#HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER KEY LOCATIONS UPGRADE#

#HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER KEY LOCATIONS UPGRADE#

Currency is in short supply, and just one upgrade is enough to make the difference between success and failure in a boss fight.

Don’t expect to learn a bunch of new abilities in the first few hours, though. Naturally player growth requires the player to actually improve, but Hyper Light Drifter also includes purchasable upgrades that go a long way in easing the pain of death. The controls become second nature, and eventually players can reach a zen-like state in which they become one with the Drifter’s sword. Death counts may be high in number at the beginning of the game, but strategies and tactics improve over time. The difficulty also allows for player growth. Sure, it took me a half dozen tries to defeat the first boss, but perseverance leads to euphoria. Challenge has already proven to be one of Hyper Light Drifter‘s more divisive elements, but it makes sense within the context of the game’s mysterious world and heightens the thrill of victory. Crude tactics such as button mashing have no place in Hyper Light Drifter.

Otherwise, the game presents a clear set of rules and expects players to adapt accordingly. Only brief issues concerning invincibility after taking a hit cause moments of needless frustration. The combat distinguishes Hyper Light Drifter as a difficult game, but not an unreasonable one. In fact, some combat encounters are best approached as miniature puzzles in which ability use, enemy isolation, and aggression are all key factors. Instead of dying and repeating the same strategy again and again, Hyper Light Drifter requires players to learn from their mistakes and make necessary adjustments. The cyclical nature of combat feels impenetrable at first, but it quickly reveals itself as a conscious test of patience and pattern recognition. The world of Hyper Light Drifter is dangerous in the most literal sense of the word - players will die repeatedly and respawn at the last checkpoint. Tension emphasizes the game’s narrative themes, but it also highlights core gameplay mechanics.

The moody compositions often sound beautiful on their own, but in the context of the game, they linger in the background and add to the dark, tense atmosphere. The contrast between dissonance and harmony also applies to the soundtrack, courtesy of electronic mastermind Disasterpeace. There may be destruction, but Hyper Light Drifter features no shortage of purples, pinks, and light blues. Broken cliffs and the corpses of hulking colossi punctuate the world and hint at some kind of pseudo-apocalypse, but its vibrant colors tell the story of a once-beautiful land. Just a cursory glance at the game is enough to make one’s jaw drop, but the way in which the art melds with the themes of the game elevates it to another level. The visual design also goes a long way in establishing Hyper Light Drifter‘s cryptic exposition. The distinct approach to storytelling occasionally obfuscates key plot threads, but it compliments the ambiguity of the Drifter’s journey. These simple narrative devices are enough for players to intuit that the protagonist (the Drifter) carries some kind of crippling illness and searches for answers to his current situation in a land of dormant giants. Characters communicate through unintelligible sounds, objects with strange symbols represent currency, and the game’s equivalent of cutscenes are short vignettes that use the inherent power of imagery. It builds an entire world and backstory through minimalism. The fact that Hyper Light Drifter resonates on that level with no real text to speak of points to one of the game’s greatest accomplishments. I was ready to brave obstacles yet again to uncover more clues about the protagonist, his motives, and the world that he inhabits. After finishing the game, I didn’t want to leave the brilliantly designed virtual space. At the same time, Hyper Light Drifter instills a strong sense of exploration and uses its danger and mystery as tools for environmental storytelling. The game raises many questions, offers few explicit answers, and thus creates a world in which players face unknown threats around every corner. Danger and mystery are often synonymous with each other, and that core relationship drives the Hyper Light Drifter experience.

Hyper light drifter key locations