“I gathered bits and pieces of the story: an apocalypse, an illness, time travel, and a mysterious dog all play a part. For me, all this reinforced the idea of drifting through time and space because for a large part of Hyper Light Drifter I was grasping for a handhold as to what the hell was going on. Its repeating, dreamlike cutscenes are cryptic. Interacting with an NPC conveys information in storyboard-like sequences. Its storytelling is a wordless experience that requires interpretation. It takes a commendable risk with its bold storytelling that intrigues, but doesn’t fully pay off in the end. And while I wouldn’t consider Hyper Light Drifter overly hard – I was able to defeat most bosses on my first or second encounter, with the exception of two disproportionately difficult ones – I would also shy away from calling it a style-over-substance kind of experience. But most impressively, they’re all optional – to the point where you can finish Hyper Light Drifter’s roughly seven-hour campaign without purchasing any upgrades at all, if you’ve got the raw skill to pull it off. ![]() ![]() That adds flavor to the combat systems without overcomplicating things. “With the exception of a grenade ability, these upgrades don’t introduce completely new mechanics, but instead only add interesting elements to your beginning skills.
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