Fans of the Dark Souls style of storytelling will find themselves reasonably comfortable, while anyone looking for an explicit narrative will likely be left unsatisfied.Ī repeat play will also offer something for those wanting a greater challenge, as the included New Game + option allows for another run at the game with significantly less health. (Despite the “cute” pixel graphics, make no mistake: this is a dark, violent story, and not appropriate for young kids.) Even so, most players will have far more questions than answers by the end of the game, and further digging into some of the game’s secrets-and perhaps a re-analysis of the whole experience during a subsequent playthrough-is a must toward getting a more complete picture of exactly what’s going on. It’s not always perfect, but it makes for a visceral, melancholic tale of great pathos that’s more affecting than one might expect. There is almost no English text in the game, and it’s a testament to the talent of the developer that this works as well as it does throughout the experience. The world itself tells much of it, and while there are characters to have conversations with, these conversations take place in the form of pictures. See also 'Alan Wake' caps a waking nightmare with transcendant surrealismĭrifter’s story is something that Heart Machine also wants players to seek out. His position is shown more precisely in the interior map layouts, but they can be rather hard to read at the outset. The slightly confusing (albeit beautiful) map doesn’t help matters, showing the character’s position vaguely over large sections of the world. The game goes out of its way to avoid hand-holding, and many will find themselves a bit lost in the early going. This is not an easy game.ĭriving this point home is the fact that players are offered virtually no help as they explore the world and the details of the combat. While the Drifter’s various upgrades can help even the playing field a little, the game doesn’t allow players to use upgrades to breeze past challenges. Each of these encounters is unique, exciting, and beautifully balanced. These precision-designed fighters are the highlight of the gameplay, requiring one to get comfortable with the controls and learn each boss’s patterns in order to stay alive. The combat systems need to be learned over time, especially when facing the aforementioned bosses. Keyboard and mouse controls are supported, but a gamepad is definitely preferred-the game supports both Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers, as well as Sony’s Dual Shock 4. Combat isn’t button-mashy, forcing players to commit to each attack and movement with consideration if they want to succeed. Players will use a sword, guns, grenades, and a dash move as they take on their enemies, which include a variety of ranged and melee attackers in addition to a host of powerful bosses. The world is filled with enemies to fight, and the combat has been designed for depth. The game focuses most strongly on combat and exploration, and neither can entirely be extricated from the other. See also The Beautiful/Terrible Loop: 'Portal' and the dark reality of endless possibilitiesīut it’s in the interactive sphere that gaming’s art lives and dies, and while Drifter’s gameplay can’t quite awe in the same way that its audiovisual landscape does, it doesn’t fall very short. It played on this nostalgia during its Kickstarter campaign, where it managed to earn over $600,000, and it’s thankfully turned out to be much more than the sum of the homage it wanted to pay. The dream of rookie developer Alex Preston and his studio Heart Machine, Hyper Light Drifter is an indie game love-letter to videogames, evoking strong feelings of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in addition to many other titles past and present. Yet if you take your time, and try to shine that light around the world to get a better sense of what it is and what’s really in it, the illumination serves a greater purpose. The combat is quick, with death only one wrong move away beautiful moments are seemingly suspended in time, only to vanish in a flurry of sparks and perhaps most damningly, if you push too hard toward the goal, the whole experience will be over far too soon. Like light itself, Hyper Light Drifter is something that seems to move faster than you can follow. Available on: PC (Steam, Humble, GOG.com) - consoles to follow
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