I really enjoyed Hyper Light Drifter. I bought this game when I started out as a game dev in my first full time job. Took me many years to actually play it haha.
The level design is solid. There's a few moves but they work well together to make really fun gameplay. Dashing, Whacking and occasionally healing, shooting or throwing bombs. Although some of the combat and levels can be frustrating but it's still satisfying. I really hate spikes. Spikes PTSD.. The final boss.. very hard to dodge..
The feeling of finding new pickups is satisfying because you have to search the areas well. But it did add a lot of backtracking to the game. Although there is fast travel, most of the map is made up of respawning monsters and segmented land, so it still feels like when you first played the levels.
The progression is mostly skill based and the upgrades don't feel very satisfying as they don't impact combat much. There's only a couple that had impact.
The art and the level design are the strongest parts. Not a fan of the dash mechanic, because it felt more like luck. You never know which way an enemy will go, and sometimes you dodge twice with a boss and it gets you anyway.
I guess dash challenges did give me rythm? I had to just stop thinking about it and learn the timing using muscle memory. The boss fights were fun, although some I had to retry many times while others I beat straight away. Even in end game it's very easy to die still if you are not careful with dodges and attacks.
Overall, glad I played it, definitely worth a play if you like exploration, tight pact combat segments or collecting things. Or just want to oggle the nice pixel art.

I really enjoyed Hyper Light Drifter. I bought this game when I started out as a game dev in my first full time job. Took me many years to actually play it haha. The level design is solid. There's a few moves but they work well together to make really fun gameplay. Dashing, Whacking and occasionally healing, shooting or throwing bombs. Although some of the combat and levels can be frustrating but it's still satisfying. I really hate spikes. Spikes PTSD.. The final boss.. very hard to dodge.. The feeling of finding new pickups is satisfying because you have to search the areas well. But it did add a lot of backtracking to the game. Although there is fast travel, most of the map is made up of respawning monsters and segmented land, so it still feels like when you first played the levels. The progression is mostly skill based and the upgrades don't feel very satisfying as they don't impact combat much. There's only a couple that had impact. The art and the level design are the strongest parts. Not a fan of the dash mechanic, because it felt more like luck. You never know which way an enemy will go, and sometimes you dodge twice with a boss and it gets you anyway. I guess dash challenges did give me rythm? I had to just stop thinking about it and learn the timing using muscle memory. The boss fights were fun, although some I had to retry many times while others I beat straight away. Even in end game it's very easy to die still if you are not careful with dodges and attacks. Overall, glad I played it, definitely worth a play if you like exploration, tight pact combat segments or collecting things. Or just want to oggle the nice pixel art.