So the gameplay itself is a bit unbalanced. Firstly the first area is too easy. It's like the devs were scared people would stop too early, so they made it easier. But then afterwards the difficulty increases. I'de prefer they set expectations better there. Then there's the fact that my pokemon didn't evolve from leveling xD The evolution mechanic didn't feel that meaningful in the game.
I do like the general games difficulty, forcing me to change up my team. But it does feel quite unbalanced and doesn't feel like there's any intuitive gameplay rules to follow. Like pokemon fire beats grass. Here it's use these monsters in a combination together and they do 5 times better than your previous team. I still enjoyed it though.
Another grief though is the health, a lot of the fights I found myself thinking 'when will this fight end' because the monster healths are super high and a lot of the bosses are just high health. This means rather than a new challenge I am just spending more time. A lot of the game design does this. Like the way you have to backtrack every time you unlock a new way to traverse through obstacles. I feel like this game could of been more fun at 30 hours if they balanced health lower and concentrated on the aweome combo mechanics.
One last thing, the third last boss 'Zosimos' is basically broken. I don't know how this got through the dozens of QA testers you see in the end credits. I did read a Reddit post about bleed stacks, but I ended up beating it just by adding a snake to my team. But this alchemist was harder than the next two bosses which I completely crushed. While I do love abusing the healing mechanics personally, I feel like this particular boss needs a nerf as it just leaves a sour taste in ones mouth.
I did enjoy the game and the various environments and battles. So still recommended, just know there's some issues with balancing at that one boss. Maybe just make 'Zosimos' the last boss lmao. Gg.

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.