(May 27-May 31)

Half-Week

Doing a mid-week update this week, because I am wanting to transition from doing weekly posts, to bi-weekly/twice monthly, and figured it would be cleaner to make the change at the beginning of the month.

• Hyper Light Drifter - So this one is an one to review, as I both loved and hated it at the same time. It is super simple, in that you don't really gain much to change your playstyle - you are mostly just perfecting the basics. Now, there are a couple of shops that will sell you upgrades (though, with no dialog, you have to make your best guess as to what those upgrades are), such bullet-absorbing dashes, or bullet-deflecting slashes, but those upgrades will deplete your stamina meter so fast, you really only get the chance to use them three or four times before needing to recharge the meter. And this is where the game truly shines - it's difficulty.
  
  Throughout the game, you only have the five health, so learning the attack patterns of the dozens of enemies becomes apparent rather early on, especially for some of the mobs who chip off two+ hp per hit... The problem, however, lies with the invincibility frames... It isn't uncommon to get hit by one bullet, get knocked down, and before your character can even stand up, get struck by another... Or if you are near a cliff, hit for one damage, fall off the edge and lose another, then respawn right into a third. For myself, personally, I got insta-killed multiple times in the arena because of this very combo (an enemy with a dashing 2-damage pushed me off a cliff, then hit me again upon respawn). The lack of a recovery time for your character causes more frustration than there needed to be in this game. Everything else in the game, I would classify under "fair" difficulty (even the machine gunners, who pissed me off for quite a while, until I finally mastered their pattern), but this one aspect left me rather disappointed.
  


• Dex - This game is actually deceptively long, likely due to the amount of dialog. It is a fairly well-done story (even if it feels like it's been done multiple times), with lot of optional world-building side-quests. I think there were only 4 main-missions in the game, so if one were to want to just stick to them, it could probably be completed in 2-3 hours, otherwise it is roughly 10+ hours in length (and I totally recommend going after everything - the flavor is worth it). The gameplay itself is decent, but nothing ground-breaking. I think my highlight was the hacking mini-game that you got to play into every time you dove into a computer... They felt like a perfect copy of the hacking missions from the original Sly Cooper trilogy (which were my favorite bits involving Bentley). Outside of the hacking, the combat was rather simple - keep your hands up, blocking until an enemy throws a punch/kick, then just keep throwing your own fists until he is dead. Now, there were a few different "skill-trees" to level up for a slightly different experience, but hand-to-hand seemed to be the most effective. Money isn't really an issue in the game, so loading up on ammo and mastering the weapon tree is definitely one way to go, but Dex is so slow to even lift her guns up, it felt like it would've done more harm than good. Freezing enemies/stealth/invisibility probably would have been fun to play with, but it seemed to requite too much investment in terms of augments and skillpoints.