The art and gameplay of HLD are amazing. I was so hyped to play HLD when it came out, and I was uniquely satisfied with how good it was. The weeks I spent beating this game for the first time were so special.
My greatest gripe with this game was how short it felt… this may be because I played it as a high schooler with a lot of time on his hands but… by the time I was finishing the final zone, I was genuinely expecting there to be some form of plot twist, like in breath of the wild’s great Platoe, telling me “you thought we were done? We’re barely getting started…”. And when I beat the final boss, I can’t tell you I didn’t feel empty afterwards… Aside from that though, this game is truly a masterpiece, I may even replay it soon thanks to this video
yooo, you and I released a video about Hyper Light Drifter at the same time. In my case the game wasn't what it seemed and it absolutely swallowed me whole with these abstract concepts combined together. I played the game like 5 years ago and the soundtrack hasn't left me since.
Thank you for making this video. I played this game on the Vita when I was a lot younger but I didn't remember anything about it until I watched this video. It reminded me of the surreal experience I had when I played, and even if I didn't remember it until now, coming from a kid who's always been interested in FPS and grindy open world games, I've now come to appreciate the feelings that I had when playing this game.
This game is definitely one that grows on you. I have been sitting on my thoughts for a while now, and I am definitely happy that my video was able to remind you of this game's surreal qualities. Thank you for watching!
Excellent analysis! This game is simply amazing, and its community definitively never stops to deliver great works. Greetings from a HLD fan from Brazil
Based on your summation of what you loved about HLD, my first thought was to recommend Nier: Automata if you havent played it already. I won't try to fit all the reasons I love that game into a comment, but it is an experience I often think about even when I'm not playing games, and the soundtrack is one of my favorites to listen to at work. Great video, and keep up the good work. ❤ All hail the algorithm 🙏
I actually haven’t played Nier Automata, but I have thought about playing it in the past. I’ll def have to give it a shot at some point! Thank you for the recommendation, and I’m happy you enjoyed the video! 😊
Very well done!! I share MANY of your thoughts about HLD, and coincidentally, listening to your intro reminded me a ton about my feelings on Solar Ash. I just marathoned a bunch of games on a Game Pass trial, and while it wasn’t my favorite of the bunch, it’s the one that’s still bouncing around in my head. Funny that it’s from the same creator.
HLD is an extremely memorable game, and that's what I love about it! I definitely need to play Solar Ash at some point soon, it's just that I've never found the time to actually play it. I'm glad you enjoyed another one of my videos! Thanks for watching! 🙂
keep at it. Keep making essay videos like this. You're gonna go far On that note, do Disco Elysium. Someday far into the future. Not now, it would take too much time. Just, one day
Not my type of game but I heard the praise, maybe most significant was the lead dev of Warframe played it and that is what inspired the boss fights to unlock the next planet in the junction system. Before that with the old starchart we just jumped from planet to planet on reaching the last mission. Which wasnt rewarding or challenging and also didnt deliver any information or progression structure.
I disagree with you on that point: The sequencing is predictable only for the main boss of the area.... but you have a big maze of side quest for a total of 8 objectives + secret weapons + keys + secret ennemies rush (for each zones) I agree that i may be bad to unlock the final boss with only 4 objectives on each zones. Also for the East zone: it's mindblow to finish the main boss and then unlocking a lot of news paths in one go.
Honestly, that's fair. My issues with the East zone are somewhat due to personal tastes of mine. The linear nature of the main quest is what primarily sticks with me, and while the extra content and maze-like nature of the game is appreciated, I wish they also found a way to make the primary objective non-linear. However, this is yet again most likely just due to what I look for in the games I play. Thank you for watching!
@@wetham44 Yeah it was just weird that you say the game should inovate in that area and after you provide this exemple. Aside that i'm gonna sub and watch your others vids.
Your way of reviewing the game feels very mechanical outside of your love of the soundtrack. It's hard to properly understand your tastes or your criticism games at large without playing this game myself but either the game isn't good enough to completely draw you in with it's setting, feel, story, or other aspects of the game, or you just have too much experience playing other games. As for the game itself. It looks very beautiful and unique. The combat doesn't seem as complicated as it could be nor the enemies as difficult as they could be. The game definitely focuses more on art and story than mechanics and gameplay. If it's free I'd love to check it out after I'm done playing Dave the diver.
I wish that I was able to upload more, and I probably would if I had more time to make these. This is also the same reason why they are shorter in length, as longer videos are more of a time investment. Making videos that I enjoy watching while cataloguing my favorite and least favorite components of a game, remains my primary objective for the time being. I am just trying to get my thoughts out there. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my video, and I look forward to playing Dave the Diver at some point.
Lawnmowing simulator is quite derivative in the face of lawnmower man. They have some obvious similarities, but they are also absolutely not equals. Lawnmower man ran so lawnmowing simulator could fall on its face.🙄
Third and final Review of you, the video, and the game. I'll start with the video itself. I feel that the video is really weird and off-putting for starting with lawn mower sim. You get into Zelda comparisons and that's all well and good even if it's really over done. Then after 2 minutes of talking about peoples taste in games you get to the main subject of the video itself. HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER. You talk a bit about the game and how it's unique before shifting off topic to talk about where you heard about it. You then get back on track to talking about the game. Only to then start talking about how you got into the game itself instead of the games review. You then get back on track again and the third time you stay on track. I won't say that you shifting subjects is a bad thing. It's makes the video feel a bit more real because passionate people often think of something else involving the thing they like and want to talk about that too. I can feel passion from the direction of the video itself but it can come off as a bit distracted, unfocused, or that your script isn't that well planned out. I won't say anything about the further direction of the video because there's no set path for how criticism Is supposed to come out. You talk about your love of the soundtrack before talking about your dislike for the too linear story. You could address your likes and dislikes in any order you wish. But what I will say is that you should have a balanced pattern for juggling the criticism and compliments. Next I'll talk about you. You seem like an earnest guy. I get that impression of you from very little as I've only seen this one video made by you. My biggest inspiration for why I feel that way is the video of the analysis of the game itself. Most people don't even analyze a game half as hard as you in their head. Let alone make a video, write a script, and share that take with the world. It's takes something genuine to do all that. I don't fully know whether you make these videos for attention, for passion, as a way to sharpen yourself or your skills, or as some sort of school project. From what I heard in the video your busy with school and you play games to unwind. If that is truly the case then you make these videos because you just love the game so much. Maybe I'll learn more about you if I watch your other vids but for now you just seem like a passionate player than a dedicated creator. I think you're too busy to play tons of games and get a truly evolved sense for how a game should play out. I think you are more of a critical player than me. I think as long as a game is always fun than it's perfect. If it fails to pull you in or something in the game turns you off then that could either be argued as a problem with the development of the game or the players tastes but if the game ceases to be fun than that is a problem regardless of who's fault it Is. But the player should still understand what they do and don't like while they play it. Lastly, I'll talk about what I think of the game just from what you told me and what I see in the footage. The game looks beautiful. I have to say that first as that is what I thought at first. It's definitely unique even if other games have the same art style, similar setting, or a world like it. As I said in an earlier review the game focuses on art and story over game direction and mechanics. At 3:13 you talk about the games sense of scale and seeing the dead titan in the background was the perfect visual emphasis of that statement. I could feel how big the mountains were and how high up you were just seeing that thing in the background. I not only got to watch you explore and fight, I got to see the world display itself to me at the same time while being visually appealing and intriguing. The game does a fantastic job with it's unique world and art which I love but unfortunately this is something you either love to much or that you decided against going into a deeper explanation of the gameplay or just forgot to do it. At 4:28 we can see you go into what I presume to be a weapon shop so I'm assuming there is either same kind of Leveling system, currency, or shop system. Maybe you scavenge resources and trade or enemies drop money which you use to buy weapons or tools like ravios shop in link between worlds. Whatever gets you to deal with the npcs a bit more so the game doesn't feel as lonely. Which would be a good change of pace. From what I can see of the gameplay which is mostly combat. I see what I believe to be puzzles too but the clips are too fast for me to get a proper grasp on what I'm seeing. It seems the combat is fairly simple but is still fun. You said you loved the dashing and I can see dashing is very important and it seems fun as well as visually appealing. You said you disliked the linear exploration. That does sound like a buzzkill as one of the best pleasures of this world is it's exploration and movement. So having extra terminals instead of extra treasure or weapons or gear is only a good thing as long as the boss fights are good enough to make up for that. You don't go into detail about which is your favorite weapon, play style, or area to explore. This makes talking about those subjects very difficult. So I'm just going to leave that as food for thought for a future video. You should go a bit more into detail about various things you thought were interesting or fun. Such as a favorite weapon, puzzle, boss fight, npc, or song from the soundtrack. I can't talk about those things because you didn't really mention anything about the game beyond how unique it presents itself and how you thought it was lacking a bit in the campaign. I will definitely be checking out this game. What you didn't address in the video I can hopefully find out myself if I can play it. Maybe I'll come back and give a full review of the combat, exploration, puzzle solving, and the other aspects of the game that you didn't give much attention to. Hopefully you do a Dave the diver video or something else I have played next. I'm glad you just showed up in my recommendations. I hope to one day have an at length discussion with you about something we both love as much as you love this game.
HLD will always hold a special place in my heart. it helped me be more introspective as i learned about myself and the ending gave me strength to leave a very abusive relationship. moreover, i relate to both alex preston and the main character as alex has a heart condition and the drifter is dying, i draw parallel to both their experiences in my own life as someone who lives with fibro. HLD kinda saved my life now that i'm reflecting on it.
This game really can have that effect. It’s quite an emotional experience which says a lot over its short runtime. I am glad you are in a better place, and I hope you stay healthy and happy.
I'll post four comments. One for when I just found you and what I think. One for halfway through when I understand your view and your analysis and direction of the video. The third for my full understanding of you and the game. And the fourth one which is this one explaining it.
I read and liked your comment when you posted it, however, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to it. I really appreciated some of your comments and points, and I may improve my future videos with some of your criticisms in mind. However, my video directly targeted the elements I loved and hated from the game, and acted as a summary of my emotions after thinking of it. The point wasn’t to target every small detail that I could summarize, but speak on general elements of the game I liked.
You seem like a determined person in game analysis but you don't upload enough for me to consistently watch you. There's definitely quality in each of your uploads but I can tell you either take your time or are busy with something else most of the time. While I'm listening to your review of the game(a game I've never heard of till this review) I can feel that you only post videos on games you're passionate about. I know I haven't said much and have largely just keep repeating the same thing I said over and over. But I believe it rings true and I just found you.
The art and gameplay of HLD are amazing. I was so hyped to play HLD when it came out, and I was uniquely satisfied with how good it was. The weeks I spent beating this game for the first time were so special.
she hyper on my light til i drift
What an incredible video! I’m subscribing, and getting the game due to you explanations.
I am sure that you will have fun with it! Thank you for watching!
My greatest gripe with this game was how short it felt… this may be because I played it as a high schooler with a lot of time on his hands but… by the time I was finishing the final zone, I was genuinely expecting there to be some form of plot twist, like in breath of the wild’s great Platoe, telling me “you thought we were done? We’re barely getting started…”. And when I beat the final boss, I can’t tell you I didn’t feel empty afterwards…
Aside from that though, this game is truly a masterpiece, I may even replay it soon thanks to this video
I felt a very similar way. Also, I would recommend replaying it. I found it quite fun to give another shot.
Thank you for watching!
yooo, you and I released a video about Hyper Light Drifter at the same time.
In my case the game wasn't what it seemed and it absolutely swallowed me whole with these abstract concepts combined together. I played the game like 5 years ago and the soundtrack hasn't left me since.
It is a really good game, and its soundtrack is really great. Thank you for watching, and I’ll make sure to check out your video some time!
Very good video! I remember that I found the soundtrack first, and later had to play it when I found out it was a game.
The soundtrack is seemingly responsible for getting many to play the actual game. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for making this video. I played this game on the Vita when I was a lot younger but I didn't remember anything about it until I watched this video. It reminded me of the surreal experience I had when I played, and even if I didn't remember it until now, coming from a kid who's always been interested in FPS and grindy open world games, I've now come to appreciate the feelings that I had when playing this game.
This game is definitely one that grows on you. I have been sitting on my thoughts for a while now, and I am definitely happy that my video was able to remind you of this game's surreal qualities.
Thank you for watching!
this guy has 88 subscribers
what a high quality channel
here before famous, lol
Appreciate the love 😂
Thank you for watching!
Great video, now I want to play the game, keep it up!
You should play the game! Thank you for the kind words!
Excellent analysis! This game is simply amazing, and its community definitively never stops to deliver great works. Greetings from a HLD fan from Brazil
Thank you so much! Crazy to have someone watch from Brazil! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Based on your summation of what you loved about HLD, my first thought was to recommend Nier: Automata if you havent played it already.
I won't try to fit all the reasons I love that game into a comment, but it is an experience I often think about even when I'm not playing games, and the soundtrack is one of my favorites to listen to at work.
Great video, and keep up the good work. ❤
All hail the algorithm 🙏
I actually haven’t played Nier Automata, but I have thought about playing it in the past. I’ll def have to give it a shot at some point!
Thank you for the recommendation, and I’m happy you enjoyed the video! 😊
I really like your writing and your voice is really good for video essays, wish you the best dude you have a new sub
Thanks a lot man! Appreciate the kind words!
I can tell you put a lot of effort into this video. Surprised you dont have more views. I dropped a like
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words!
Very well done!! I share MANY of your thoughts about HLD, and coincidentally, listening to your intro reminded me a ton about my feelings on Solar Ash. I just marathoned a bunch of games on a Game Pass trial, and while it wasn’t my favorite of the bunch, it’s the one that’s still bouncing around in my head. Funny that it’s from the same creator.
HLD is an extremely memorable game, and that's what I love about it! I definitely need to play Solar Ash at some point soon, it's just that I've never found the time to actually play it.
I'm glad you enjoyed another one of my videos! Thanks for watching! 🙂
Well articulated thoughts. Nice to listen to.
Thank you for watching! Appreciate the kind words.
keep at it.
Keep making essay videos like this.
You're gonna go far
On that note, do Disco Elysium. Someday far into the future. Not now, it would take too much time. Just, one day
I do love Disco Elysium….
Thanks for the kind words!
Not my type of game but I heard the praise, maybe most significant was the lead dev of Warframe played it and that is what inspired the boss fights to unlock the next planet in the junction system. Before that with the old starchart we just jumped from planet to planet on reaching the last mission. Which wasnt rewarding or challenging and also didnt deliver any information or progression structure.
I disagree with you on that point: The sequencing is predictable only for the main boss of the area.... but you have a big maze of side quest for a total of 8 objectives + secret weapons + keys + secret ennemies rush (for each zones)
I agree that i may be bad to unlock the final boss with only 4 objectives on each zones.
Also for the East zone: it's mindblow to finish the main boss and then unlocking a lot of news paths in one go.
Honestly, that's fair. My issues with the East zone are somewhat due to personal tastes of mine. The linear nature of the main quest is what primarily sticks with me, and while the extra content and maze-like nature of the game is appreciated, I wish they also found a way to make the primary objective non-linear. However, this is yet again most likely just due to what I look for in the games I play. Thank you for watching!
@@wetham44 Yeah it was just weird that you say the game should inovate in that area and after you provide this exemple.
Aside that i'm gonna sub and watch your others vids.
Your way of reviewing the game feels very mechanical outside of your love of the soundtrack. It's hard to properly understand your tastes or your criticism games at large without playing this game myself but either the game isn't good enough to completely draw you in with it's setting, feel, story, or other aspects of the game, or you just have too much experience playing other games. As for the game itself. It looks very beautiful and unique. The combat doesn't seem as complicated as it could be nor the enemies as difficult as they could be. The game definitely focuses more on art and story than mechanics and gameplay. If it's free I'd love to check it out after I'm done playing Dave the diver.
I wish that I was able to upload more, and I probably would if I had more time to make these. This is also the same reason why they are shorter in length, as longer videos are more of a time investment. Making videos that I enjoy watching while cataloguing my favorite and least favorite components of a game, remains my primary objective for the time being. I am just trying to get my thoughts out there.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my video, and I look forward to playing Dave the Diver at some point.
Just a bit too obtuse for it’s own good but still super solid all around
Agreed
And obviously there is a lawnmower simualtor. One of the earliest games was lawnmower man. But I wonder can you run a business in rhat game?
Lawnmowing simulator is quite derivative in the face of lawnmower man. They have some obvious similarities, but they are also absolutely not equals.
Lawnmower man ran so lawnmowing simulator could fall on its face.🙄
Absolutely excellent video! ^^
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Third and final Review of you, the video, and the game. I'll start with the video itself. I feel that the video is really weird and off-putting for starting with lawn mower sim. You get into Zelda comparisons and that's all well and good even if it's really over done. Then after 2 minutes of talking about peoples taste in games you get to the main subject of the video itself. HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER. You talk a bit about the game and how it's unique before shifting off topic to talk about where you heard about it. You then get back on track to talking about the game. Only to then start talking about how you got into the game itself instead of the games review. You then get back on track again and the third time you stay on track.
I won't say that you shifting subjects is a bad thing. It's makes the video feel a bit more real because passionate people often think of something else involving the thing they like and want to talk about that too. I can feel passion from the direction of the video itself but it can come off as a bit distracted, unfocused, or that your script isn't that well planned out.
I won't say anything about the further direction of the video because there's no set path for how criticism Is supposed to come out. You talk about your love of the soundtrack before talking about your dislike for the too linear story. You could address your likes and dislikes in any order you wish. But what I will say is that you should have a balanced pattern for juggling the criticism and compliments.
Next I'll talk about you. You seem like an earnest guy. I get that impression of you from very little as I've only seen this one video made by you. My biggest inspiration for why I feel that way is the video of the analysis of the game itself. Most people don't even analyze a game half as hard as you in their head. Let alone make a video, write a script, and share that take with the world. It's takes something genuine to do all that.
I don't fully know whether you make these videos for attention, for passion, as a way to sharpen yourself or your skills, or as some sort of school project. From what I heard in the video your busy with school and you play games to unwind. If that is truly the case then you make these videos because you just love the game so much. Maybe I'll learn more about you if I watch your other vids but for now you just seem like a passionate player than a dedicated creator.
I think you're too busy to play tons of games and get a truly evolved sense for how a game should play out. I think you are more of a critical player than me. I think as long as a game is always fun than it's perfect. If it fails to pull you in or something in the game turns you off then that could either be argued as a problem with the development of the game or the players tastes but if the game ceases to be fun than that is a problem regardless of who's fault it Is. But the player should still understand what they do and don't like while they play it.
Lastly, I'll talk about what I think of the game just from what you told me and what I see in the footage.
The game looks beautiful. I have to say that first as that is what I thought at first. It's definitely unique even if other games have the same art style, similar setting, or a world like it. As I said in an earlier review the game focuses on art and story over game direction and mechanics.
At 3:13 you talk about the games sense of scale and seeing the dead titan in the background was the perfect visual emphasis of that statement. I could feel how big the mountains were and how high up you were just seeing that thing in the background. I not only got to watch you explore and fight, I got to see the world display itself to me at the same time while being visually appealing and intriguing.
The game does a fantastic job with it's unique world and art which I love but unfortunately this is something you either love to much or that you decided against going into a deeper explanation of the gameplay or just forgot to do it. At 4:28 we can see you go into what I presume to be a weapon shop so I'm assuming there is either same kind of Leveling system, currency, or shop system. Maybe you scavenge resources and trade or enemies drop money which you use to buy weapons or tools like ravios shop in link between worlds. Whatever gets you to deal with the npcs a bit more so the game doesn't feel as lonely. Which would be a good change of pace.
From what I can see of the gameplay which is mostly combat. I see what I believe to be puzzles too but the clips are too fast for me to get a proper grasp on what I'm seeing. It seems the combat is fairly simple but is still fun. You said you loved the dashing and I can see dashing is very important and it seems fun as well as visually appealing.
You said you disliked the linear exploration. That does sound like a buzzkill as one of the best pleasures of this world is it's exploration and movement. So having extra terminals instead of extra treasure or weapons or gear is only a good thing as long as the boss fights are good enough to make up for that.
You don't go into detail about which is your favorite weapon, play style, or area to explore. This makes talking about those subjects very difficult. So I'm just going to leave that as food for thought for a future video. You should go a bit more into detail about various things you thought were interesting or fun. Such as a favorite weapon, puzzle, boss fight, npc, or song from the soundtrack. I can't talk about those things because you didn't really mention anything about the game beyond how unique it presents itself and how you thought it was lacking a bit in the campaign.
I will definitely be checking out this game. What you didn't address in the video I can hopefully find out myself if I can play it. Maybe I'll come back and give a full review of the combat, exploration, puzzle solving, and the other aspects of the game that you didn't give much attention to. Hopefully you do a Dave the diver video or something else I have played next. I'm glad you just showed up in my recommendations. I hope to one day have an at length discussion with you about something we both love as much as you love this game.
This video feels like it's from a 100k channel and you should have that much. Very intriguing and well paced video.
Thanks for the kind words! I am happy that you enjoyed it!
HLD will always hold a special place in my heart. it helped me be more introspective as i learned about myself and the ending gave me strength to leave a very abusive relationship. moreover, i relate to both alex preston and the main character as alex has a heart condition and the drifter is dying, i draw parallel to both their experiences in my own life as someone who lives with fibro.
HLD kinda saved my life now that i'm reflecting on it.
This game really can have that effect. It’s quite an emotional experience which says a lot over its short runtime. I am glad you are in a better place, and I hope you stay healthy and happy.
@@wetham44 thank you, i'm cherishing your optimism 🥰
easy to tell how much passion you put into this. the subscribers will come keep up the good work!❤
Thank you for the kind words! I really enjoy making these, so I doubt I will stop anytime soon! :)
Thank you for watching!
Wetham is now a student of life, not of the lies taught by this alleged "university"
The work force will claim my soul, but for now I cook up… - monk of chung
I'll post four comments. One for when I just found you and what I think. One for halfway through when I understand your view and your analysis and direction of the video. The third for my full understanding of you and the game. And the fourth one which is this one explaining it.
I'll respond to all of your points on the last comment you post.
@@wetham44 when are you going to respond. I get that you're more busy than me but I don't want you to forget about me.
I read and liked your comment when you posted it, however, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to it. I really appreciated some of your comments and points, and I may improve my future videos with some of your criticisms in mind. However, my video directly targeted the elements I loved and hated from the game, and acted as a summary of my emotions after thinking of it. The point wasn’t to target every small detail that I could summarize, but speak on general elements of the game I liked.
You seem like a determined person in game analysis but you don't upload enough for me to consistently watch you. There's definitely quality in each of your uploads but I can tell you either take your time or are busy with something else most of the time. While I'm listening to your review of the game(a game I've never heard of till this review) I can feel that you only post videos on games you're passionate about. I know I haven't said much and have largely just keep repeating the same thing I said over and over. But I believe it rings true and I just found you.
Absolutely fantastic video, it’s criminal how little attention you get!
Appreciate the kind words! Thanks for watching!