You might find currency to buy upgrades here but it is also scattered in unmissable crates so I never felt that it was worth it to explore the world as there was nothing interesting to find in the world. Even exploring, something I found enjoyable in Hollow Knight, feels useless here as it doesn’t give you anything. Sadly, that moment never arrives and it left me feeling empty after beating the game. At no point in the game did I have a feeling of purpose, I was just wandering around looking for things to kill and something, anything to help me figure out what it is that the game wants from me. In almost every other regard, the game is lacking, it never becomes bad per se but you the game is held back by its obtuseness and by its interruptions of this gameplay. The game is at its best in these moments, fighting difficult bosses that punish your mistakes while trying to figure out how best to approach these fights. The bosses are well designed and take a few tries each without becoming frustrating, especially since death puts you back at the entrance of the boss room letting you decide when you want to start the fight again without losing anything. It is a lot of fun to use these abilities to slash and dash through waves of enemies and especially when fighting bosses, I enjoyed dashing around the screen, evading attacks to strike at the opportune time. Each of these abilities can be upgraded to add new effects. Later, you can buy a final ability but it is not needed. The gameplay is simple, you start the game with about all your abilities, a sword to swing, a gun to shoot, a dash to evade and health packs to heal. Let’s start with the good (gameplay) and then spend some time talking about what detracted from that. This also makes it hard to write about it as for me there isn’t that much to write about. The game is beautifully designed and has solid combat but its refusal to explain anything to the player made me uninterested in anything else. Hyper Light Drifter left me with very ambivalent feelings. TL:DR Solid gameplay that is wasted in a game that doesn’t tell you anything or reward you for exploring. How long to beat: 7-12 hours according to HLTB. As I enjoyed writing down my thoughts and discussing it here I figured I'd do the same for this game.ĭeveloped by Hearth Machine (their only game for now) After beating Hollow Knight 2 weeks ago I decided to focus on another game that had been on my backlog: Hyper Light Drifter.

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