Recent reviews by Aufmerk Sam

it's a bit of a open-world shooter feel, and the communication-less rando gameplay lacks depth. however the best interactions are when the squad are interdependent in terms of fields of fire, coordination of strategem deployments, and being able to fend off the bugs chasing them around so they have the time window to deploy the big effects

the presentation and framing of the gameplay session presents that grand sense of scale, though heavily one-note in its culture, and the missions basically boil down to either seek & destroy or wave defense

the character movement and abilities are rather expressive in a loosely physics based movement and getting thrown around by chargers and explosions, and I like the circle following the point of aim in a demonstration of recoil and handling characteristics of the line of sight weapons

the dive mechanic mimics the dark souls dodge roll in terms of avoiding damage and the movement is not that different from metal gear solid 5, both of which constitute the avoiding getting hit aspect of the game, though it's also very dependent on occasionally checking behind you, but that's part of situational awareness

also every planet is essentially a list of modifiers to environment types with a different set of mission types so there's at least a pretty open aspect to changing up the game that way but the general gameplay doesn't change a whole lot out from just being PvE, though it does encourage these 45 min 3 mission sets through its medallion reward system, so that's like a quick hop on session for a hour.

what if reloading a video game level meant all its inhabitants were revived from the dead for you to kill them again? It's pretty fun. The art is amazing. The levels encourage non linear play. I want more games like this one.

Hyper Light Drifter is a cybernetic ninja roaming the ruins of a once great society. He has a bad case of the blood coughies and he frequently hallucinates/remembers a cyber genie killing him. A deified dog appears to be watching his every move and dead titan carcasses are everywhere. What's a poor drifter to do but uncover every secret and murder every hostile in his path?

The designer pretty clearly had a singular vision for this game that really coheres together all aspects into a superb video game. Between all the secret areas, combat scenarios, enemy types, upgrades, unique boss fights, interleaved level design, tight controls, there's also all the gorgeous pixel art and ambient sound design. Compares well to Cave Story, Dark Souls, and Fez.