Thankfully, the core gameplay, that of a simplified overhead, character action game with an emphasis on mobility and exploration, is enough to hold a game on its own. Yet it is so cryptic and vague that I simply lost interest in whatever story Hyper Light Drifter had to tell as time went on. It clearly has a deeper story hidden inside it, one made from very subtle hints, its own alphabet, and plenty of inferences for the player to make. What’s there does paint a desolate image of a cruel and unforgiving world, one filled with magic, mysticism, and splendor to some degree, but one I honestly didn’t care about. There is no dialog, no exposition, and everything is explained to you using visuals, including occasional snapshots of characters’ lives. I think save the world or some such thing. You play as a swordsman with a nifty cape who has some sort of premonition about his own death and an apocalypse before he is sent on a journey to recover sixteen triangles scattered around the outskirts of a small town in order to do… something. Normally I begin these things with a general plot and concept summary, but I barely have a clue what Hyper Light Drifter is actually about. Yeah, after going through this game, trying to find everything without a guide, I never want to play it again. While I would love to do the same, I genuinely cannot say I like Hyper Light Drifter. Then, with a week’s notice, the game came out, and everybody proceeded to announce their adoration of it. If not, you might feel like you’re banging your head against an incredibly pretty brick wall.I’m one of those few thousand people who threw a few bucks at Hyper Light Drifter during its Kickstarter, as the project looked interesting, and I would surely check it out after release. If you have the will to overcome its many trials you’ll find a rewarding, uncompromising action game. But the unwavering difficulty-especially the bosses-makes it an experience for a very specific type of gamer. And the exhilaration of clearing a dungeon with only a sliver of health left is a feeling worth chasing. The visual design and music are stunning. The elegant, expressive animation makes fighting and traversing the world a joy. There’s a lot to love about Hyper Light Drifter. If not, you’ll almost certainly give up after a few hours.
If you’re the type of gamer who has the fortitude to try things over and over until you master them, Hyper Light Drifter is for you. Ultimately, how you respond to these difficulty spikes will depend on your temperament. Regular enemies are tough enough, but when you’re fighting groups of them on top of a boss unleashing waves of increasingly savage attacks, it becomes a real test of endurance. This is a game where enduring persistent failure is the only way to get good, and a lot of people won’t have the patience to get through some of its more gruelling battles-particularly the fiendishly difficult boss fights. You have to leave and scour the overworld for more, or somehow scrape through the next room, which is probably teeming with powerful enemies, with a dribble of HP. If you’re deep in a dungeon and run out of health items, bad luck. But you also find yourself repeating areas, which is when frustration sets in. These sections present an enjoyable challenge, and there’s a satisfaction in dancing around a room and killing everything without taking a hit. For example, kill one enemy and a wall that was providing cover from a sniper on the other side of the room will suddenly disappear.
Dungeons hide the most satisfying combat in the game, and their layouts change dynamically around you, forcing you to constantly change your tactics.