Hyper Light Drifter

Hyper Light Drifter presents a very attractive world, done in a style reminiscent of games like Fez or Sword & Sworcery. It then encourages you to explore the nooks and crannies of the game through both a visual storytelling style, and positively littering the world with collectibles. Actually exploring the world is an effort in frustration though. The game's first hour will do the best it can to convince you of its difficulty, but the curve is largely flat once you wrap your head around how the combat works. Once you've got your feet under you in a fight, you'll see most of your deaths coming from things you didn't see: new boss mechanics, unexpected world hazards, or trying to understand why you couldn't move. The developer has decided to break with several traditions common to games of this genre, and many of those simply make moving feel unresponsive: - Being hit does give the momentary invulnerability you'd expect to prevent insta-death, but then will usually stop your character long enough for the enemies to line up another hit. - The 'medkit' pickup not only requires you stand still, but the healing is done as regeneration instead of an instant pop to full health. Being hit during this process causes the healing to stop (you of course then take the damage from the hit as well). - The dodge can be 'chained' into a very quick method of escaping hits. However, the window of opportunity to do so is only a few frames: too late and you'll come to a complete stop as the character goes into a recovery animation, too early and the second dodge simply won't register. On top of that, touching anything in the environment during a successful chain stuns you in a 'hit your head' animation. In all, the game looks great, sounds ok, and most of the difficulty comes from unlearning the quality of life enhancements we're used to from a dodge-centered combat game.

+ Pixel art + Cool music - No plot, way too vague - Controls are not precise at all, 80% of the game difficulty is due to this (xbox controller on linux) - Threasure hunt for keys and stuff is too random Sadly I can not really reccomend this, it is almost annoying despite the cool art and performance. It would be so much enjoyable if the controls were more precise.

It's hard to imagine this was -mostly- the effort of a single dev. Tight controls that make for fluid combat and fun exploration. Evocative pixel art that won't blow you away the way Children of Morta does but expertly captures the game's tech-infused post-apocalypse. Music which vibrates with a somber mysticism that perfectly underlines the action. But the true gem is the design. It's been awhile since I've played a game where all its systems, simplistic as they may seem, work in tandem to create such a cohesive, satisfying experience. The area design is fantastic, with hidden routes and secrets aplenty that make exploration challenging and immensely rewarding. The semi-open world provides enough focus to keep you from wandering aimlessly, while letting you tackle the obstacles at your own pace. Bosses hit HARD but have a very reasonable HP count, making all fights tough but never overwhelming or dragged-out, even after numerous tries. Nothing feels random or excessive, except perhaps a couple of deadly trap-dodging sequences to reach optional power-ups. The story and lore are quite cryptic and I required the help of internet sleuths to figure out the finer points but it manages to capture your imagination even without knowing what exactly is going on. Hyper Light Drifter is a delicious old-school experience that looks and plays better than most AAAs out there. Don't miss it.

GOG does not have enough characters. A very atmospheric and suprisingly dark little game. A decent indie title that suffers from lack of polish, mechanical skill and a few misguided ideas. It's got great presentation. Combo of Evangelion and Samurai Jack. But it does and says very little with them. It's just cool imagery. Nice when it occurs, but shallow. Functionally, the game has significant play issues. Mainly the controls. It drops inputs or queues them wrong FAR too consistently even on a brand new controller. When the gameplay heats up, which isn't often, coupled with some really bad hitboxes (eg. samurai boss), it becomes a really frustrating experience. I honestly think the alpha was smoother. Issues with getting stuck on corners and when you use objects as cover, enemy attacks can sometimes still hit you when they pretty flagrantly shouldn't. It happens enough to note. The flagship feature is the chain dash which is underutitlized and has really inconsistent timing. I've 100% the game twice so I know what I'm talking about (now and in 2016, even the unreasonable 800 dash challenge). The aiming of the dash is not as calibrated as it needs to be. Basically the game demands precision in it's big challenges but it doesn't mechanically give you those tools. But the game is easy so you probably won't notice until the challenges. The map is terrible. An aesthetic over function choice. Finding secrets is fun but can be frustrating thanks to that. The game can be extravagent with it's animations that take too long and make replaying annoying. But a first time play is generally fine. It would have been nice if the sword cosmetics were consistent. The menu and gameplay colors (hilt) don't match. Seems a basic thing to get right/fix. Didn't even know the outfits had effects. Too subtle to notice. Shame the final cloak can't be taken into NG+ and there's no areas to use it after getting it. I hope the devs got better with combat mechanics.

Other reviews already mentioned the game doesn't feel very good with keyboard and mouse. I agree, so I got a controller. However the game doesn't recognize the buttons correctly and doesn't allow me to rebind them. There are updates that allow rebinding in the Steam version, but not here on GoG. If you don't want to risk having an inferior experience, do not buy the game here.