Hyper Light Drifter is a punishing, awkward game to master, but that shouldn't put you off. Fine-aiming with the ZL button is very tricky in the middle of a scrap - particularly as it renders you temporarily immobile. Mastering the game's firearms is a tricky but rewarding exercise in itself. Your sword is your main wrecking instrument here, but it's also the way in which you recoup ammunition for your punchy armoury of guns. It's imperative that you master the game's dash move, mapped to the B button, which is also essential for negotiating the crumbling overworld. When these enemies start stacking up in threes and sixes, you'll find that button mashing simply won't cut it. Your sickly protagonist can only take a few hits at the outset, and even the lowliest of grunts comes at you hard and fast. Making progress through Hyper Light Drifter is all about mastering its precarious scraps. Despite the adventurous setting, this is seriously combat-heavy stuff - and that combat exhibits a deadly-sharp edge. That extends to the hostile encounters that make up so much of the game. You'll need to stick with Hyper Light Drifter during its opening stretch, as there's precious little hand-holding to be found. This can actually prove to be quite an obstacle to progress early on in the game. Everything is communicated by way of symbols and pictographs, whether it's the lamentations of a downtrodden NPC or a simple tutorial for a new special move.
In a world filled with tales of loss, hardship and heroism, however, there isn't a single piece of written text to be found. Its devastated fantasy world is rendered with a striking neon palette and accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful synth soundtrack. Hyper Light Drifter is a triumph of world creation as much as anything else. A whole new world (don't you dare close your eyes) Indeed, the world of Hyper Light Drifter itself is one big enigma you'll long to crack. There's a semi-open world to explore, bosses to fight, weapon upgrades to be obtained, simple lock-and-key puzzles to negotiate, and stacks of secrets to discover. This is a top-down action-RPG with four sprawling dungeons, which can be tackled in more or less any order. That said, at least a few of them seem to have been borrowed and repurposed from the early Zelda playbook. Heart Machine's game is a brilliantly self-contained experience, and one that seems to play by its own rules. And not just because it predates all of those aforementioned games. To call Hyper Light Drifter derivative would be to do it a grave disservice though. It's got a little of Enter The Gungeon's balletic top-down shooting, a smidgen of of Hollow Knight's weighty swordplay, and a light-footed ninja protagonist worthy of Dead Cells. Now there's another to add to the list in Hyper Light Drifter. Switch owners have been rather spoiled for brilliant indie action-adventures with crunchy combat of late.
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