admittedly, I've had to meditate on Hylics for a while. it's hard to make heads or tails of it... and that's the point

this game isn't lying when it says it's a recreational program with light RPG elements. it's not really a classical RPG at all - the words and phrasings uttered by the people you meet in this world are confusing at its clearest and nonsensical at its most surreal

the art style is weird... but it's also mesmerizing. there's just something about the way the burritos unwrap right as they're being used that still sits pretty fresh on my mind. the way everything looks like it's made of clay, or from some bootleg video game I've never heard of before

but it's also not particularly entertaining. the battles are pretty unfair at the start IMO, and once you get a second party member it becomes mostly a cakewalk. there's no real strategy - you press a button and things supposedly happen on the screen. death just kind of feels like an annoyance after a while with all the "touch this and you instantly die" enemies. outside of weapons there's no real differentiation between party members, and that feels a little boring. outside of the party members themselves, there isn't a single memorable character. when everyone's weird, nobody's really weird, and to me that's kind of unfortunate

admittedly at first I didn't really like this game at all. I'm glad I gave it time to digest and appreciate it, but I still don't really think I'll come back to this anytime soon. I'll still think about that parking lot background tho