Some notes about the footage:
– I played this right after the game came out, and I’d only seen the trailers and a bit of gameplay the developer showed off at some point. So beyond a basic understanding of the dodge mechanics and a couple enemies i had no idea what was in the game

– I think I only found a couple keys, so this is very far from 100% completion. I’d say overall this is probably pretty representational of an average playthrough though

– There are a few instances where I quit and restart the game (the video goes black for about a minute), this is to counteract the performance deteriorating over time

-Apologies for the choppiness in the last ~30 minutes of footage, I think my hard drive was running out of clean space or something

Overall I’d say I enjoyed Hyper Light Drifter. It has a satisfying rhythm to the combat and a very pretty color palette. Since I’m making a game myself with a similar camera angle it was cool seeing a more abstract take on the visuals of that perspective. I appreciate what the developers were trying to do in its attempt to tell a story without any spoken word or readable text. That said, I think the main story of the game leaves a lot of questions unanswered, like what the main goal of the protagonist actually is. But it’s definitely possible I missed something, and that doesn’t really get in the way of my enjoyment.

I think my main gripe is there feels like a lack of growth over the course of the game. Levels at 10% through are pretty much the same as levels 75% through. the 3 main areas of the game don’t really interact at all, so although you can travel between them whenever you want there isn’t any reason to.

Personally, I think this would have been solved to an extent by reaching back to that zelda/metroid inspiration and busting out some puzzle mechanics like boomerangs and bombs and etc. Not saying it needs those specifically, just different means of interacting with the environment, and an environment that supports those interactions. Add in those, and scatter the progression with them around the map so you’re more inclined to hop back and forth between different areas as you learn new mechanics and gain access to new abilities. You know, This is kinda starting to sound like a metroidvania, and that makes sense since the structure of this game is almost like if you took super metroid and stripped out all the puzzles, navigation, and progression mechanics and were left with combat rooms that you head through on your way to finding the bosses.

I guess I got a bit harsh there. I really don’t mean to be, I think for what the devs set out to do, they were mostly successful. But I do think that there’s a lot of missed opportunity in this game, and a lot of the devs inspirations have the things that they do for very good reasons. Anyways thanks for reading and watching

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