#Hyper light drifter switch review how to

The normal difficulty borders on brutal, especially when fighting large groups of enemies. Make no mistake about it: both difficulty levels are hard, especially at the beginning. The game has two difficulty levels: a more вЂњforgivingвЂќ newcomer version that allows for unlocking some achievements, and an вЂњintendedвЂќ normal difficulty setting that allows for unlocking all achievements.

#Hyper light drifter switch review how to

Some Googling can help yield an understanding what is going on and how to play the game, but that has to happen above and beyond what the game itself provides.

Even the name of the protagonist isnвЂ™t explicitly clear according to sources online, itвЂ™s Drifter. Likewise, the stories of those people players encounter can be hard to fully understand, as well as the playerвЂ™s objectives. There is obviously a big plot here, but even on repeated viewings of the opening cinematic itвЂ™s not easy to parse together exactly what that plot is. Shops in the gameвЂ™s hub world sell wares identified only by images showing what the upgrades do, with no captions or explanations. Dialogue is conveyed through still frames, as are quest objectives. For one, Hyper Light Drifter uses only a bare minimum of words to get through the gameвЂ™s minimal opening tutorial, and almost none thereafter. ItвЂ™s also a game with a ton of challenge. From the haunting opening montage, itвЂ™s clear that this game is going somewhere very different. Quite the contrary, itвЂ™s a fresh take on action RPGs that is distinctive from many of the games that came before. Yes, there are elements of other games in here, but it doesnвЂ™t feel derivative. This isnвЂ™t just a love letter to old-school gaming: itвЂ™s a real attempt to write a new chapter in the history of that gaming. Both the music and the graphics scream 1980s, with synth tunes that are vaguely reminiscent of other вЂ™80s homages.ДЄppropriate for a game created by a development team called Heart Machine, one doesnвЂ™t have to look far to see the heart in this game. The game is a retro-style action RPG with old-school visuals meant to imitate elements of 8-bit and 16-bit style running on more powerful hardware (the game, in fact, boasts 60 frames per second). The Special Edition includes content currently exclusive to Switch, including a new challenge mode as well as a few new pieces of equipment.

Hyper Light Drifter вЂ“ Special Edition, available today through the eShop, runs $19.99 at the time of this review. In 2016, those platforms included PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. One of his promises in going over his initial budget was to bring the game to multiple platforms. Preston sought out funding from Kickstarter, which succeeded far beyond expectations: he was able to raise more than $600,000 (his original target was $27,000). Preston saw this project as more than just a hobby born with a congenital heart disease and beset with a lifetime of medical challenges, Preston aimed to craft a character facing a terminal disease. In 2013, a developer named Alex Preston set out to develop an old-school title in the vein of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Diablo, with a post-apocalyptic style reminiscent of the 1984 anime classic NausicaГ¤ of the Valley of the Wind.