Its out! What do you all think of it so far?

@nophilip: Hm you are starting to make me consider getting the warp point up north then heading east haha. If he's that bad I'm going to want all the upgrade nodes I can get first.

I don't think it is, though. I've been playing it for several hours and the combat does get really difficult at first, but the game gives you an interesting upgrade path for your different abilities and weapons that make things a lot more manageable down the road. The combat is demanding in terms of timing and accuracy but it also gives you the tools to do it, most of the time (it's not as tight as Dragon's Dogma, for sure). What I do think is a bit frustrating is how it can sometimes be really easy to dash off the side of a platform while in combat. On the flip side, the same rules apply to your enemies; I've seen plenty of enemies take a tumble off the platform while fighting me. There are some weird choices regarding how saves and respawns work but nothing that should dissuade you in any strong sense to pass up on this game.

What this game does really well, I think, is creating an interesting world that offers some great moments of discovery without rubbing it in your face. It paints a world that has a history and allows you to interpret what that history is but doesn't demand that you do, if that makes sense.

It has its flaws, some of which are downright glaring and silly, but a part of some of the criticism I've been reading says more about the preferences of the player than it does about the game.

@rvone: ok you've convinced me - this $20 is on your head!

Just don't forget, you and I are Dragon's Dogma buddies!!! Please forgive me!

By the way, it has a little bit of classic Zelda going on in the sense that some paths through the environment are only really accessible after you've done some upgrading.

EDIT:

Heads up: According to the patch notes on the first, post-release patch, you can now speed up the respawn animation by holding A on the controller.

God, that intro is fucking gorgeous. The music, the style, the pacing. It's like watching an old surreal cartoon you'd find randomly on TV in the middle of the night, or at the back of some dank video rental store.

I want to play it but I'm going to wait for the PS4 version.

I've played a bit more of it now. Beat the frog boss on my first try and am now going to the west. A lot of the issues I've mentioned earlier seem to be solved with upgrades, though I'm not sure if they is a good thing to be honest. I'm going to keep playing it since it does do a lot of things right and I really like a lot of stuff about it, but it's still pretty disappointing.
Also, while I like the music, is anyone else kind of getting burned out on this style of electro-ambient music? It seems to be quite popular in indie games recently. I'm just missing the really distinctive melodies of older games.

Probably my favorite game so far this year. Was really surprised to come here and read a lot of mixed feelings about the difficulty. I felt the combat to be extremely fair in each area so far. Small waves of each new enemy type are introduced as you take in the scenery of whatever direction you've chosen. The tougher rooms are gated by the triangles, and by the time you see a door with 3+ you know to expect a heavier challenge. I have had few instances where I felt it was the game's fault I died, and the only harsh checkpoints I have found are in "challenge" rooms of the dungeons. I think it has a Souls feel in its approach to trusting you will be careful instead of trying to be stylish. It doesn't tell you how to be better or how to solve its puzzles.

*minor spoilers*

I'm 6 hours in and two bosses down. Starting West with no upgrades I eventually had to give up, grab a sword upgrade and head north in search of more currency. Breezed through the area and the North boss took me 6-8 tries and motivated me to try another direction. South was gated, but East was a really nice change of pace for the scenery and the minions were challenging for me. Surprisingly, I took down the boss in one go and now am swimming in shards for upgrades and new weapons to boot! My only complaint so far has been that the curve for acquiring power in the game was a little steep to start. I don't want to know what bosses without the chain dash feel like, and the power slash has been critical for cutting down high health minions and bosses without taking damage. Grenade is cheap and the utility for swarms is paramount.

I have felt rewarded for choosing my upgrades wisely and exploring whenever possible, especially so after beating a boss in one try. Bringing in 8 full shards to upgrade for the West boss is making me want to go back and play it right now. The atmosphere is great, music hits at the right moments (headphones have been great for this game). I am hoping the story turns up more, but what little the game does communicate has been very intriguing. Although I don't know for sure, I already have theories for the "drifter". I can't wait to finish it, and play it again.

Really enjoying it. Exploration within the environment is very old-skool Zelda. Sound design alone is the kind of experience where I will be pushing through this game further than I did with Fez.

Animation priority in such hectic combat is a big nono in my honest opinion, so much to love about this game but the combat is incredibly frustrating and doesn't feel nearly as fluid as it should. Going to stick with it to see if the combat sticks because I love art style and the concept/air of mystery but so far its got a thumbs in the middle from me, wavering to a thumbs down.

I backed the Kickstarter but didn't really keep up with the development and didn't play the preview; so I knew it was going to look and sound great but didn't realise what they were going for gameplay wise. I'm now about 5 1/2 hours in, having gotten 4 shards in the North and then 8 in the West, so here are some impressions.

The game does look great, a neon-geometric-impressionist world that seems to have undergone a cataclysm but somehow remained colourful and inviting. The look is a lot of what drew me to the KS campaign in the first place, and I'm glad to see it survived the development. It's not all neon-roses though; sometimes it's difficult to tell whether you're on a path to a secret or you're about become trapped in the world and have to warp out - there are plenty of secrets to be found, but I've been stuck in a wall on half-a-dozen occasions too. The developer has been patching regularly since launch, so this might not be a problem soon. Some traps/hazards can be very difficult to see, resulting in frustrating deaths. It can also be difficult to tell whether your path is blocked by the equipment you have, or just by your skill level.

There's clearly a rich back-story, but only vague hints as to the front-story (sorry, that's probably not a term); your motivation, goals etc are so far left to the imagination. The soundtrack is by Disasterpeace, and it's exactly what you expect if you've heard Fez- atmospheric, sometimes brilliant, but sometimes you'll swear he's re-using bits of other tunes.

The combat can be satisfying, with deliberate stabs and dodges letting you feel like a badass. Enemies hit hard, can move as fast as you, and you have limited health so it's not a cakewalk. I sometimes find that when I'm getting mobbed, my person stops responding at the worst times. I don't know if I'm being interrupted, if there's a second stamina meter that I've missed somewhere, or if my controller is dodgy; but again it's very frustrating. At least once you've cleared out an area the enemies don't respawn until you leave that side of the map, leaving you free to explore for health packs, upgrade points, other survivors and secrets.

I have not been able to beat any of the bosses yet; I don't know what's preventing me from getting to the Northern boss, but the Western boss kicked my ass many times before I decided to give up and head to another area. At least that was an option, although I'd have preferred another warp point at the boss (as in the North).

In summary, I think Hyper Light Drifter is good, but definitely not for everyone. I'm going to continue chipping away at it.

I just finished the game and really enjoyed it. I thought the challenge was balanced well (for the most part) and never really struggled with any of the bosses. It just seemed to work once I got the hang of animations and the dashing distance.

Question, I've unlocked south, and found some gear (won't say more to avoid spoilers). The game then told me to warp back to town to change gear, but back in town I can't figure out what it is talking about. What am I missing? I know how to switch guns in the inventory and you can do that anywhere, so I know it isn't that.

@westernwizard: at the save point in town, there's a door immediately north. It's your house and you can switch gear at the back left of the room. It's just cosmetic as far as I could tell.

Gotta say, I really disagree with the people complaining about the combat. The combat feels extremely tight and fast pace. I never felt like the animation is at all an issue. It seems OP is might be used to games where you have an invincibility button that you can hit when you are in trouble so you can dash away with the benefits of invincibility frames. This is not that game and it would make many of the enemies and upgrades trivial. You are given enough tools to take care of an entire room of enemies swiftly, your basic attack swings very wide and in quick succession. Your can chain normal dash practically entire length of the screen and your first gun shots have a large hit box. Timing attacks, watching enemy patterns and making smart movements shouldn't be considered difficult or signs of bad design.

@nickhead: Ah ha. And the gear does have impact, though I dunno what that particular piece did. There's one you get for like 800 dashes in a row in the room that augments your dash from what I'm reading, for example.

The game is terrific. I've found it a wee bit rough around the edges but a lot of the design criticisms here sound very nitpicky to me.

The one major gripe I'd say is that the chain dash is way too important to the core experience of the game for the devs to run the risk of you not discovering it, and the people complaining about the combat probably were giving their first impressions before they've gotten to upgrade. I watched a bunch of videos when the preview build came out and was looking forward to all the cool moves... then when I started playing, I was disappointed. Only on my second trip back to town (after about 2 hours exploring, fighting my way through to the Eastern boss and then dying a bunch of times) did I decide to gamble on this odd-looking triangle dash thingy and find out it was a game-changer.

I'm happy to finally get my hands on this game, I'm having a lot of fun.

BTW another question even though I beat the game. Was there a new item near the south boss? I found the ones for west east and north, but never found anything around the south boss. I'm still missing 2 or 3 guns so I know I don't have all the core weapons, though I suspect at least one gun is behind a key door (I only have one key atm).

I was really frustrated by the combat early on. I took the Eastern path first, and was worked over pretty hard by the enemies I found there. Almost just stopped playing. Came back later and tried a different path. Focused more on looking for the upgrade items and bought the strike dash first as well as the grenade. Helped me a lot in the combat. Also I just got used to the pace of the encounters and found it to be manageable.

I've been focusing on exploration instead of getting to the bosses. I have two bosses available to fight but I'm exploring the third area and trying to get a couple more upgrades.

There is a ton of secret little side paths that lead to the upgrade gems or whatever they are. Anyway I am really enjoying the game now after modifying my original plan for tackling the game.

This Game is awesome. Love the combat. Design and Music are top notch. Also like how the game has some challenging parts, feels great when you finally beat a boss you've been trying to figuring out.

Just finished and man that 4th area bosses and the final are pretty cool. A great way to utilize all the upgrades and attack patterns you learn from the other areas.

So pro tip for all beginners. Get the charge sword attack, sword reflect move, and multi dash. Those are the top upgrades that help with any fight including the bosses.

I dont know, but the fact that it isn't cross buy between Ps4/vita sucks.

@rvone: I got it and I think it's really awesome. I'm stuck trying to get the "key piece" on the western path to open the gate to what I assume is a boss. I know that piece is inside an underground dungeons with a bunch of turrets cause I can see it on the map but no idea where it is. Probably behind that single forcefield I don't know how to unlock.

Anyway I don't know what issues people have with the combat apart from it simply not being their kind of thing. I never found any technical issues, it's just really methodical. Fuck doing 1000 dashes in the circle room though. Maybe if I had a controller with turbo sure. Made it to 300 before my finger started to hurt. Either way, really awesome game, I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

@metalsnakezero: Does the sword deflect give back ammo? If not I'd take the dash shield over it since absorbed shots do regenerate ammo.

I don't think it does, but the reflect serves a different purpose. I used it to take out single gunners instead of having to dash over to them. Also, spoilers for the last boss: It makes Bullet Hell style projectile patterns and if you're close, all the shots you hit are sent back, doing way more damage than just a sword swing. It's also how I beat the west boss, just bounce his shots back at him.

So question: I just started and I saw everyone say "yo dood you need to get the dash chaining ability STAT" so I scrounged up all those golden bits and got it. I even did that 800 lap challenge thing for it (tip: it's super easy if you use the keyboard controls) but outside of that I don't see where it becomes useful? If it's a boss spoiler then OK cool I don't want to know, but if there is some world traversal or combat application for it that I'm not seeing then I'm all eyes (on the posts that is). I can only think of speedily moving away from large gank groups but those usually happen when you get locked into an arena. Sort of regretting not getting a sword upgrade first..

I've beaten the north boss and found all the pillars in the west area. This game definitely gets a lot better after the first few areas.
@humanity:There are a bunch of dash chaining challenges all around. Usually they just give you upgrade stuff and keys.

Beat it a few hours ago, was really happy with the difficulty curve in the end. I don't think I would have felt as good beating it without the challenge. Only ran into two technical issues the entire game. A slowdown which was remedied with a reset and an out-of-bounds while secret hunting that required a warp. I'm excited to see how NG+ feels too this week.

Story Spoilers

I am excited to see what else they decide to implement. They mentioned implementing 60FPS, which would be great, but they expect at least 3 months if they went ahead with it. I had no idea there was planned Co-op and that is apparently on its way in the future. The exclusive alt drifter will likely come to late adopters too. Guess I'm just glad I went into it not expecting a laundry list like some backers have. I'm already content with the money I spent and know I will come back to it soon.

So far I am really loving this game, it looks gorgeous but more importantly to me it is compulsive. The "ok one more screen" aspect reminds me of playing Zelda for the first time, and the combat reminds me mostly of Bastion, which is a nice combination. There is also the sense that the environment is dense with secrets and information you aren't picking up on yet, and the visual cues for how things are hidden are very satisfying.

There's a little imprecision so far with the combat, but it's mostly my own fumbling. I don't have the instinct to react in the way I always want, so I do better when I plan out deliberate movements. A lot of accidentally dashing into enemies after just shooting at them rather than dashing away, or dashing off of ledges like others have mentioned. But when you execute properly it's really a lot of fun. I have some troubles ending up with only 1 health and no healing, meaning I have had to do some long sections without taking any hits, which is pretty challenging, but feels great when you get it down. I wish there were more frequent checkpoints, though.

My only real downside is that the design language is a little obtuse. It's hard to get a handle on what things are, or what they are meant to be communicating, like in the shops or the monoliths or with the keys. I like the use of tableau scenes for the sidequests that the different characters give, they look great, but the more gameplay-oriented stuff could do with just being explained in text.

It's not bad, it's pretty good, def a game of trial and error but honestly it gives the game an old school vibe that most could enjoy if they're willing to go back to pattern learning and just good old twitch reflexes. Very stylized and cryptic, it delivers on what it was going to bring to the table

Great to hear you're enjoying it; I thought you might. Haven't touched anything on the western path yet--I hope to get to that this weekend (if work decides to give me a break). I'm impressed, by the way, that you got to 300 dashes. I heard about that and just decided not to even attempt it because I know it will drive me insane if I'd try.

@rvone: I just beat the boss for the West side and it was neat to see that there was a little trick hidden in the fight that can potentially lighten your load. Really satisfying to finally beat him, took me about 6 tries but when I got the pattern down and realized that the best course of attack is the most illogical solution it all kind of clicked.

As for the dashing yah. I managed to actually get the 280 or so fair and square by just dashing in a circle. You need 800 to get the unlock, which honestly isn't worth all that effort, and no way was I going to do that. So I used a little trick I saw online -> If you switch controls to the keyboard you can just let the mouse cursor rest in place and all thats left is rhythmically tap the keyboard 800 times as your little guy dashes back and forth in a straight line.

I'm about a third of the way through. I've beaten North and East bosses, and cleared out North as near as I can tell, other than the key door. I'm just starting to explore West, though I'm super lost.

I'm usually not one for really hard games; I prefer games where reflexes are less important. But, this game's style and game play has drawn me in sufficiently that I'm willing to give it a go. And, so far, I'm having a pretty good time.

The difficulty is very present, but you are definitely given the tools you need to succeed. The challenge is in mastering the usage of the dash and the gun. Every so often, I'll start getting frustrated on a room or something (the North challenge room past the triangle door was a bitch), and I'll realize that I'm not dashing or something. Then, things start feeling fair again.

I guess if I had to level a complaint, I'd say that the healing items are it. I get why they are the way they are, but it's a real pain when you're wandering around trying to find all the nodes or whatever, and you're slowly worn down by enemies, and you've used all the healing available to you. And, I also kind of wish bosses had a "oh, hey, a bunch of healing items, there must be a boss ahead" room. When I tackled the east boss, I only had one healing item, and 2 HP. That was harrowing. I guess, though, it's a testament to the game's design that I was able to eventually pull it off.

Anyway! Definitely going to try and finish this.

Having fun with it and wish I could play more, but steam recently just decided not to exist on my PC anymore. I have a sneaking suspicion my antivirus wiped the folder for whatever reason. Now all my saves and such are gone. Empty folders...they taunt me! Regardless - I'm enjoying the (reinstalled) game but I would prefer it if the combat was purely melee-based. The gun just feels too out of place to me. I know that it probably gets better as you make it further into the game, especially with the upgrade potential for your abilities, but I'm just not a fan of the ranged attack system right now.

I also keep hoping that chaining attacks would set off musical cues for some reason. It wasn't an advertised feature of the game so I don't know where that hope is coming from, but I can't help yearn for a beat to erupt off the blade when it makes contact with someone.

I've played up until the boss in the north. Was loving it until then but i'll admit i've been struggling against the boss. The screen just seems so busy with explosions and enemies that i'm struggling to keep track of what's going on. Maybe that's just me but that boss seems a bit of a mess. I'll go and explore other parts of the world and see if some upgrades make it any easier.

I feel like this is the game I wanted Titan Souls to be.

I *liked* that game, and pretty much all of the individual parts were great, but whole thing felt disjointed. There was a weird disconnect between the grand scale and mysterious atmosphere that the game sets up, and the relatively simple action-puzzle game it ended up being. This game captures a lot of the same feeling, but seems a lot more fleshed out. I'm really loving it so far

I'm just over halfway through - I got through the North and East and am about halfway through the West, I think, and I don't have enough good things to say about this game. I haven't felt this taken in by a game since I was a wee lad with a copy of Zelda II and no clue what the fuck any of it was. I'm super-into the soundtrack and I've found the combat to be immensely satisfying so far. The boss battles have been challenging without really getting rage-inducing and are satisfying to complete successfully. I haven't upgraded my dash beyond getting the shot absorbing power, but I think my next upgrade will be the chain dash for sure.

Is there a set direction to this game, or is it pretty open? I went to the west side first, but I keep seeing people say they went north and east first. I feel like I'm stuck on the west side, so I'm wondering if I should head back to the hub and head north to start out.

@noelle808 said:

On top of the Titan Souls comparison, I also feel like Hyper Light Drifter is the game that everyone kept trying to tell me Sword & Sworcery was. "It's this Zelda inspired thing, and it's really beautiful, and has this chill synth music." Accurate description of both games! Except S&S has absolute horseshit dialogue that is too cheeky for its own good, every character has this obnoxious, self-indulgent personal twitter feed, the game has bad combat, and a silly IRL lunar phase mechanic. On the other hand, Hyper Light Drifter is actually fun to play, and has more exciting enemy encounters than "here, fight another giant piece of the Triforce."

S&S can fuck right off, that game was never good. But yes, Titan Souls also had the open-ended mechanic of "start in the middle, wander off into any direction" and the clear Zelda Link to the Past inspirations. Hyper Light Drifter does it much better than both games.

@wouldyoukindly said:

Boss in the north is a tough one. By all means you could always come back to it later once you have your sea legs when it comes to the combat, but that's probably the only thing you need to get a grasp on the boss fight. No upgrades trivialize that boss fight, and there aren't any straight "more sword dmg" or "more max HP" upgrades. The only thing that really applies is you could upgrade the ammo on your ranged weapon, or upgrade the max number of medkits you can carry, though neither of those are super high priority upgrades. I've heard people say that the upgrade that gives your sword a spin attack was helpful against the north boss, and help to kill the minions he summons.

I liked it quite a bit, but I still think the price is a bit too steep. Finished the final boss in 9 hours and up until that point I really liked the simplistic combat system because most moves had a purpose and were nicely balanced. As I started mastering the combat mechanics though I also would have wished for some harder fights towards the end or at least a bit more hitpoints for the last bossfights.

I still have absolutely no wish to continue playing and 100%ing it though because as it seems all you do is check more walls and lodges for hidden ways and all you're getting for it is some capes and nothing else. No other final final boss, no different ending cutscene. All in all not worth it for me considering that the hidden rooms and invisible platforms are pretty terrible game design, only acceptable because I didn't HAVE to seek them out for the normal game. I mean I was happy when I found one but skimming the entire game for them with no reward? Eh.

Also was it me or did the game have slowdowns at times that totally ate my dash inputs?

@bisonhero: The charge up attack 100% makes the north boss way easier, I guarantee it would have taken me more than the ~5 times it did to kill him without it (I had way more upgrades but that one was 95% of the difference). attack attack attack->charge up does a MASSIVE chunk of a boss's health.

@brandondryrock: It's definitely doable in any direction.I think each direction has similar initial difficulty, but it varies deeper into each one. Certain upgrades help to varying degrees in each area. I started West too and ended up upgrading and trying other directions before returning later on.

@bouken: I ran into one slowdown after a longer session (maybe a memory leak?), but restarting the game solved it. They're presumably still patching periodically so hopefully that gets resolved. As for chain dashing, could you have been running out of stamina?

@mrklondikeguy: Pretty sure it wasn't stamina, it happened way too frequently.

It's a lot of fun, but the 30fps lock really has diminished my enjoyment of the game. I know how it sounds but man 30fps is rather choppy. imo.

@humanity There are a few side areas with currency, monoliths, keys, or gear that are only accessible via a sequence of dash chains. There's one outfit specifically that is locked behind a 8-module gate that I found to be chalice dungeon level difficult. Basically a gauntlet of long crystal traps in tight, winding corridors, which shoots you into a comically large pack of enemies. If you don't care about getting the extras and felt comfortable without it, you're probably a more careful player than I and could benefit instead from offensive upgrades like bombs, ammo or a different defensive ability. I found it very useful with the North boss. I've since seen people say they beat that boss first, and with no upgrades...I guess I am just considerably less patient as I felt dash-chain was almost a required for that fight.

Personally I am loving this game. I have been exploring a lot and have come to realize that there is just a ton of side areas and secret places to see. Most of them contain some sort of reward that isn't just a tick towards 'completion'. There's also a ton of charm in this game. I have beaten East, West and North upon warping back to town a small path had unlocked. I went to investigate and I found a tiny soccer arena, complete with some vicious imp opponent who procceeded to hand me my ass..

It is punishing enough to not just allow you to skate through but fair enough that if you're smart, you can slice apart what seemed like an army without so much as a scratch. That is a cool feeling.

@bouken: Just thought I would ask. The framerate slowdowns I was seeing ate some inputs, but at that point it all felt slow enough I had to reset the game anyway. There is a beta patch out as of a few hours ago that might fix the hitches altogether. Glad to see that they're patching frequently to meet the bug reports.

As others have said, the music is excellent the art is nice. I didn't find the combat as difficult as others, but did find the "finding where to go next" aspect a bit lackluster. Often times you enter a wonderful new area, and the immersion gets a bit broken by needing to rub every single wall in searching for a potentially hidden area (which are certainly not optional).

I was vaguely following this game because it's visually rad, and ended up buying it on a whim.

Turns out its GOTY material for me, finished it in one sitting and the idea that there's plenty of secrets to go back to just have me thinking about the game constantly. And dat soundtrack.....