Rarely has a game delivered so thoroughly on the promise of its reveal
When I saw the Kickstarter trailer for Hyper Light Drifter a few years back it felt like someone had reached in to my brain and put the contents in a blender. It evoked a very clear idea of what that game would be and as it turns out: they made exactly that game and it's brilliant. I've seen some claim that HLD lacks originality because it's upfront about its influences (Zelda, Journey, Fez, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind among other). But Heart Machine have synthesised them with incredible deftness and added more than enough of their own for it to feel distinct. The gameplay falls largely in to exploration and combat. The environments aren't especially large but they compensate by being both gorgeous and absurdly dense. This is really a game about secrets. The map is riven with hidden areas, containing everything from upgrade points, to med kits, new gear, mysterious monoliths and the vital modules. Some are telegraphed heavily, but others are deviously secreted. There are secrets hiding within secrets. For someone who loves exploration in games this sort of thing is pretty much crack to me. The secrets extend to the story telling, which goes the understated non-verbal route. There's plenty there in the environment to fill in the gaps though. The story is self-evident. Everything you genuinely need to know is in front of you, and the questions it leaves are probably more interesting unanswered. More lore is not better lore. The combat is fun, with the caveat that it's a lot more fun once you've got: a shotgun, chain dash, projectile deflect and better at combat. It's unforgiving and it's very easy to go from perfectly fine to dead in seconds. But once you get in the groove and begin to feel incoming danger, zipping around the arena ruining a roomful of enemies feels glorious. The bosses pushed me to the edge but are basically fair. I had the misfortune of going West first, got all the way with no upgrades and promptly got destroyed twenty times in a row. West boss is a prick. .................................... Hyper Light Drifter feels like it was painstakingly designed for me so how could I not drop an F(ive) bomb on it. That it managed to deliver on my personal biases, rather than just appeal to them, is the really impressive part. Alx Preston and the team at Heart Machine can be incredibly proud. I can't think of such an assured and unique debut since Supergiant's Bastion.