![]() With Hyper Light Drifter, I’m not sure there actually is a finite plot I’m not sure that this matters all that much either. Whereas Ueda and Miyazaki are vague and subtle, they both give you all the tools you need to piece something cohesive together. Little symbols were supposed to tell me what each upgrade did, but I often ended up just taking a stab in the dark. Early on I figured out that the town I found myself stationed in was cluttered with shops that I could upgrade my drifter with, but these were often unclear. This obscurity finds its way into the nuts and bolts mechanics of the game as well. How’s that for environmental storytelling? What am I to do with that? It doesn’t really tie into what’s happening now in any apparent way, and there isn’t much else to clue me in. At one point I was shown a series of little vignettes that seemed to be telling the story of a bird fellow, who crept about stealing eggs, possibly to save them from a siege of sorts. NPC’s tell stories using pictures, something that on paper is an interesting and novel idea in practice it doesn’t really come across that way. Hyper Light Drifter occasionally falters in its delivery of story in that its vagueness is somewhat impenetrable. Death is used to teach valuable lessons, and the story is given to you by way of subtle visual cues and environmental detail – at times perhaps too subtle. What isn’t borrowed from Miyamoto is borrowed from Ueda (Ico) and Miyazaki (Dark Souls): combat is rigid, punishing, and rewarding. 9, and now this, it’s easy to see that people still want old and proven templates delivered well evolution, not revolution, is sometimes the answer. Looking at things like Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. Kickstarter is an interesting platform: on the one hand it empowers developers to make good on far-flung, unlikely, and outrageous game proposals, but often what gets made are games that re-capitalise on past glories. The enclosed non-linearity of the game’s quest is liberating: you know what your ultimate goal is, but before you get there you are free to wander, explore, do some side-quests to build up the drifter’s powers, and tackle the challenge in any order you’d like. Sound familiar? It should there is a lot of classic Zelda here, particularly A Link to the Past, and it’s a template that holds up very well – it’s surprising how few games utilize it. Though you are left to fend for yourself from the get go, the game still sets the scene very nicely indeed From there that’s about it you can go North, East, South, or West, and you will have to complete the dungeons in each direction in order to progress. At start you are thrown into a world of savage beauty, shown a cataclysmic event, and visions of your drifter as he clutches his chest in pain, outruns an inky tormentor, and arrives coughing and spluttering into the relative tranquility of the game’s first town. ![]() The pieces that came together to create that satisfying scene are more often than not in perfect harmony, but Hyper Light Drifter’s merit is obfuscated, sometimes, by things that contradict its visual clarity. The ambient soundtrack whirred and whispered in my ear I stood on a peaceful platform in a beautiful, watery temple, the peace of the scene betrayed by the blood-stains and bodies. I had just nimbly dashed my way through a shuriken-wielding enemy, slicing him clean in two this had charged a full notch on my shotgun, and as I evaded the incoming swing of a katana with another dash – this one giving me the drop on my enemy – I unloaded a point blank shotgun blast into his back. What you are told is told with gory architecture and fleeting, beautiful cut-scenes. The opening act of Hyper Light Drifter is perhaps the most difficult: you aren’t told much. It was a little way into my second attempt at the East dungeon when everything clicked into place for me. ![]()
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