Hyper Light Drifter

Rating: 7.5

Happy Price: 9.99

Gameplay

Hyper Light Drifter 16 bit top down hack and slash that emphasizes on your ability to teleport around as your main offense and defense. It's rare for teleportation to be a core mechanic of a melee combat based game, and it's refreshing since its one of the most fun things to do in any medium. Yes, you can teleport around at will, and backstab enemies without any drain to stamina or mana, it's just apart of your character and it's awesome.

Combat

You will be taken back to the 90's where games did not forgive, did not adjust, and relied on player reactions to succeed. It's a very simple formula, the user can attack with a sword or shoot projectiles. There is a three hit melee combo along with upgrades that allow for new attacks. New guns can be acquired or purchased with a strange currency that takes forever to accrue for upgrades. There are tons of variety among enemies which forces you to learn and adjust to them as the game goes on. While playing, you will notice yourself getting better with reactions and timing which is one of the coolest things a game can do. You don't gain EXP in this game and upgrades are few and far between, so you have to rely on yourself to be better. Teleporting around and having full control of my success is incredibly rewarding and fun, the combat design is the best part of the game.

Level Design

Levels are hand crafted, and they are done very well. Lots of natural barriers for the player to use when in tricky situations, and even choke points that can be created. It's extremely fun to create choke points when flooded by enemies to even the odds. Health and currency are cleverly hidden in areas that force the player to look around and explore the world. It's almost necessary to do so, not being able to upgrade would be quite the death sentence as the game progresses. When in combat it was great, one issue I had was navigating the levels along with the provided map. It was extremely confusing and things weren't laid out very clearly. In a game that punishes for mistakes, things need to be labeled well. There were several times I would have to backtrack in areas because I knew that I had to have missed something along the way. While doing this, the horde of enemies would re appear and I'd have to recreate the magic I did the first time in order to "maybe" do something correctly. I found this incredibly frustrating because the game felt like a complicated labyrinth while having hard combat. Had this been done better, I think I'd rate this game much higher since it had tons going for it. I struggled getting through this game, especially knowing I had other games on deck like Overwatch.

Art

I can't say enough about the artwork. The color palette is consistent and the quality never lets up throughout the whole experience. Bosses, enemies, and the environment look great. Cut scenes are fantastic, and since there isn't any dialogue the story is communicated solely through pictures. This is incredibly ambitions, and at times I don't think I had a full grasp of what was going on. But for the most part I think I had a general idea. It kind of felt like when someone is speaking another language to you, but have really good body language and you can confidently assume what they are talking about. I would argue that the pixel art can be framed and put up in a gallery it's that good.

Summary

Using the GameMaker Studio engine, this is by far the best game I've ever seen created with that tool. The combat is phenomenal with a great balance of difficulty since you as a character are overpowered with the ability to have an unlimited use of teleportation. However the labyrinth of a map is confusing, and since there isn't any real reward of redoing tasks like killing enemies that spawn in an area, it makes things frustrating since in some cases you have to do repetitive difficult tasks. If there was some way to mitigate that, it would be a much better experience.

Dark Souls

Rating: 9/10

Happy Price: $45-50

This is certainly late for a review, but I would argue that there's rarely a time too late to get into Dark Souls. With the announcement of Dark Souls III, it's good practice to look at the series' roots (sans Demon's Souls).

Overall:
Dark Souls is a game series that focuses more on punishing bad plays and reckless behavior in games. That's the main reason the game has been considered notoriously difficult by many. If you decide to run around without using a shield or swing your sword at an enemy without managing your stamina, then your death is typically on you. The game gives the player the means to survive in the world, and it's up to the player to use what they must in order to survive. RNG (Random Number Generators or the sense of chance) has little to no involvement. Which means that the methodical player who is attentive and quick to respond is sure to pass through the game with little difficulty. To be fair, a decent amount of patience is necessary as occasionally enemies will kill you in one blow and lingering hurt-boxes do exist in inconvenient places. Which will lead to that famous panicked dash to reclaim your souls (unless you frequently spend them). But with Dark Souls, the message is that even if you lose everything, as long as you have the will to keep going then you will be sure to win eventually. Victory isn't always guaranteed, but perseverance and trying multiple paths to victory may lead to the best way for you.

Standout points:
-Story
Dark Souls' storytelling deserves its own topic as it's largely interpretive. If you go through the entire game -  never reading any item descriptions and thinking nothing to explore every single area - your view of the story will be completely different from someone who has read everything on a similar playthrough. Different even still for someone who has done everything without reading everything. So really the best way to get the most out of the story is to play through a couple times, read everything, do everything and even THEN it's largely left to your own interpretation.

Sounds like too much of a pain, huh? If you like really deep stories, then this is perfect. And then you can join the community in discussing these narratives and where it will show up again in future games. Though if interpretive narratives aren't your thing, then it's still fine because the base narrative is perfect for you. You are the chosen undead who will save the world if you gather souls and gain enough strength to conquer all.


-Multiplayer/Community
How Dark Souls handles multiplayer is interesting as it's mostly handled with in-game features. If you wish to partake in multiplayer and engage in jolly co-operation, you have to be in human form. You can summon people who may or may not exactly help you to beat the area boss. However, being human allows for other players to enter your world in order to fight you. In these instances, there are a few typical types of invaders depending on your level: The ones who will joke around and use tactics to inconvenience the player resulting in an inconvenient death; the ones who take invasions seriously (most likely using katanas) and will either bow or use disrespectful gestures if they win; and the neutral players who do it for fun (though they may or may not be on their way into either of the previously mentioned groups).

Aside from that, the people love the game and do actually want others to play/continue to play despite any and all complaints about "noobs" and spammers.


Conclusion:
Would I buy it? 

If you love games that challenge you to master skills and don't mind possibly dying thousands of times until you figure how to best apply said skills? Then you need this game.
If you hate losing in games or don't want to invest time into learning something, then don't seek this. You may not like it.

I would honestly suggest to everyone to try it, not just to make the Souls community grow, but just so everyone can enjoy a game that challenges you to be a better you. That honestly wants you to win despite throwing death at you at the turn of every corner.

Dark Souls has the kind of storytelling I wish more games would incorporate. Where you're given the baseline narrative and you as a player question why you're doing these things. Then you do something else, and something else happens. It may be significant, it may not be. You could discover that you're doing some great thing or you're committing some horrible atrocity to all mankind.