* Hyper Light Drifter Review *
Hyper Light Drifter is a 2d action game that has you taking control of a drifter travelling
through the ruins of a lost world in search of a cure for this illness that your character
has.
The first thing that I have got to mention about this game is the beautiful world that
you will be travelling in.
There are so many little nooks and crannies and different areas and textures and types
and plants and weird ancient technology and all sorts of really interesting stuff that
just immerses you in this world because it is so interesting.
To go along with the beautiful aesthetic is an awesome soundtrack that just suits this
interesting world perfectly.
I have got to commend these guys on what they have done to make an incredibly looking and
sounding game.
It is beautiful.
As you progress through this interesting world you will find all sorts of interesting and
creative looking enemies.
These are birds, and weird wizard types, just all sorts of crazy stuff that will come flying
at you, and they will shoot weapons at you, stars and guns, all sorts of stuff will be
coming your way.
Your character can react and move really quickly so it is important for the controls to make
you feel like you are in control, and in Hyper Light Drifter this is done really well.
It could have so easily devolved into just chaos on the screen all at once, but the tight
controls really help the gameplay.
The controls and gameplay are done really well in Hyper Light Drifter, but the one thing
that was way out of whack is the difficulty.
While exploring each of this game's unique areas you will run into mobs of enemies, little
sequences where the game locks you into a small tight area and you have to battle a
bunch of different enemies.
Some of these times are quite easy with only a couple enemies who have some basic attacks,
you can dodge around and eliminate them pretty easily.
But there are a lot of times where you will find yourself getting stuck doing the same
things over and over again because it is so difficult.
Now I know what some of you may be thinking, oh Garrett, just shut up, you just suck at
the game.
Maybe that is true, maybe I am a bad player but I felt like every single mob that I started
to get to towards the end of sections, I started to get stuck on.
Some of their attacks are area of effect attacks or they can attack really quickly.
There is just a couple of small tweaks in Hyper Light Drifter that if they were made
the game would be way less difficult but still maintain that challenging feel.
For example, in some areas when you are deep into one of the areas, in one sections you
get down to one health, you barely scrape by in a hard fought battle, you make it out
with one health left.
Then when you go to the next area you might die instantly because you only have one health
left but when you respawn you will start at the beginning of that certain section again
but with one health left again.
If you get caught in one of these loops you can get caught in this scenario where ok do
I try to beat this next section with only one health left and maybe get a health pack
in the next section?
Or do I go all the way back to the beginning and start with a fresh bar of health, but
then have to go all the way through the section again?
It is just a tough situation to be in.
It made it frustrating.
The health system is kind of silly as well.
You have five hits that you can take but some enemies do two of them.
So if you are down to two health you may think oh I am ok, but then you will get an attack
that maybe you did not know was two and it will take you out right away.
So you really have to manage, because you do have health packs that you can carry around
and refill your health, but it pauses you character for like two seconds.
So if you are in the middle of an intense battle and you are down to one health and
you need to replenish you have to stand there for two seconds while you jab yourself with
this thing to gain your health back giving enemies ample time to creep up on you and
eliminate you right away.
The final boss in the norther area of this game is impossible to beat.
I went to the east and I struggled through and grinded through that section to start
off.
I do not know which way you are supposed to go.
The game does not hold your hand at all, there is not direction so I just ran off and said
I will just figure it out i guess.
I managed to scrape out a tough victory in that section.
When I got to the northern section and the final boss was impossible!
The guy has an area of effect attack that follows you around the map as you try to dodge
and weave and then he calls in these enemies that you were fighting in previous areas and
they are all on the map at once.
He is just overpowered I could not beat him!
It became extremely hard for me to enjoy the rest of the game when I had to struggle for
X amount of minutes on each of these mobs of enemies and the final boss.
I feel like I couldn't enjoy, I feel like I had to work just to get to the next little
section of the game.
There is not much focus on the story in Hyper Light Drifter.
They have leaned pretty heavily on the music and the art style to tell the story of Hyper
Light Drifter.
It is beautifully done, don't get me wrong, it is just hard to really follow what is exactly
happening to this character when you can't see any words or what is exactly happening.
Overall Hyper Light Drifter is a really solid game.
The game looks beautiful, it sounds awesome, the gameplay and mechanics are really well
done, the controls are smooth, the level design is really well done, the enemy variation is
really high, they have all sorts of different enemies with different attacks, and different
things, and in the levels they have different sequences with dodging sequences jumping over
platforms and different variety in the levels as well.
What is frustrating is that the difficulty holds Hyper Light Drifter back so much for
me.
This game could have been so much more if i could just really enjoy and go through the
experience at my own pace and not being forced to play at a really high challenging level
that I know that some players will appreciate but personally I was looking forward to really
experiencing this interesting world and exploring at my own pace rather than being forced to
be really good right away.
There is a distinction between a fun kind of challenging and a frustrating kind of challenging
and Hyper Light Drifter to me is way more on the frustrating type of challenging.
All it would take is a few adjustments with the health system and some of the enemy types
and the amount of the guys that are around to turn this into a really really solid game.
I wouldn't be surprised if the developers maybe put out a patch for this game that just
added a difficulty slider and that could really change this game for the better.
As it is right now the difficulty just holds it back so much.
For that reason my final verdict for Hyper Light Drifter is a six out of ten.
An above average game.
I have got to definitely recommend this game to fans of the really frustrating and challenging
type games you will have a ton of fun in this game.
If you are looking for a challenge Hyper Light drifter is the game for you.
But if you were seeing the art style and how the game looked and the controls and expecting
kind of an adventure type game that you can really absorb the world at your own pace,
maybe this game is not for you because for a lot of the time will be spent in intense
battles just trying to scrape by.
Well that is it for Hyper Light Drifter I want to thank you guys for watching.
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