Hyper Light Drifter
Beautiful but challenging.
The drifter, a mute warrior draped in a red cloak and wielding a sword of light, is an enigma. He roams a broken landscape searching for something, but it’s not clear what. Occasionally, he hunches over and coughs up blood, which causes the screen to glitch and flicker. There’s a beguiling mystery about this figure, like the nameless gunslinger in a Western or a wandering samurai, and the same can be said of Hyper Light Drifter as a whole.
It’s a world of strange machines, ethereal forests, ancient temples and lifeless, overgrown robots. An evocative intro shows us glimpses of a cataclysmic event — a gleaming futuristic city disappearing in a flash of explosive light — and this seems to be the aftermath. A ruined place littered with the remains of forgotten technology. It’s not a dead world, however — there are people and creatures everywhere, some of which are friendly — but it feels like you’re living in the wake of a disaster of some kind.
It’s a beautiful postapocalypse, brought to life by a vivid palette and intricate pixel art. A haunting ambient score by Rich ‘Disasterpeace’ Vreeland adds to the atmosphere, subtly changing to reflect your surroundings. Artistically, it’s a triumph, but the considered, delicate aesthetic is somewhat misleading. Mostly Hyper Light Drifter is a punishing, fast-paced action game.
Hyper Light Drifter is all about the combat. Its varied bestiary of enemies is relentlessly aggressive, but they have attack patterns that can be learned and exploited. It’s when you’re facing several different types at once, usually in confined, trap-filled spaces, that things get difficult. Timing and carefully observing your opponent are key to surviving a battle. It’s almost like a puzzle game, knowing which enemies to attack first, where to move, and when to use your limited health consumables.
Dungeons hide the most satisfying combat in the game. Their layouts change dynamically around you, forcing you to constantly change your tactics.
This is a game where enduring persistent failure is the only way to get good, and a lot of people won’t have the patience to get through some of its more gruelling battles — particularly the fiendishly difficult boss fights.
Ultimately, how you respond to these difficulty spikes will depend on your temperament. If you’re the type of gamer who has the fortitude to try things over and over until you master them, Hyper Light Drifter is for you. If not, you’ll almost certainly give up after a few hours.
The exhilaration of clearing a dungeon with only a sliver of health is worth chasing. But the unwavering difficulty — especially the bosses — makes it an experience for a very specific type of gamer. If you have the will to overcome its many trials, you’ll find a rewarding, uncompromising action game. If not, you might feel like you’re banging your head against an incredibly stylish brick wall.
Andy Kelly