I’ve never been a big fan of J-RPG’s.
The somewhat repetitive combat, simple plotlines, and “unreliable” english translations
didn’t sit too well with me in the past.
However, all of that changed when I stumbled across the trailer for Hylics 2.
In all seriousness, I have never put less thought into buying a game; I saw the trailer,
forked over the $15, and then played for eight hours straight until I beat it.
Evidently, I liked it so much I had to make a video on it, but after finishing my playthrough
I really had to sit down to figure out what elements of the game I wanted to focus on
because I flat out don’t have enough time to talk in detail about everything that impressed
me.
So, I decided that today I’m going to do a deep dive into Hylics 2’ combat, how it
exceeded my expectations, and why it has reinvigorated my interest in J-RPG’s.
Section 1: Mason Lindroth Mason Lindroth is the creator of Hylics 2.
His art style is surreal, abstract, and best explained just by looking at it.
He’s been lingering around on the internet for quite some time, creating short experiences
for game jams and most notably the original Hylics game--which in of itself was a fairly
large scale project that he made in a year using RPG Maker.
It’s incredibly interesting to me to look through his old library of games and especially
the original Hylics game to see how much his art style and his development skills have
evolved over the years.
It goes without saying that Lindroth’s games absolutely ooze style and they’ve only become
more and more elaborate as time has gone on--not to mention that claymation games are an exceedingly
rare commodity, and I’d argue Lindroth is one of the only people pushing that medium
forward in the recent times.
There have surely been other efforts, but they have often been met with mixed reception
and none match Lindroth in terms of visual fidelity and style.
Perhaps it's the incredible amount of personality that’s visible in the main four characters
that sets Hylics apart.
Even though they’re foundationally very simple, I feel that their character designs
do so much with so little; Fun fact, Wayne and Dedusmuln actually solely exist because
they were incredibly easy to form from clay.
Lindroth explains that in the following Instagram Livestream clip.
If you thought that clip was interesting, I highly recommend you check out the archive
of that stream.
It’s about two hours long but it’s packed full of interesting information and I’ll
be referencing it throughout this video.
The point is, Hylics 2 isn’t Lindroth’s first time trying to make an artsy game--but
to my eyes, it is clearly the most elaborate and polished thing he has released.
Section 2: Atmosphere When you enter combat in an RPG game, you
probably expect to hear something like this--or maybe something like this, or even this.
Now, none of these songs are bad by any means--I actually love most of these tracks--but listen
to Hylics’ combat theme.
Notice how unorthodox this song is in comparison to the other tracks I played.
In RPG games, more common than not, high energy music tracks are front and center whenever
you engage in combat.
But in Hylics 2, a soft guitar riff is the first thing you hear and even when the drums
come in on the track, it still maintains a chill vibe.
Needless to say, I was thoroughly impressed when I first entered combat and this theme
played.
Instead of feeling a rush of energy, I didn’t feel pressured.
There was no time limit for me to figure out which abilities I wanted to use, the serene,
moving background put me at ease, and it was an entirely different experience compared
to other RPG games I’ve played.
These forgiving mechanics and the outstanding soundtrack were also complemented by some
wonderful first person animations reminiscent to old pseudo 3D games such as the original
DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D.
As far as I know of, this is the first time anyone has ever mixed first person elements
with a 2D JRPG game in this way, and it looks absolutely fantastic.
This was also a thing in the original Hylics game, but I think it goes without saying that
it looks a hell of a lot more polished in Hylics 2 than in Hylics.
All of these elements--the music, the backgrounds, first person animations, and zany unpredictable
enemy characters--created an atmosphere that was so inviting that I actually thoroughly
enjoyed grinding through as much combat as was necessary.
I think I may have become too obsessed with the fighting though, because by the tail end
of the game many of the boss fights ended much more quickly than expected because my
characters had so much flesh--Hylics’ name for HP.
Reflecting on this, I should have changed my difficulty at some point in the game--which
you’re free to do at any time--but oh well, I know now for my next playthrough.
Section 3: Cast & Combat So I’ve devoted a lot of time to talking
about the atmosphere that Hylics 2’s combat creates, but let me talk about the actual
mechanics themselves.
Hylics 2 uses many tried and true J-RPG mechanics, but employs a lot of lingo to represent terms
you may already be familiar with--so let me translate.
Flesh is your party member’s health.
Will is essentially your party member’s mana or MP.
Power is how strong someone is.
Things are any consumable items you can collect or buy.
Garbs are equippable items that have different modifiers and buffs.
Snap is your default and only non mana based attack.
And last but not least, gestures are your mana based attacks.
Each party member has a gesture they come with by default that is unique to that member,
but you can discover many different gestures throughout the game via exploration and completing
optional side content.
If I haven’t already made it clear by talking about this term the most, the gestures in
Hylics are the things that really stood out to me and made me love the game’s combat.
This all being said, I can’t really talk about the gestures without first talking about
the game’s cast of characters.
Wayne is the main character in both Hylics games, and there’s something off-putting
about him in the best way--perhaps its the yellow skin or the disturbing facial expressions
on such an abnormally shaped head--I’m not sure what it is.
Regardless, I love his whole character design and Lindroth seems to as well since he created
an entire area in Hylics 2 called Waynehouse which is literally jam packed full of Waynes
because apparently Wayne is an entire race, not just a single character.
There’s all sorts of references to this idea throughout the game--and most disturbingly
you find out that Waynes actually grow up from larvae.
The last thing I should mention about Wayne’s character is quite obvious--his name is a
reference to a waning moon, which is also complemented by the moon shaped head.
All of this being said, while Wayne has some of the most interesting character design in
the game, he’s actually the most vanilla in terms of his gesture, which is called Dissolution;
all it does it reduce an enemy’s power and slowly damage them over a few turns, which
is nice at the beginning of the game but it progressively becomes less useful.
I can’t say that about the next character’s gesture though.
Dedusmuln doesn’t have nearly as much of their lore explained as Wayne does, but their
gesture is hands down the most useful one in the entire game outside of.. that one.
Anyways, their gesture is called Foam Armor, and it essentially just overheals a party
member.
This ability is incredibly useful because it means you don’t need to waste your consumables
whenever one of your party members gets low, and though having a “medic” character
surely isn’t a new thing in J RPG games there is something oddly satisfying about
this tried and true trope being adapted to mason style.
It doesn’t add anything new to the table in terms of how it literally functions, but
the whole concept of spraying one of your party members with foam to heal them is so
absurd in the best way possible.
Before we move on to Somsnosa, I should also mention that after doing some digging I found
out that Dedusmuln is actually an androgyneous character for some reason, whereas all of
the other characters have genders.
I don’t know what this means in the larger context of the game, feel free to let me know
what you think down below.
Somsnosa is my personal favorite character, and also has one of the most valuable gestures
in the game.
It’s called wave artifice, and it’s one of the only AOE attacks in the game.
Again, an attack that targets multiple enemies is something really simple and expected from
a J-RPG game, but there’s something that was particularly satisfying about seeing the
way lindroth adapted it.
Somsnosa is the last member to join your party in the game, so you go through a fair amount
of combat without having any option to target multiple enemies at the same time--thus making
wave artifice all the more rewarding to unlock.
All this being said, the combat dynamic vastly changes when you unlock somsnosa; at the beginning
of the game, it feels very vanilla and you end up mostly just snapping at your enemies
and as you progress I’d argue it becomes more slow and strategic as more interesting
gestures such as wave artifice are introduced--either way, I’ll talk about this more in detail
when I go over some of the other gestures.
Pongorma is perhaps the least interesting character among the bunch, but his lightning
gesture is surprisingly useful--especially as you progress further in the game.
Again, I’ll explain that more in detail later, but this guy is a tank.
He’s particularly good against bosses since the lightning can absolutely shred through
an enemy’s flesh when paired with some other abilities.
I guess that’s really the thing that I admire about Hylics’ combat.
It doesn’t try too hard to bring something new to the table in terms of mechanics, instead
it openly strips J-RPG combat down to its core and relies more on its interesting gestures
and its incredibly distinct style.
You have a vanilla fighter character, a medic, an AOE character, and Wayne.
Sorry Wayne I just don’t think dissolution is that useful but you’re still one of the
best characters otherwise.
Section 4: Gesture Supercut Though many of the gestures I’ve discussed
so far have been fairly simple, there’s many others you can discover that add a surprising
amount of depth to the otherwise simple combat of Hylics 2.
One that comes to mind is Charge Up, which allows you to essentially buff a character’s
primary gesture.
This means Dedusmuln will heal more, Pongorma and Somsnosa will do more damage, and Wayne
will dissolute harder..
This might sound simple on paper but you have to be fairly strategic with using it.
It consumes an entire character’s turn which could otherwise be used for healing up or
dealing damage, so you have to use it wisely.
Its also worth saying that it gets progressively better with time because it is one of the
only gestures in the game where you can upgrade it using your collectibles.
This means you’re further encouraged to use it later in the game which is very fitting
given it adds another layer of depth to the combat.
The next gesture I’d like to draw attention to is Poromer Bleb which is sort of like a
poor man’s Foam Armor.
It heals a third of someone’s health and gives them a defending status, which isn’t
the best but it allows other characters to heal themselves and others without wasting
any of Dedusmuln’s will.
This also added a ton of depth given that you can use characters like Wayne who aren’t
the most useful to heal other characters--overall I just thought this one was pretty cool.
The last gesture I’d like to draw attention to is Fate Sandbox which prevents one of your
characters from being inflicted with damaging effects.
I didn’t find myself using this one as much since it required so much will and I was playing
on a lower difficulty, but I could see it being very very helpful against certain types
of enemies you encounter in the game.
Outside of these three gestures I’ve mentioned, there’s loads of others to be discovered
but these were the three I thought were the most interesting.
Section 5: The Afterlife When you die in the average J-RPG, you have
to go all the way back to a previous save point and suck it up.
In my personal experience, this whole “die and try again” mechanic can be really unforgiving
and genuinely take me out of a game--and previously was an issue that I thought was irreparable
about the J-RPG genre as a whole.
But when you die in hylics, instead of seeing a blank game over screen with a few options,
your face melts off.
Okay, even though that’s not my main point it’s still pretty fucking cool.
The point is, you’re transported to an area called the afterlife where you’re free to
convert collectibles into flesh for your party members and then when you’re ready you can
teleport to wherever you’d like.
This makes dying feel like less of a chore because you can at least level up your characters
a bit and you’re free to teleport right back to where you were.
You can also go to the afterlife at any time and you’re encouraged to do so since it
will add the area that you teleported from to the list of locations where you can travel
back to if you die.
Overall, this mechanic was just super inventive and I thought it deserved a shoutout of its
own because it does indirectly have to do with the combat.
Section 6: Soundtrack This video’s focus is on Hylics’ combat,
but I am a music guy and this game’s soundtrack really stood out to me, so I needed to tack
this section on at the end.
I obviously already talked about the fighting theme, so let me share a few of my other favorite
songs from the game.
“New Muldul” The theme for new muldul is one of the songs
written and performed by lindroth himself.
Even though I wouldn’t say Mason is the most technically skilled musician, I think
the song does an incredible job of what it’s meant to do.
There’s something very animalistic about the crooning lead sound on this song and it
has so much personality, just like the town in the game.
“Afterlife” This is the track that welcomes you back into
the game after your face melts off, and I think it fits perfectly.
It’s strangely calming and dissonant at the same time, it has all sorts of weird artifacts,
and I still listen to it in my own time.
“Prevailing Westerlies” I can’t not mention this track--it’s the
trailer music, it’s the music that plays while you ride around the airship, and it’s
all around an amazing song.
It's groovy as hell while still being chill, and it perfectly encapsulates the Hylics vibe.
I should also mention this is one of the tracks written by Chuck Salamone who helped Mason
with the OST, and I think he did an amazing job.
Something I found interesting was that Chuck actually recorded all of his contributions
to the soundtrack on his phone--check out this clip.
If you enjoyed this section of the video I’ll be wrapping it up here since the game’s
music isn’t today’s primary focus, but I’ll be posting a video on my secondary
channel Aaron Talks Music where I rapid fire through the songs in the OST and rank them
from best to worst, so be sure to check that out when it releases.
Link to the channel in the description.
Section 7: Culmination Hylics 2 takes the best elements from your
average J-RPG and presents them in an incredibly fun and forgiving way thanks to the highly
varied gestures and wonderfully inventive afterlife mechanic.
Its combat is simple--yet also has a surprising amount of depth as you delve deeper into the
game--and overall really defied my expectations.
I went in expecting an art game and nothing more and needless to say I was pleasantly
surprised.
I could easily make three more videos about this game because it is extremely dense, so
let me know if there’s something else you’d like to see.
That actually about does it for this video though; this has been a deep dive into Hylics
2.
Thank you so much for watching.