema es que esos tres minibosses solo se encuentran en la ultima zona, yo creo que podrían haberlo repartido mejor los minibosses a lo largo del juego.
También decir que el juego es relativamente corto, yo he tardado en pasármelo seis horas, pero aun me quedan muchos secretos por encontrar, además de que una vez que te lo pasas en estándar desbloqueas el modo difícil y poder jugarlo con otro personaje.
En conclusión, el juego me ha gustado principalmente por su aspecto gráfico, por su banda sonora y por su jugabilidad simple pero entretenida y desafiante a la vez, lo que no me ha gustado es la historia, que tiene pocas zonas, pocos bosses. Aun así, me ha parecido buen juego.

Looked stunning in handheld, but even more so when docked.

The music, the atmosphere, the art style and the gameplay. Everything is perfect.

Final boss fight slaps

Hyper Light Drifter is a metaphor. It is also a supremely playable action adventure. It is not both equally - the expression of its theme comes first. Hyper Light Drifter is a rumination on how one chooses to dedicate their life towards causes that better the world while cognizant of their own looming mortality. Any evaluation of the game as an action adventure only makes sense within this context.

Hyper Light Drifter was lightyears ahead of its discourse. Pre-release interviews asked the developer about its combat systems. Comparisons were made to 2D Zelda games. Players complained about the lack of text or dialog. I myself bounced off this game when I tried playing it closer to release. Now that I’ve played a few art house indie games (and Bloodborne), I realize Hyper Light Drifter is the kind of game others (like GRIS) market themselves as and fail to be - that Hyper Light Drifter is about something, down to its very bones.

Everything in this game world is built around the insurmountable presence of death. Corpses of giants litter and create the landscape. Plants have retaken machines of war. People hunt each other for cruel and petty gains in a small and crumbling world, survivors and drifters nursing wounds and grudges. Hyper Light Drifter is deft enough to understand death is made real by the lamenting survivors and the anticipatory fear of the doomed. Context is everything, and context is the throughline of how the Drifter is crafted.

In a game without words or dialog, every movement of the player character becomes scrutinized in the search for their soul. He can dash, but he cannot run. He can slash wildly, but only thrice. Between delays in the Drifter’s combat animations and the way he reluctantly arises from a moment of quiet, his demeanor is solidified as deliberate, capable, and tired.

The Drifter routinely coughs up blood, politely dampening the sound even when alone. He winces to hold his breath before injecting a healing tonic. The Drifter will not draw his sword in front of civilians, but will play soccer with children. He’ll toss coins to the downtrodden. The only people who will talk to him, (or is it more accurate to say, who he chooses to talk to?), have experienced significant loss. By implication, these conversations lead to imaginings of how the Drifter is able to empathize with these people, and why he is on his journey.

All the while, Anubis quietly, radiantly beckons to the ruins of the underworld.

I can understand the impulse to say that Hyper Light Drifter does not have a story, but I would posit it is more accurate to say it does not have a plot. The Drifter is dying. He has a goal he must accomplish before this happens. Along the way, there are people who do not ask for help, but on whose behalf he takes vengeance. As players, we cannot choose any other path for the Drifter to take, but the gameplay reinforces the feeling of this world demanding hard choices.

Every facet of the game’s combat forces the player to make interesting choices. All upgrades require the same difficult-to-obtain trinkets. These trinkets are just obtainable enough to afford a single purchase at a time, and just rare enough to forever second-guess which purchase is right. The health bar has an unchanging five segments, and many common enemies can deal two marks per hit. Health items must be scavenged, the Drifter unable to hold enough to ever feel safe. After taking three damage, a conundrum arises. Do you risk taking one more hit to get the most out of your tonics? Or heal early to be safe, and possibly regret needing it later?

Boss fights are challenging. Their healthpools are massive, and the Drifter is frail. Victory requires perseverance and precision, using the Drifter’s limited tools in the face of much more elaborate and devastating abilities. Together, these elements create miniature dead-ends that emerge from player choices. Perhaps you arrived at a grueling combat encounter with minimal health and tonics - do you teleport yourself away to regroup and fight your way back, or rise to the occasion to avoid the risk of returning in worse condition?

Continually forced to make difficult choices with incomplete information and an uncertain future necessitates an adoption of a certain philosophy. These circumstances cannot last. You will find more trinkets; no purchase is worthless. You cannot win without conserving your first aid kits, as you cannot move forward continually assuming the worst. You cannot fear death, (or the permanence of your choices), forever if you want to accomplish your goals. You are forced to believe in your own improvement and ability. The Drifter will try again as often as you need him to.

Because the Drifter follows Anubis willingly.

I was profoundly touched by the ending. Lore-wise, I had no idea what was happening. But the emotions were earned and real. Of what it's like to fight your own body and lose. The gravitas every decision accrues when there won’t be time for another. The dignity that comes from living with a chronic illness, after pain has long since lost its novelty and yielded to the pure focus required for the smallest of tasks. The ending did what all good endings should do - punctuate the purpose of the whole experience in reverberating clarity.

The context of the ending crystalizes what kind of man the Drifter always was. Why a frail man fought monsters and murderers so much stronger than himself. It could never be for his own gain, for there is no cure for death. There is only the creation of meaning through a life lived deliberately, by creating a better world he will never see. All conveyed so subtly I can forgive anyone for missing it.

Hyper Light Drifter is one of the few games where I role-played my actions to routinely let the player character rest. There is no benefit to doing so. But his journey is hard.

all of the content from the original game is as perfect as always but i was disappointed to find out the special edition content was not made by heart machine but instead a completely different studio (abylight studios) and mostly only consisted of one 5-10 minute area with a boss fight at the end of it which was way harder than literally everything else in the base game. they did add a couple new guns which were cool (even though you can't upgrade them for some reason) but the fact that it was all stuff made by a different team of developers made it feel like i was playing fan-made modded pieces of content as opposed to experiencing new officially added components of the game. regardless though hyper light drifter still is a fantastic game at its core, with tight, fast gameplay and rewarding exploration set against an absolutely beautiful backdrop, and despite the lackluster new additions of this edition itself, i would still recommend any version of the game to anyone any day.


unless it was like a evil version of the game or something that'd be a different set of circumstances

Wife’s Reaction:
“Major Adventure Time and Dead Cell vibes. Creepy and awesome.”

The Fast and the Furious:
One of those indies I had on my radar and never got around to playing. Immediately, Hyper Light Drifter hits with a wild opening, then leaves you to wander and figure out what to do and where to go. It’s fast and challenging and has awesome vibes and style.

Very good top-down hack 'n' slash with a deep atmosphere and enthralling music and visuals. The pixel art is very good, although i found it to be too messy in boss fights to understand every blow. Gameplay is a bit on the hard side but weapons are crazy funny and strong. They can compensate pretty easily any lack of skill you might have against bosses or certain enemies. The only issue i have is that the dash is too restrictive in its timing to concatenate multiple ones reliably, especially in boss fights. The story is one of the most poignant pieces of silent media ever, masterfully crafted in both image composition and music.

Best version is the Switch one. Extra weapon, dungeon and boss are really worth it.

Hyper Light Drifter is a pretty simple game, a 2d hack and slash with a liiiiittle bit of souls and a fair bit of zelda in it, and it's just gorgeous. Gorgeous and sad and hard, just like anything that takes influence from souls should be. The exploration is fantastic, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and the art is just jaw dropping. The combat's tight as fuck too. Maybe a little overtightened in places, where bosses can stunlock you to death from full health, and a tiny bit loose in others, but 95% of the time it's satisfying as hell. It's worth playing, even on an easier difficulty, just for that good good neon depression

An addictive and visually striking game with a pleasingly low rez art style. The combat is challenging and in some areas feels unfair, but death is not incredibly punishing and with extensive exploration you find more and more tools to upgrade your player and your weapons.

The game gives you very little direction on where to go or what to do when you get there, so the early hours are spent muddling around and getting a feel for the world. This lack of direction paired with a difficult-to-understand overworld map can be frustrating, especially paired with the ease that you can be killed by enemies. It's very easy to get lost in this game if you have a poor sense of direction.

The music is a great complement to a magitech apocalyptic world being overgrown with natural plantlife and monsters. The lack of any dialogue really underlines the contemplative and in some places bleak atmosphere of this richly colored world. Exploring is often rewarded with secret paths and new areas, and taking the time to poke around every corner feels very rewarding as you learn the visual language of the game and how to read hints in the environment.

Hyper Light Drifter's original release was notable as taking place at the beginning of a huge indie boom characterized by artistically stylish and difficult games. You can trace it's influence and see it's shared roots with other exploration-heavy games like Tunic.

This game does feel a bit unpolished with an uneven difficultly and in some places clunky and frustrating combat mechanics. Given it's the studio's first showing, this is expected, and what is here is great. Ultimately, I'd recommend it for players who like a challenge and are comfortable taking full reign in exploring an open world.