The same can be said of the Dash Shield, which lets you move through energy shots with the right timing, and the Sword Deflection, which does exactly what it sounds like against enemy projectiles. The Chain Dash is a move so fundamental to the core of Driftunia’s design that I was baffled that it wasn’t immediately available in the Drifter’s tool-set - it was like having to level up for the block and dodge roll in the original Kingdom Hearts.
#Hyper light drifter chain dash room upgrade#
The only reason I knew of them was that I spent a bit of time researching where best to put the upgrade points I had collected after finishing the first dungeon of the game. It’s totally possible to miss these upgrades. Combat is stilted and slow unless you upgrade yourself with a particular set of skills from the main hub of the game. #NintendoSwitch /3A1RRsWHjR- Summertime Mint MaLove it when a plan comes together.ĭancing through bullets, dodging past enemies before cutting them down with your sword can be exhilarating…in the right circumstances. And I will say that when all the pieces come together, HLD flows in a way that feels great. “The plot is just window-dressing for the main focus, which is clearly the combat, you cheeky tart!”Īlright, fair, fair. “But Mint,” you say with an exasperated sigh. But with no understanding of the stakes towards the conflict I had just been through, I just sort of…blanked out. By the time I fought the last boss, I assumed I was supposed to feel something about the events that followed. It’s just not something I’m into personally.
It hearkens back to the unforgiving, hostile environments of a game like the NES Legend of Zelda, where everything is out to kill and you don’t really know why, but doggone you spent money on this cartridge and you’re going to finish it. There has to be some thread that players can go down to answer at least some of these questions, even if they’ll never be solved fully. Why are you going around killing these enemies? What is the village hub you go back to for upgrades? What are these skeletal titanic remains doing in the world? A little bit of mystique is great in getting the imagination going, but you can’t just stop there.
Dark Souls’ environmental design and even its inventory descriptions give you some idea of what’s going on and your place in its world. Obfuscation doesn’t equal a compelling world to explore in. The problem is that even SotC has an easy to understand goal. Shadow of the Colossus has so little dialogue, it probably all fits on a double-sided 8.5 by 11 sheet. Let’s get back to that part about HLD having next to zero plot. The music is also fantastic, with brooding synths that sound like they came straight out of a Blade Runner film but without all the Asian fetishization. Every setting is distinct in its aesthetic and carried a different variation of the overall melancholic tone that the game provides.
The fluidity of the animation as the Drifter cuts through enemies never stopped being engaging as I played through the game. Every pixel is lovingly crafted and purposeful. It’s one of the best looking 2D games I’ve ever played. Sure, you can speculate, but unlike Dark Souls, which has a plot you can piece together with some digging and a Vaati video or two, that’s pretty much impossible with HLD, because there’s not a single line of dialogue in the game outside of tutorials. It feels like it takes bits of everything from traditonal SNES JRPGs to Zelda to - and I’m sorry to say it - Dark Souls. BUT HLD (or Hyper Lightmension Driftunia if ya nasty) has a lot of design decisions that I think are very interesting but that I found myself not agreeing with, enough that I’m making a whole blog-post about it.įor the unitiated HLD is a succesfully kickstarted top-down action-exploration game that is pretty hard to define in terms of its inspirations. Honestly, my standards are so low at this point that as long it’s not filled with gross loli shit or racist under/overtones, then your game is probably fine in my book. I wanna preface the below with the understanding that I don’t think Hyper Light Drifter is a bad game.
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