I think the game definitely has some great potential, the developers have been quick to respond to feedback and they have even reworked systems in a very short time since the release.

BUT I think the game has some big flaws in it's gameplay loop that makes me have to give this a negative review which I am fully ok with changing down the line.

So here is some of thoughts on the overall game.


What I REALLY enjoy:

-Combat feels amazing. The hits feel like they carry weight, the dash strike combat feels alot like a 3d Hades. You can dash cancel almost any attack and you can even parry while aiming and shooting your guns. My only minor gripe is how the heavy attacks kinda lock you into a animation with heavy end-lag, but I have come to just accept that as a risk and reward factor and using it when you know you will not get hit.

-Art. I really love the look and feel of the game. The character designs are great and there is just something really beautiful about the artstyle they are going for. Really love all the small UI looks matching the UI Hyper Light Drifter used. Almost in a sense feels nostalgic to play this.


Things I liked:

-Rising tension as you explore. I really like that you have a sense of "get out before it gets too dangerous kind vibes. Before I got good loot and little to no meta progression, it always scared me to stay around to the middle mark of the difficulty bar, since I knew there was an assassin looming on the horizon. Though I wish when you reached max difficulty it would spawn Assassins more frequently, seeing as them only spawning on the middle mark kinda ruins the scaryness when you get past that assassin. Overall I like the feature but could need improvements.

-Prisms and Loot. I enjoy the way you have to gather the Prisms (was that the name?) to be able to unlock the bosses. It pushes you to certain locations on the map and makes you explore more than if you could just rush straight to the boss even on runs where you are cracked on loot. Also some of the prism enemies can be real toughies (the range guy is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in early game lol). I also do find it nice that we can cache weapons and gadgets to sell in the base after an extraction, since it gives me more reason to go loot even when I have a cracked build as it gives me more resources to further enhance my builds.


Things I didn't like:

-Perks. The perks in this game are very limited in what they offer and some are just mandatory to keep if you find them. As an example, if you find the perk that gives you health back on crits (actual health, not red health) you pretty much just have to keep it, since it might be THE best perk in the game. It kinda removes a whole point of buildcrafting when there is no real drawbacks to such a perk. Usually a perk like that would have a heavy drawback like "crits heal you, but you have 60% of your total max HP". Which makes you actually think about not taking it since you will be squishy BUT you can recover HP. Too many perks basically have no drawbacks essentially.

-Lack of tutorial. It took me... literally, 11 hours of gameplay, before I noticed you can dash on walls vertically. There is so many non-explained features. Even with game intuition from playing other games some stuff I couldn't figure out certain things. I went into one of the menues in the game and saw that "Red glowing enemy means you have to parry it, since it goes through your dash invincibility". Every gaming bone in my body told me "ah red glowy enemey, I need to dodge that un-parryable attack" since that is how it has been done in every recent souls-like. Even just a tiny popup when you fail to parry such an attack would have helped. You cannot expect every player to go into the menues to learn something like that especially when this feature exists in other games and it works the opposite way here. Basic tutorial popups is MASSIVELY needed.


What I REALLY disliked:

-Not able to cache perks. This one really pissed me off. There is so much build craft potential with the game and having characters with different like classes and ♥♥♥♥. But since you cannot cache perks, you just get 1 good build once and then you just do that, forever. You are completely discouraged to swap any perks out if you have good ones already since you cannot stash them away and they will just be lost to the world when you extract. This is an extraction game so we should be able to stash away perks for future runs or to gear other characters for their unique class builds. But this also leads me into my other big dislike.

-This is not a Rogue game. If you get one god build. This game is just an action combat extraction game. If you clear a run you don't lose any durability, so if you have a god build going, that's it, that's your game for the rest of your playthroughs. That 1 same build over and over leveling up your meta progression. There needs to be a hard delete on your items after completing a run or some form of durability loss. This would go great with the above as if you could stash away perks and such. You could make sure you have perks and weapons for your next run, while taking your god build to ensure a clear of your current run, but losing it in the process. A roguelike/lite is all about RESETTING. If the game doesnt reset you then it's not a rogue game. This is what eventually made me want to review this game negatively because the game loop is just over for me right now. I have a 3 crystal gadgets, with them giving me 45% extra armor, I have insanely good perks making me steamroll any boss or mob in the wild, I heal on crits and I have 2 medkits for the few times I take more damage than what my crits can heal. I just go loop and loop and loop, clearing with ease. But at that point what is the roguelike aspect? I just go in with same build same character nothing really resets other than vendors, world and what bosses I meet. Idk, I really feel this a giant flaw in the design rn and its the core thing keeping me from recommending the game or trying to get any friends along for the ride (and yeah I have only played solo).


To end on I wanna say, thanks alot to the devs of the game for the quick patches and responding to the community. I am a big fan of the Hyper Light universe and really want to see this game thrive. While there are aspects of the game I really dislike I think you have something really special cooking here and I hope you keep staying in the kitchen until this comes out as a 5 star gourmet meal.

да, я потратил на это 2000 и не жалею

Не рекомендую. Основные проблемы: прогрессия, система поломки шмота, кривая генерация мира и отсутствие хоть какого-то баланса. Ноль мета прогрессии, есть только 2 перка которые реально нормальные(+1ключ и +1 аптечка), остальное бесполезный хлам. Херовое создание мира - может реснуть по середине озера и придется минут 15 искать как залезть хоть на один остров с мобами. Не нужный лифт в начале каждого рана, почему не сделать тп сразу на поверхности? Минибоссы бывают намного жестче основных. Поломка предметов и перков -дичь. Причем шмот нельзя чинить, только продать и купить другой в 2 раза дороже или ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ его насовсем. Хотели как в таркове получилось как всегда.