The type of enemy you will face, and the density with which they appear, changes rapidly. Firearms have limited ammunition, which can be recharged by either cutting down items (like bushes, pots, or crystals) or by slashing enemies. Slashing with your sword is limited, requiring specific timing and cool-down periods. Button mashing will land you in a grave, with the game giving you multiple weapons and demanding that you master each of them. The four main areas of the game have both a distinctive aesthetic and unique adversaries – which leads us to the best part of Hyper Light Drifter: the combat.Ĭombat is equally frantic and methodical, with your character balancing calculated evasive dashes with desperate swordsmanship. Even dead ends hold the possibility of finding a much needed health pack or an additional piece of currency. The landscape dances the line between Escherian and Hyrulean, splattered with a seemingly unending swarm of hellish beasts and savage post-apocalyptic soldiers. You’re almost immediately greeted by multiple paths, which each individually lead to more paths, dead ends, and a fair amount of backtracking that manages to never feel irritating. This particular game, however, delivers masterfully, grabbing me from the first scene and holding firm until the finale.Įxploration is key in Hyper Light Drifter, from the overall goal – which you don’t know – to which way you are supposed to go – which you also don’t know. Rather, the tale unfolds using the dystopian atmosphere as the sole means of conveying the narrative – a daring approach, and one that would likely fail with lesser titles. Not a word is uttered, to you or to your character.
There are no conversations – any stragglers you attempt to interact with respond with incoherent shapes (a foreign language, perhaps) or short, one sided pictographic conversations.
The story is not explicitly spelled out, rather serves as the implied tale of a mysterious figure desperately trying to survive both his environment and his own body and mind. The land is ruined, and the few who remain seem as lost as you. Your enigmatic protagonist is alone, wandering aimlessly on a desperate mission to find something. When the game opens, you don’t know who you are or how you found yourself in this neon post-apocalyptic wonderland. The unforgiving difficulty, fantastical setting, and wordless story blend together seamlessly, marrying the novel with the familiar with the type of synergy that that many have attempted and few have achieved so effectively. While Hyper Light Drifter has stunning pixel art, the game itself, its very essence, draws inspiration from some of gaming’s greatest pioneers. “Retro-inspired” independent games are hardly rare, and yet the “inspired” part more often than not applies primarily, if not exclusively, to the art style. It is enthralling, spellbinding, captivating, and any other multi-syllable complimentary term you can think of. To call Hyper Light Drifter a good game is a disservice.
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