Tuesday 24 July 2018

Hyperlight Drifter

Where "WTF is going on?" is never quite answered.

In a strange world full of talking animals, you play a wandering sword/gun slinger who is following visions of a dog to unlock diamonds. What? Yes. The plot is abstract, not helped by the fact that all talking is done via pictures rather than words. This is  cool, but also leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

There are some really cool scenes.

Game play wise though this is a solid product made in Gamemaker Studio. The controls are great, ideas great, music subtle in a good way, upgrades rewarding enough to strive for yet never make you overpowered and combat (which there is a lot of) is fluid. You will take a beating until you get used to the dash/evade system especially against your first boss. The many lethal traps are also annoying to practice against.

My main gripe is how secrets are handled, many of which are just due to the top-down camera angle provided. Sure, there is a tiny mark that indicates something is there, but were you actually standing at the characters location said places wouldn't be hidden at all. Also did I mention the lethal traps? :P

In an otherwise good game, those two components feel like cheap ways to make it "harder". Anyway, still a fun ride at least one time around (it encourages replays). I give this almost three dash sprints out of five.

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