Hyper Light Drifter
Magnificent game. The first game I ever Kickstarted and I can easily say that it fully lived up to expectations and then some. And THEN some.
I really love the visuals. Easily one of the best looking pixel art games ever made. You can tell there was a ton of care put into the sprites and environments and animations. The sort of neon/pastel color scheme was also really well chosen.
The game also has great sounds and a soundtrack that suits the game amazingly well. Very atmospheric and unobtrusive, while still managing to be noteworthy and fitting.
Generally, Hyper Light Drifter is an open-world design. You are more or less free to go where you want and do what you want at your own leisure. You are never going to be locked into any certain direction and you can always go do something else if you find yourself stuck or in a tough situation and just need a break. Helpful warp pads(one for center area and one for each of the four main quest areas) make sure that tiresome backtracking is completely minimized. Each area has its own flavor and will have certain enemies unique to it, with lots of different ways to go and tons of secrets to find. It's very Zelda-esque in this way and is what people generally mean when they make that comparison. It's a very fun world to explore.
As good as all this is far, it's the combat that really makes the game shine. It's very much in the vein of Dark Souls in terms of how you need to play things smart, as even very basic enemies will mess you up if you go in wildly flailing around. And like Souls games, enemies all have 'tells' for their attacks so things are always fair and attacks avoidable so long as you are focusing. The game can sometimes throw a fair amount of enemies at you, so this can be difficult at times, but I never felt any encounter was unmanageable or unfair. I also thought the interplay between your sword, dash and guns were perfectly well balanced and implemented, making you take advantage of all of them if you want to do well.
Another Souls-like aspect are the bosses. Oh man, the bosses. There aren't a ton of them, but those that are there are really, really good. They are all fairly brutal and will probably take a fair amount of attempts to learn the best way to avoid attacks and when to strike. Most are multi-stage bosses in terms of how they get significantly faster and more deadly as the fight goes on, ramping up the tension considerably and making the satisfaction of victory a fist-pumping moment nearly every time.
The last Souls-like comparison comes from the story/storytelling. There's no dialogue or text. It's all very vague and cryptic and forces the user to kind of piece things together themselves through the little cutscenes and images that certain NPC's display to you. I never really put a ton of thought into it, just like I dont with Souls games, but it might be more interesting for those who like that kind of thing.
Progression is generally well handled. It's not super intensive, but you collect nodes that you can buy a limited amount of upgrades with. It keeps a decent enough carrot for people to be happy about exploring and getting new upgrades.
I do have a few criticisms, though. Secrets rely a bit too much on wall hugging. And there are a LOT of secrets and you'll have to find most all of them if you want all the bonus equipment. It rewards completionist-types well, but maybe not those that are happy with just a reasonable amount of secrets found, like myself. Also, I found the game a bit more satisfying before I got a bunch of upgrades. Not that things became easy afterwards, but generally, the first and second areas you go to will probably be the hardest because you'll have the least amount of upgrades at the time.
Maybe there's some other little nitpicks, but overall, I'll happily claim this as another indie classic and basically a must-play. Took me 9 hours to beat and I could see it taking a good bit more to find all the secrets. A very healthy amount of content all in all.
9.25/10
