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Our Verdict

Stylish, beautiful, and uncompromising, Hyper Light Drifter is equally rewarding as information technology is frustrating.

Need TO KNOW

What is information technology? A cute, challenging action RPG.
Expect to pay £xv/$20
Developer Heart Machine
Publisher In-business firm
Reviewed on GeForce GTX 970, Intel i7-5820K, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer None
Link Official site

The drifter, a mute warrior draped in a red cloak and wielding a sword made of light, is an enigma. He roams a broken landscape searching for something, but information technology's non actually clear what. Occasionally he hunches over and coughs upward blood, which causes the screen to glitch and flicker. At that place'south a fallacious mystery virtually this shadowy figure, like the nameless gunslinger in a Western or a wandering samurai, and the same can be said of Hyper Light Drifter as a whole.

Information technology's a world of strange machines, ethereal forests, ancient temples, and lifeless, overgrown robots. An evocative intro sequence shows you glimpses of a cataclysmic consequence—a gleaming futuristic city disappearing in a flash of explosive light—and this seems to be the backwash. A ruined place littered with the remains of avant-garde, long forgotten technology. It's not a dead earth—in that location are people and creatures everywhere, some of which are friendly—but information technology feels similar you're exploring the wake of some incredible disaster.

It'due south an astonishingly beautiful post-apocalypse, though, brought to life with a brilliant color palette and intricate, pixel art. A haunting, ambient score by Rich 'Disasterpeace' Vreeland adds to the melancholy atmosphere, subtly changing to reverberate your surroundings. Artistically, it'south a triumph, simply the considered, delicate aesthetic is somewhat misleading. At that place are some moments of quiet exploration, simply mostly Hyper Light Drifter is a punishing, fast-paced action game.

It never actually tells you anything—nearly the drifter, the setting, or even what you're supposed to exist doing. This minimalist approach gives it an air of intriguing mystery, but it can also make information technology feel bumming. You lot spend the early on stages of the game lost and bewildered, trying to brand sense of information technology all. At that place are other characters, merely they speak in gibberish or obscure comic book panels. Arcane symbols decorate the crumbling temples, just you have no way of deciphering them.

But so objectives slowly begin to form in your listen, similar the diamond-shaped objects yous collect—usually by fighting through dungeons—that make full in parts of a glyph in the village at the heart of the map. The globe is interconnected and there's no attempt to lead you lot in the right management. You lot'll stumble into areas that seem impossibly hard, making a mental note to render later when your skills are sharper. This freeform, non-linear structure is occasionally confusing, but gives you a satisfying amount of agency.

Actually, though, Hyper Light Drifter is all about the combat. Its varied bestiary of enemies are relentlessly aggressive, but they all accept assail patterns that tin can exist learned and exploited. It's when you're facing several different types at once, usually in confined, trap-filled spaces, that things get difficult. Yous can nuance, fire a gun, and attack with your sword, but tin't endure much harm. Pinpoint timing and advisedly observing your opponents' movements are key to surviving a battle. Information technology'south almost similar a puzzle game, knowing precisely which enemies to attack first, where to move, and when to use your express health consumables.

Dungeons hibernate the most satisfying combat in the game, and their layouts change dynamically around y'all, forcing you lot to constantly change your tactics. For instance, kill one enemy and a wall that was providing cover from a sniper on the other side of the room will suddenly disappear. These sections present an enjoyable challenge, and in that location'due south a satisfaction in dancing around a room and killing everything without taking a striking. But you as well notice yourself repeating areas, which is when frustration sets in. If you're deep in a dungeon and run out of wellness items, bad luck. You accept 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.

This is a game where enduring persistent failure is the only way to go good, and a lot of people won't take the patience to get through some of its more than gruelling battles—particularly the fiendishly hard boss fights. Regular enemies are tough enough, just when y'all're fighting groups of them on top of a boss unleashing waves of increasingly savage attacks, information technology becomes a real examination of endurance. Ultimately, how you respond to these difficulty spikes will depend on your temperament. If you're the type of gamer who has the fortitude to try things over and over until you primary them, Hyper Light Drifter is for you. If not, y'all'll almost certainly give up after a few hours.

There's a lot to love about Hyper Low-cal Drifter. The elegant, expressive blitheness makes fighting and traversing the world a joy. The visual design and music are stunning. And the exhilaration of clearing a dungeon with simply a sliver of wellness left is a feeling worth chasing. But the unwavering difficulty—especially the bosses—makes it an experience for a very specific blazon of gamer. If you have the will to overcome its many trials you lot'll detect a rewarding, uncompromising action game. If not, you lot might feel similar you lot're banging your head against an incredibly pretty brick wall.

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Hyper Light Drifter

Stylish, beautiful, and uncompromising, Hyper Lite Drifter is as rewarding as it is frustrating.

If information technology's fix in space, Andy volition probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Conflicting: Isolation, and anything with a good story.

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Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/hyper-light-drifter-review/