L.G.C. |Reviews| — Hyper Light Drifter

This week your intrepid heroes drift the lightning, get killed to death, and praise the pixels? Hyper Light Drifter faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Hyper Light Drifter
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/257850/
Devel: Heart Machine
Engine: Game Maker: Studio
Price: 19.99 / CDN 21.99
Wazzat: Hyper Light Drifter is an action adventure RPG in the vein of the best 16bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale.

Mandatory US Disclosure: They sent us keys.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

V-

At 1080 and 2160 this FKR only runs at 1912×1072.
- How weak is your kung-fu when it fails to maintain 30 at THAT res?
However, everyone screaming ZOMG 29 FERPS GIVES ME TEH HEADACHES IT’S UNPLAYABLE!11! Are as equally ridiculous as those bitching about 60FERPS being “too fluid” and “uncinematic”
- You poor little snowflakes.
Than again, I grew up gaming on a PC before hardware accelerated graphics were a thing.
We were grateful for 20FERPS… uphill, both ways, in the snow.
Yeah, I really really want to ding it a chair for the frame dip but I can’t honestly say it breaks the game in any way.
But you’re still losing a chair for not giving me 1080 in fullscreen!

J-

It works fine. Yeah, 30FPS isn’t ideal, but it runs

P-

Those frame dips wouldn’t be an issue if the game was running at something other than 30 FerPS.
Because if you’re running at 60 and the frame rate dips to 50, chances are your eyes won’t even notice it (if it’s just a second or 2). If your game is running at 30 and it dips to 20, motherfucker, it’s going to look like a fucking slideshow!
We’re past the point of bullshit cinemacy in video games.
I guess the problem is also partly the fault of Game Maker Studio since, if when you start the project you don’t specify that the game should run at 60, the engine will default to 30.
- But this is the Unity 3D argument all over again. Should we blame the tool for its improper use, or the dumbass who’s using it?

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Hipster-pixel art done right.
After seeing it done wrong so many times this was a pleasant treat.
You really get a sense that the world you are dropped in is in a state of hella decay.
The colour pallet is amazing. Yeah, it consists of something other than dark.
Mix that with a proper soundtrack (no chip-tune shite) and you have something I’m unable to find fault with.

J-

Dear god the pixel art here is gorgeous
Like, holy shit. Hipster pixel game devs, take note.
Good use of visual storytelling as well
The soundtrack reminds me of one of the numenera backing tracks. Does a good job of matching the visual feel of the game

P-

The soundtrack sounds like someone let a rabid mountain lion loose on one of those mall floor keyboards, sometimes.
The sound effects are great. It really does bring the extra meatyness to the combat and definitely adds to the atmosphere and immersion. Much better than the background music itself!
Something else that makes the combat feel impactful and satisfying is the freeze-frame effect when you swing the sword and hit something.
- Yes, I’m aware of the apparent hypocrisy of commending the game on a freeze frame effect, after railing on it for only running at 30FerPS.
- But, if you can’t tell the difference between a frame-freeze effect to convey impact and the lowering the general frame rate for no other reason than you couldn’t be assed, you also don’t get a say in the matter.
- So you need to go back and delete that comment you just started typing, Brad!
The pixel art looks amazing, though. Big fan of that!

Total-

Control

V-

Can’t rebind the controls so I’m stuck using the left hat-stick for movement.
That, and slash and drift need to be switched.
Now I’ve never had issues /w delay but it has (more than once) failed to register input in button mashing situations.

J-

Correctly handles steam and ps4 controllas
- And it vibrates!
I would really like to be able to switch the heal button to the right shoulder
Also, in intense fights, you do notice that some presses don’t register
Aiming is also an issue in this with the analog stick. Would have really preferred the D(pad)

P-

No rebindable controller buttons. Minus one chair right off the bat.
What’s that? You decided to map the shoot button to R2/RT? Welp! Guess who can’t fucking reach it? And guess what else? This wouldn’t have been an issue if you’d let people remap the fucking buttons!
You also mapped B(or Circle if you have a Dual Shock) to switch weapons.
What kind of use case do you see where weapon switching needs to be mapped to a face button? There’s a fucking D-Pad with 3 other directions you could’ve mapped it to.
There’s a noticeable delay between a button press and something happening on screen
More than once my character flat out ignored a button press and I died as a result
As someone who just finished the original Dark Souls, I can tell when you have sloppy controls.
I realize that’s probably because my expectations are unreasonably high and biased because I just finished a game which gets constantly lauded for its great controls.

Total-

FUN

V-

Well, it’s Nintendhard but don’t confuse that with FK YOU hard.
Like Middle Eaf you have a sword so naturally the first thing you do is attack and get killed to death.
Then you realize it’s easier to take advantage of the pants-on-head retarded enemy AI.
Still having a good time but I’m running on fumes because lack of progress.
Apparently you can earn some cash but after two hours I only have 4 of the 12 bits needed to buy anything.
- I kinda feel that after two hours of playtime I should be able to upgrade, something.
- It would greatly help in retaining my attention.
Aside from the controller derping out randomly my main issue is this.
- The health stabby thing takes to long forcing you to predict whether or not if you are about to get curb-stomped.
- If this was intentional it was FSM damned genius since it keeps you hella focused on your health stick.
- My general rule to avoid getting noped is stab early and stab often (usually around 3 health blocks)
- The goal here is staying alive until the next save point.
VENN SHUT UP AND TELL ME IF IT’S FUN!
- This is a solid little hipster-pixel game with buggy controls and a $20 price of tag.
- It reminds me a LOT of Axiom Verge in the sense that it just drops you into the universe and screams “have at,FKR!”
  - If you like handholding tutorials, forget about it.
  - If you like games with an easy mode, forget about it.
  - However, If you like games that will teach you how to play by murdering your face off, oh yeah, come get some of this.
- As I first stated, Hyper Light Drifter is Nintendhard (NES) / Genhard (genesis) SNES does not count since it was made for little babby gamers #SEGA!
- It’s going to give you that level of challenge and if you don’t know what you’re in for you will end up like that millennial blogger P-man pointed out on G+ who was bitching because big mean game no hold hand
It’s fun, it’s big (like I said two hours in and I’ve not scratched the surface) but just a little overpriced for the amount of bugs, BUT they are actively being sorted.

J-

I seem to have the same problem as Gohan.
- I need to learn TO DOOOOOOOOOOODGE
Nintendhard is a good description of this game.
It does a good job of evoking the Legend of Zelda exploration hack and slash feel
If you’re not in the middle of a gaggle of baddies, the best strategy is to lure them. They’re not smart, but there are a lot of them and they like to gang up on you
I’ve gotten stuck at a few points. It’s definitely not a fun time casual game, but it does what it does well.
The game is gorgeous and really wants to you find out what’s going on. And also not suck donkey balls.
For me, repeating the same section over and over again isn’t the definition of fun though. I’m gonna start taking a crack at Darkest Dungeon

P-

This is one of those games that, as a critic (or an asshole on the internet since I’m not getting payed for my critiques), I love.
Not just because it’s a game I enjoy in spite of its problems but also because of all of its problems.
- And I guess that’s giving my opinion away in just two sentences, innit?
Thankfully, there is no such thing as a perfect game.
For all I drool over Ziggurat, Bionic Dues, Fallout 2 and now Dark Souls, I can recognize that they’re flawed.
And Hyper Light Drifter is deeply flawed.
Not least of those flaws and the most glaring was the 30FPS lock.
Even Super Mario Bros ran at 60 (or 50 if you were in the PAL regions).
From that particular cock up come the delayed controls. Namely, it takes twice as long for a button press to do something on screen than if it was running at 60.
Then there’s the frame dips which, again, wouldn’t be a significant issue if the frame rate wasn’t capped so low.
And those frame dips cause certain button presses to be outright ignored.
Case in point, in the middle of a heated battle if the frame rate dips and you push the attack or dodge/drift button your character will simply do nothing instead.
But for all these glaring issues, there’s an upside.
The storytelling is similar to how Dark Souls does it, as in it doesn’t tell you a damn thing!
Everything is conveyed through pictures and subtle sounds.
“Show, don’t tell” as I’ve often put it and I like that.
There’s a lot of content, hidden passages with puzzles and even something I can only describe as a soccer minigame with lead ball.
Hyper Light Drifter is a great game which is quite literally hindered by its shitty frame rate.