Hyper Light Breaker is a beautiful but brutal roguelike that could shine with some balance changes

Heart Machine follows up its archetypal 2016 indie darling with an expanded enactment roguelike that is alluring contempt its precocious difficulty.

Hyper Light Breaker's aboriginal entree motorboat proves there's imaginable successful the mode developer Heart Machine has chosen to grow this universe.

When is simply a sequel, not a sequel? When it’s an enactment roguelike, of course. One which takes the tone of the archetypal game’s halfway and supplants it with a wildly much ambitious model truthful that everything looks a tad acquainted but mechanically couldn’t beryllium immoderate much unalike. Such is the lawsuit with Hyper Light Breaker, the caller third-person actioner from developer Heart Machine, which takes a batch of the thematic stylings of its 2016 indie darling Hyper Light Drifter and places it onto a repeatable, run-based satellite you indispensable past successful again and again. It’s… decidedly not the benignant of successor to 1 of gaming's champion modern Zelda-likes I saw coming. That said, aft putting a fewer hours into the caller aboriginal entree merchandise connected Steam, Hyper Light Breaker has already been painfully hard to enactment down.

Technically, a prequel to Heart Machine’s debut title, Hyper Light Breaker challenges you to past wrong a procedurally generated satellite that volition hitch aft 4 deaths oregon ‘cycles’ (depending connected however you look astatine it). This means that decease is surely not the extremity each clip you inevitably get your ass beat. In fact, the satellite you’re dropped into staying the aforesaid for the pursuing 3 attempts enables you to program your runs somewhat, adding a antithetic constituent compared to a batch of different caller enactment roguelikes. Whether you walk it trying to get amended cogwheel to assistance successful your aboriginal attempts, oregon privation to stitchery arsenic galore Prisms scattered astir the representation arsenic imaginable successful the hopes of taking 1 of the evil Abyss King's underlings, Hyper Light Breaker is large astir ne'er making a tally pointless.

Where it tin beryllium little satisfying, though, is conscionable however crippling hard it is. Hyper Light Breaker is simply a punishing game, adjacent by emblematic roguelike standards, with adjacent the smallest enemies having the imaginable to hitch you retired specified minutes into a run. Take my proposal and dispatch the greenish blobs quickly! Granted, I’m inactive playing the crippled utilizing the starting Breaker character, Vermillion, and the fig of imperishable upgrades I’ve unlocked are few, but regularly, I find myself cornered by hordes of foes aft simply trying to spell astir my exploratory business. Right now, a emblematic Hyper Light Breaker tally goes similar this: participate the map, acceptable a waypoint marker connected said map, and spell to the waypoint marker successful the hopes of uncovering amended gear, lone to get battered. Ouch.

Electric psychedelic

Hyper Light Breaker seems similar it’ll beryllium the benignant of crippled wherever warring its large atrocious volition beryllium a dilatory grind, and yet I inactive find myself pulled successful to repetition this undeniably brutal bid of events rhythm aft cycle. Part of the crushed wherefore is due to the fact that of however slick the combat makes maine feel, adjacent if I’m rubbish astatine it currently. Much similar Hades earlier it, Hyper Light Breaker places a batch of accent connected dashing, of which the Vermillion Breaker tin bash an infinite fig of times with nary cooldown. Thank heavens! Dashing volition lone ever person a constricted effect, however, if you don’t besides nail the circumstantial parry timing model too, alongside mastering each the randomised functions of a Breaker’s ranged and melee weapon.

While repeating cycles and seeing a caller satellite aft each 4 deaths ever means it’s hard for boredom to acceptable in, I’m hoping that the vexation of decease coming truthful casual alleviates arsenic I proceed to fertile up. Hyper Light Breaker’s aesthetic is perfectly gorgeous, aft all, channelling the look and consciousness of Hyper Light Drifter’s dilapidated sci-fi satellite and supplanting it onto a 3D setting. Hence why, close now, it's achy that I get precise small accidental to soak it each successful since there’s ever a caller decease squad spawning successful whenever I effort to research and possibly unlock a chest. Difficulty balancing truthful acold feels very... off. The crippled is successful aboriginal entree successful fairness, truthful there’s plentifulness of clip for Heart Machine to tweak these spikes truthful that astir players tin astatine slightest basal a warring chance.

Another flimsy contented Hyper Light Breaker has close present is outright explaining its systems. There’re astatine slightest 4 antithetic currencies to get your caput astir here, whether it’s Abyss Stones you person aft defeating Crown bosses (needed to instrumentality connected the Abyss King himself), Prisms you indispensable cod successful bid to summation entree to these Crowns, oregon Gold Rations that fto you unlock imperishable upgrades for your Breaker oregon bargain caller services from vendors backmost astatine your main hub. There’s simply a lot to instrumentality successful initially, each of which tin consciousness overwhelming until you statesman to dilatory fertile up aft wiping a procedural satellite pursuing its 4 cycles.

Alongside the likes of Redacted and Windblown from past year, Hyper Light Breaker is yet different assured enactment roguelike I look guardant to seeing turn and germinate much arsenic the months rotation on. But it's acold from cleanable close now. The instauration is decidedly present to present genre fans thing antithetic from the competition, astir evidently seen successful however decease cycles work, the rewarding meta game, and the randomised attack to worlds that are someway ever amusive to prime distant astatine – erstwhile not getting routinely destroyed by random wildlife, that is.

Hyper Light Breaker is decidedly not the benignant of sequel I saw coming, oregon adjacent needfully wanted. But arsenic a faithful continuation of an indie crippled classic, it successfully provides a caller look astatine an existing beingness I already loved, lone present with myriad reasons to revisit. I'd conscionable admit it if what awaited maine successful this satellite was a smidge much welcoming.