Hyper Light Drifter is an incredible and intense experience. It pulls at you with war, death, illness and loss, but it never says a word. A surreal game without any written nor spoken dialogue. The game isn’t easy either, I would say it is one of the most difficult in its genre. This grinding frustration makes the game all the more worth it when you finally do defeat one of the bosses.
Recently released from a 2013 Kickstarter, I received my digital copy of Hyper Light Drifter. The project was originally presented with a 2014 release when I signed up. The Kickstarter proved enormously successful and raised far beyond its original goals, leading to an expanded game being released on many platforms. Alex Preston, who started the studio “Heart Machine”, to make this game cites numerous inspirations: these include The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Diablo, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind and, surprisingly, his own illness.
Alex Preston has not shied away from discussing some of the details of his illness, in gaming press or to his Kickstarter backers. The Drifter themself is ill. This is revealed early in game, but the details of it not so much. This adds a much needed balance to the seeming invincibility of many gaming protagonists. You feel every hit the protagonist takes, and are never quite sure when you might fall over gasping for air. This is a type of diversity in game writing that keeps the genre interesting and relevant. Rather than some gritty anti-hero who simply happens to always “just do the right thing”, your character has a personal stake and motive.
Hyper Light Drifter has kept me riveted from the beginning. The choice to allow the player to construct its narrative via a largely open world, surreal pixel art and extremely well paced music goes far. It shows what games can be as their own unique art, better than the normal stereotypical genre backstory writing of most titles. Each section of the world has many unifying themes connecting their own unique architectures, environments and people. Simply wandering around and finding the nooks and crannies of these worlds is richly rewarding, not only with in-game items and power ups, but also simply by finding new vistas to view or people to talk to. Leaving a narrative for the player to find, rather than asking them to relive a prescribed sequence and story is something that only video games can do as well as this. Books and movies may mean different things to different people, but we all proceed through them in the same order, a game can allow you to experience different aspects on each play-through in a different order, sometimes even skipping something over that others found immensely important.
It is hard to write about this game and not simply post a gallery of my favorite screen-shots. It is that beautiful. The artwork on every screen is unique, coated with brilliant colors and well chosen effects. Most games I expect the early posts online to be concept art, or from what will eventually just be a cut scene. Not here. It’s worth discussing graphics versus artwork in this context. I wouldn’t say that Hyper Light Drifter has great “graphics”, in the sense that it’s not a cutting edge game engine showcasing the best modern computers have to offer. There’s no 3D physics engine powering malleable terrain and showing off exactly how gory deaths can be. Instead there is artwork, beautiful artwork that allows the player to inhabit a unique space and develop an emotional bond with the work.
Its implied that a series of apocalyptic events has happened in this world, first a major attack from an unexplained race of titans. These are the titans The Drifter is shown facing in the very opening sequence. Although they were stopped, it was at a major cost of life and vicious opportunism soon followed, destroying many of the societies that had just survived cataclysm. You don’t know much more than this right away, and that’s okay.
The game is played with fast combat, your character’s main defense is their ability to warp around the screen at mind blowing speeds. You can’t do as much brute damage of many of the enemies you encounter. Each enemy is a classic 16-bit era enemy in the sense that it has a pattern to be learned. When it’s safe to go in and attack, when you need to draw back. Even with the simplest enemies in the game, blindly attacking is never rewarded. You’ll have to listen and look to catch all of the information you need to get out of a fight without a scratch, but it almost always is possible. The Drifter has two basic weapons, a gun and a sword. You’ll pick up more guns along the way though, and some bombs you can throw as well. All of these weapons have some limitations, timeouts, the need to refill your guns ammo, the sword’s limited number of combo attacks and range. That said, each accomplishes a specific task and does so well. It’s a great system and knowing when to do what will have you pulling off series of moves that devastate seemingly innumerable enemies.
Just like in Zelda, you have an overworld map, dotted with the location of treasure and bosses. These give you a general guide as to where to go next, but don’t exactly plot out every step. The pause screen also shows you your weapon setup, and a mess of basic information on your character. The game doesn’t require number crunching of its players, just a keen eye for patterns and timing. This is one area I’m glad Alex Preston’s vision for the game as a “retro” piece was realized. Crunching numbers to maximize a character isn’t part of the game to me, it’s meta-game that isn’t inherently very rewarding. On the flipside, exploring and poking around the world map, combat, your characters moves and playing around with low level enemies is completely part of this game. You don’t have to stop playing to master it.
While the goals of the game aren’t explicitly stated, it should become clear after just a bit of wandering around. Somewhat like getting an old console game without the manual. This type of invitation to play isn’t something I expect anymore, but once I got into it it was a relief. Figuring out what a possible upgrade does by watching the videos in shops, poking around to find hidden cliffs and paths through forests. In a lot of ways this game really grabbed right at the underlying feel of old great Action/RPGs. As a retro throwback, this game definitely succeeds. It brings to mind the old phrase “Nintendo hard”, maybe more like Shadow of the Beast hard really. I don’t think I’ve gotten so far into a game this immediately difficult recently. “Out There” comes closest, but it’s difficult in a very different way. The combat and gameplay itself is quite rewarding. I feel like I have an easier time revisiting old areas simply from having learned so many of the tricks and tactics of my opponents, not just because I leveled up my character’s inventory.
I’m happy with this game, it has been worth the wait. I suspect that some folks will find it too difficult for their tastes, but the rewards of achievement will be worth to those who stick through it. The artwork of this game is second to none, and neither is the music. The narrative found in it is bound tightly with its creator and speaks on a personal level second to none. Hyper Light Drifter may easily be among both the best and most unique releases this year.