Hyper Light Breaker Is Confusing

[Music] part of me thinks it's unfair to try and review An Early Access game games change tremendously with even small tweaks and polish and the addition of more content so many of the things I would praise or criticize in a finished game aren't fully implemented yet and so it's not really worth talking about them but then I think about how many great Early Access games I've played that would have been perfectly reasonable to review gloomwood is so good I stopped playing it after the second major update because I want to play it all at once when it comes out but if if I had reviewed it I would have praised it to high heaven and sometimes An Early Access game has such fundamental flaws I think it's fair to review it to take note of the fact that a game will not succeed in its current form heart machine games is a well-regarded Indie Studio that has made two critically acclaimed games their first hyperlight Drifter is almost universally loved and still stands up as one of the best and most inspired indie games of the last 10 years the second game was a bit more divisive critical reception was mixed with some Outlets giving it very high scores and others rating it as kind of mediocre I personally didn't really care all that much for solar Ash but many people really seemed to like it and I ultimately decided that even though it wasn't for me I could see that there was an audience for the game that would love it heart machine revealed their new game 2 and 1/2 years ago and it was met with overwhelming positivity a 3D sequel to Hyperlite Drifter was what almost everyone actually wanted the studio to be working on and then a little more than one year ago the Gameplay trailer revealed that hyperlight breaker was a multiplayer Rogue light with a procedural open world people still seemed to like it and the game certainly looked good but for me at least this was a bit of a disappointing reveal how is the Grim and lonely tone of hyperlight Drifter going to be maintained in a rogue light how is the mystery and atmosphere going to survive a co-op game I didn't understand how har machine plan to marry these two very different genres of game still the gameplay in the trailer did looked pretty interesting and the procedural open world at least sounded like a new idea for the genre well I've put about 18 hours into Hyperlite breaker and it honestly pains me to say this but the game in its current state is fundamentally flawed to its core it does not play well as an action game it doesn't seem to understand what makes the Rogue light genre work and worst of all it's not very good at being a hyperlight game to show you this we're going to start with the most important thing in any video game the game play how an action game feels I'll just restate this game is in Early Access so there are major problems that can be fixed but this game is for sale for $30 and I think it's more than fair to point out huge problems that need to be addressed before it's good one of the things that defines an action game is how it feels in your hands I didn't love solar rash but many people I respect did love it and ultimately I decided the game just wasn't really built for me but hyperlight breaker is a game built for me I love action games I love Rog lights and Rog lights and I adore hyperlight Drifter with solar Ash I still think it's a very well-made game I found the story was a bit trite and I don't think the voice acting was good enough for such a story heavy title and while the movement did feel good I just UL didn't think that the game did enough with it still the movement was good the speed and physics felt great and jumps felt responsive and tight and the game was built around using that movement in interesting ways so when I saw the sequel to Drifter was going to use a hoverboard in the trailers I assumed that har machine had iterated on the skates from solar Ash and would have the movement feeling great in fact combining the things that Drifter did really well with the things that solar Ash did really well is a recipe for a great game but in fact breaker does not improve on the movement system and solar as in fact movement feels significantly worse in hyperlight breaker than it does in heart machines last game to start with the character turns Strangely I play melee action games with the controller which is what heart machine recommends and one of the first things I do when starting a new action game is run my character around in little circles to see how it feels deals turning and Hyperlite breaker has the Dark Souls 2 thing where you do not get a smooth turning radius instead the character seems to snap to different turning points this is hard to describe but when you play it you feel it in the very best action games you won't find yourself unable to climb a spiral staircase or getting frustrated climbing up a hill in the best action games you forget that you're using a controller at all but in breaker's current state moving simply doesn't feel good this is particularly an issue in combat where your character will constantly fail to do what you want them to do this is compounded by The Game's very bad collision and geometry your character will get stuck on curves slightly bumping a wall brings you to a dead stop all this sounds like peddling stuff but it adds up to a deeply unpleasant experience it does not feel good to move your character in the game and that is a death nail for an action game especially one built upon an open world movement is way too slow at default speed and the Collision physics and speed are even worse than the hoverboard you slow down to an absurd degree going up tiny Hills there's nowhere at all to actually use the movement system in a way that is fun this game could desperately use the rails that are a core aspect of solar Ash the landscape you walk across simply doesn't feel as if it has taken the hoverboard into account the hoverboard is not a gameplay mechanic in any significant sense it's a source of frustration rather than a source of joy and again everything is at least 10% too slow probably more I went back to play solar Ash for this video and the movement speed and game feel is just miles beyond what is currently in hyperlight breaker now in this game there's an item that increases movement speed by a bit but you'd be crazy to choose that item over combat focused items and it's always a terrible idea to create an item to fix a problem that should not be in the game to begin with there's just constant friction in the movement in this game the hoverboard often won't deploy when you want and instead you'll just sink into the water this is one of the things again you'll have to experience yourself but at the moment Hyperlite breaker feels bad in your hand it's floaty and slow the physics are all out of whack gravity is all out of whack Collision is bad no action game should stop you dead walking into a 4-in curb this is one of the most basic core aspects of an action game and the fact that it's not nailed down even as the game is being sold for $30 is troubling I guess I should note however that they pack in hyperlight Drifter for that 30 bucks but that didn't matter for me because I already own that game on two different platforms for me Hyperlite breaker was $30 and it feels to me like it's somewhere in between a procedural terrain generation Tech demo and an alpha when it comes to character movement in game field either way movement needs to be at least 10% faster the player should not stop when hitting a curve or bumping a wall the Board needs to have actual gameplay involved there needs to be a way to master it to get faster the game needs to have rails like solar Ash as it stands there's no gamep playay to movement if faster movement means that maps are too small then increase the size in the map right now it feels bad to move and just getting it to decent is not enough for this game to succeed it needs to feel good and heart machine is painfully far away from that goal at the [Music] moment combat combat was a big part of Hyperlite Drifter but it's almost certainly not what people remember that game for Drifter is amazing because of its exploration its World building its tone and its setting but combat is a big part of the game and while it's very simple it is also very thoughtfully designed and Drifter could afford to have simp simple but thoughtfully designed combat because that is not the game's most important feature Hyperlite breaker on the other hand is a co-op Rog light action game as such combat is the most important feature in the game it's what you will spend most of your time doing it's how you progress it's the ultimate goal of the game combat can be a bit of an afterthought if you're making a brooding artsy Indie Zelda like but it has to be nailed down and rock solid and fun as hell if if you're making a co-op Rog light in a world that features a dozen other ridiculously great Rogue light games but sadly in its current state Breakers combat isn't even close to good enough to carry the game it's got decent enough bones I suppose and it's not actively terrible or anything but not actively bad simply isn't good enough for a game in this genre not actively bad isn't going to cut it when you're releasing at the same time as Hades 2 the combat has many many flaws that can be fixed but it also has a bunch of design choices that leave me wondering if heart machine really understands the genre of game they are trying to make let's start with one of the craziest things about this game to me in Hyperlite Drifter you have a sword and you have a gun just like in this game in the first game you recharge your gun by hitting enemies it's literally the core of that game's combat Loop and it's the one genius design choice that makes the whole thing work in fact it's such a great idea that tons of other games took note and started using the same system in their games hyperlight Drifter might not have been the first game to do it but after Drifter a ton of games started using that exact same system whether to recharge Shields or ammo or Mana or magic it just became very common after hyperlight Drifter it was probably the most influential gameplay design choice to come out of the first game now Hyperlite breaker is literally set in the same universe it also has a melee and gun system breaker takes a ton of visual design cues from the first game it uses the same gear bits currency for upgrades one would assume a game in the same universe with so many similar Design Elements would use the most influential and important one when it comes to gameplay design but for some incomprehensible reason no you do not recharge your gun by hitting enemies and break instead you get ammo as random drops from some enemies and occasionally out of chests and this change has cascading negative effects on everything from game feel to how bosses are designed now again this might seem like another small thing but is actually huge and emblematic of a muddled design that lacks the cohesive Vision required to make a great Rog light this same studio in their first game had a brilliant game design for how to balance melee and range attacks they did it in a game that is set in the same universe as this one this game would be significantly improved by simply using the same system as Drifter and the fact that it doesn't says something troubling about the studio making the game if this was a balanc choice it's a terrible one balance should never be the enemy of A game feeling good this game could desperately use the dance of Drifter that game's combat is all about alternating between melee and ranged attacks it creates a high stakes Rhythm gameplay Loop and this game really really needs that balance it by lowering how much energy you get from melee hits or balance it with damage or enemy Health but The Drifter system would add a ton of options for increased depth whether that's in items builds or gam playay and this game desperately needs more depth Beyond even that sloppy design is all over the Gameplay at the moment breaker is loaded with flying enemies that are just horrific to fight you have to jump in the air to kill them but you can only Swing Your Weapon once which feels so bad and clunky it's almost impossible to hit flying enemies without locking on to them but the game's lock on is broken at its very core it will lock on to enemies behind you and spin the camera around it will suddenly turn the lock on off for seemingly no reason it's almost impossible to switch the lock on from one enemy to another every boss fight has respawning dog and this lock on means that you'll constantly get spun around to lock on to a dog behind you instead of the huge boss in front of you I find it hard to believe this did not come up in player testing my suspicion is the game locks on to the nearest enemy regardless of position but that's probably the worst possible way to implement a Target lock I need to lock onto ranged enemies or a flying enemy what I don't need to do is lock onto a slow melee enemy who has spawned behind me what I don't need is for the lock on to spin me away from a boss when parrying is super important better action games tend to prioritize whatever is in the center of your screen but not breaker the game has a Parry system but I do not know why it is so weakly implemented parrying gives almost no visual or audio cue that you have pulled it off the only way to really know is that you get a few health back [Applause] but in chaotic fights with a ton of particle effects parrying needs to matter if you want this to be a core system of the game a successful Parry needs to have a loud audio queue it needs to give you real benefits otherwise it's just another finicky thing to take care of the game is full of ground effects but there's no interesting system for dealing with it movement again doesn't feel good you can't do multiple attacks in the air nothing in the combat system feels cohesive at all all of these little things and they are little things but all of them add up along with the movement to make the game simply feel bad to play almost every small Choice the devs have made here is not the right one there needs to be way more skill expression the player needs to be able to do multiple attacks in the air the player should be able to dash to extend combos the lock on needs to not be broken the ammo system is a disaster the Parry system is underbaked for something that seems to be core to the design it's a very bad sign when a game launches with more things wrong in its core systems than are right and none of this stuff is even the most important problem the game has at the moment itemization I'm obviously not a game designer I'm a manual labor but I like games and over the years I've come to believe that the best ones come out of a cohesive vision born of a question I like to imagine that something like Hades began with the question what if we took our unique approach to storytelling and married it to an action game and from there they probably arrived at the Rog light genre through Natural Evolution and iteration the best version of hyperlight breaker probably would have begun with the question what if we made hyperlight Drifter but as a 3D action game but after having watched a ton of stuff about the development of this game and including the noclip documentary I have come to think that Hyperlite breaker was not born out of a desire to make a Hyperlite game but rather it seems to have been born out of an interesting engineering challenge these different biomes together and procedurally generate one level the entire open world what we're going to do instead is the Pangia method uh and what that means is other biomes will be combined in a single map for a true open World experience and a Rog likee structure for the the first time ever we get to retain our large individual biome sizes with plenty of exploration here plenty of things to fight plenty of things to collect but now everything is more unique now everything is more clear now everything is more navigable the size and scale finally feels right but it's starting to click it's a very big aha moment for us almost everything you read about this game focuses heavily on the procedural generation of the open world maps I am sure that that was an interesting nut to crack for all the very smart people in the studio but it's not a particularly interesting thing for the player of a video game and designing a game around procedural map generation creates way more problems than it does Solutions if procedural map generation is the technology that drove the creation of the game well then a Rog light is probably the only genre that's even possible but this is getting game designed backwards a Rog light may be the only genre that works with procedural open worlds but procedural open worlds don't necessarily make for a great Rogue light my hunch is at heart machine has spent years getting this map technology to work and has only recently begun designing a game to work with it in fact the gameplay reveal was over a year ago and the two bosses shown are the only two bosses in the game and the enemies in that trailer are the only enemies in the game and the weapons shown seem to be the only weapons in the game there's almost nothing in this game that wasn't shown in that reveal over a year ago and frankly there isn't nearly enough in the game to sustain more than about 5 hours of gameplay more importantly if a studio is going to make a rogue light they need to have a real handle on what makes the genre tick nobody should make a rogue light unless they really love playing games in that genre and the current version of breaker doesn't seem to understand what people love about Rog lights every successful one from Isaac Nuclear Throne and gungeon to risk of rain 2 Hades and dead cells have both excellent game feel and a laser focus on crazy item Synergy and the creation of broken builds the entire reason to play these games is because you know sooner or later you will end up with a build that trivializes the balance of the game you know that every so often the entire way the game plays Will Change it's it's a genre that exists literally exists to break balance the reason Isaac became the first massive Blockbuster is because that game allows for ridiculous variance in builds sooner or later you will end up with the guppy transformation or a brimstone in Tammy's head build or any one of hundreds of ridiculous and insane synergies that fundamentally change the game at its core dead cells and risk of rain 2 offer the same massive gameplay changes depending upon what items you find you can use pure skill to get very far in Isaac or dead cells with terrible item luck but you will keep playing because you know at some point a crazy set of items will come together this is the very bottom basic core of the genre it is the key it's what makes the entire experience and breaker has precisely none of that literally none every single thing about the item weapon economy fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of the genre of game har machine is trying to make first of all the best items and weapons are bought at your base from vendors and not found in the world or taken off bosses which is insane the core of the experience is the rush of finding the perfect item and having a synergistic build come together through luck checking a vendor between runs isn't fun if they're going to be vendors at all they need to be only bad luck protection but definitely not the core of the item experience but more importantly you cannot make a successful Rogue light if the best items are all about increasing the damage of your sword or gun massively increasing health and damage does not change the game at all it just makes things die quicker in order to make this game successful items need to change how you play the game that would mean items that you don't know make a laser beam fire around you after two swings and then an item that makes laser beams poison things and then an item that makes enemies that are poisoned explode that's what a rogue light has to feel like Rog likee itemization needs to be creative and crazy there are none literally no successful games in the genre that do not have this even the earliest games in the genre like Spelunky understand this you cannot make a game that I have to play over and over where the goal is to increase my weapon damage you cannot make a rogue like where every r is basically exactly the same aside from map locations obviously more items will be released through Early Access but the fact that in 16 hours I quite literally did not find even one item that made the game feel any different from hour one implies that the devs either don't understand the genre or perhaps are hamstrung by the extremely insane decision to make this a Hyperlite Drifter sequel which leads us to the last section why is this a sequel now there's an obvious answer to that question of course a sequel to Hyperlite Drifter was certain to get press attention and likely to generate far more fan attention than har machine announcing yet another Indie Rogue light except this time with a procedural open world map generation technology that doesn't really affect gameplay but is a super cool problem the engineers in the studio had been working on heart machine has an IP that is popular Hyperlite Drifter has over 13 ,000 reviews on Steam while solar RH has about a thousand I follow a developer on substack who writes about the industry and he has a formula for estimating game sales based upon Steam Reviews the ratio has changed over time but according to his formula Hyperlite Drifter probably sold around 650,000 copies on Steam alone while solar Ash probably sold closer to 30,000 units on Steam now solar Ash was on Game Pass and I'm sure it had revenue generated elsewhere but it's a simple fact that Drifter was a significant hit and solar Ash was not so it was a natural choice to make their next game a sequel to Drifter to try and put the studio back on firmer Financial footing in fact I'd argue that was the objectively correct choice for a business to make but there are problems with trying to marry the hyperlight IP to a co-op Rog light game and none of them seem to have been solved yet Hyperlite Drifter is beloved because of its tone and atmosphere it feels dark and grounded it's depressing and mysterious it's violent and creepy in many places it feels like you're exploring a world that is ending where civilization has broken down and cute little animals are fleeing enemies who are skinning them alive after enslaving them it is pretty dark is what I'm saying here and it's also very grounded it feels real there are no crazy abilities Everything feels real and possible but a Rog light cannot be grounded and a co-op game can't be lonely and mysterious I don't think it's crazy to say you literally could not pick a worse fit genre-wise for hyperlight Drifter than a co-op Rog light this presents a problem that only has two answers either you have to throw away the tone and atmosphere and lean into what makes a co-op Rogue light work or you have to keep the tone and atmosphere and design the Rogue light in a way that stays true to the first game and the latter of those is much much harder I'm a guy who's constantly full of suggestions but I can't even imagine a way to both stay true to the first game but also make a fun Rogue light I actually don't think it can be done frankly so my suggestion to Heart machine is forget about the name it is a sunk cost at this point you made the initial bad choice to not just make a 3D Drifter sequel which would have been a massive Titanic hit by the way and now you are too far along to change that now you need to forget the name and make a great Rogue light that means Rock Solid game feel faster movement crazy abilities and items it means letting players break the balance every 10 runs it means being able to finish a combo in the air and then Dash and combo three more times everything has to be around game feel and game game play that's the basic goal you must hit for this to not be a sales and critical disaster you still have a bunch of Goodwill with this name and it's keeping people from fully unloading on the game in its current form but that's not going to last after getting the game to feel great and making items and progression feel interesting enough to be worth playing you still haven't solved the core problem you've created with the open world procedural generation where does it go from here is the final Vision that you clear two or three open worlds in a row meaning nine bosses and 6 hours for each completion runs are going to be very very long if that's the case if each success requires more than one map and it must be cuz there's just not enough here to have each run only include one map how does that work with multiplayer this is being sold for 30 bucks and that's fine I totally understand raising money through the Early Access system but it feels like the studio hasn't even figured out what the final game is here this feels like in a pre-alpha game design State again I've played for over 16 hours and found only a few things I like and wrote thousands of words and I can't figure out what the final gameplay Loop is going to be is it that you clear one map and move on and then like you know you'll do it all again on a second map and do it all again on a third map or you're going to run through all three Maps each time I don't know Co-op and a relatively large open world don't necessarily mix well with a rogue light which is supposed to be built around short runs and drop in drop out play I'm not confident that heart machine has fully answered any of these questions internally yet and the fact that I don't know the answer to some of these questions is pretty troubling I think now I'm rooting for this game because I like the studio and I love the first game and even though I didn't love solar Ash I respected it quite a bit but after playing through everything that's here I'm left in what I imagine is the same place the developers are staring at more questions than answers all right I'm like really have been for 2 weeks which is very annoying that's probably why my voice sounds like this all right thanks for coming I'll see you next time bye