Hyper Light Breaker

After giving it a while from the awful initial launch, this game is still just not fun. Coming from the same studio that made Hyper Light Drifter, this has got to be one of the biggest steps down in quality and fun I've ever seen... Hyper Light Drifter was an indie masterpiece all things considered, one of my all time favorite games out of any studio of any size. Hyper Light Breaker? It's just boring, even considering it's early access; I'm seeing very little potential here. It's like they took what made Hyper Light Drifter great and spit on it, threw everything away and made... whatever this is. I'll give it another try when they eventually release a 1.0 finish, maybe they'll have figured out a way to make this game good by then, I'm not holding out for anything good though; until then? Don't bother with this.

Early access release was a barebones state following a questionably lengthy development timeline. At the time of its early access release, I would argue that it did not even have enough content to tout the early access title. It felt more like a proof of concept or build showcase than a real early access games. Minimal objectives and no real direction beyond a barebones "gameplay loop." Then after some updates, developers completely pulled the plug, leaving dedicated fans of the studio with an unfinished game that they purchased which does not even have enough content to call itself early access. Truly disappointing, especially from the devs of the amazing hyper light drifter. One of the only times I have felt passionate enough to leave a negative review. I understand that the purchase of an early access title comes with risks, but it truly just feels like the studio realized they messed up on this game and chose to squeeze out an "early access" release just to recuperate some losses, knowing fully well that they intend to jump ship. At least that's how it felt to me, which hurts even more as I came in to support the title under the good faith that their previous titles had garnered in me. Moving forward, I would not support any of the team's titles that are not full releases that I have already seen extensive positive reviews for.

Помните самобытную инди-игру 2016 года c harsh-чиптюн саундтреком, запоминающимся сюжетом без единого слова и стильным пиксель-артом? Вот вам её сиквел: бессюжетное RoR2-хрючево с кривыми анимациями, с полной потерей оригинальной стилистики, но зато с заунывным и поломанным роуглайт-геймплеем. Кушайте, не обляпайтесь.

What a complete waste of potential. It had a rocky launch, it was slowly getting better through updates, looked like it may end up being pretty good, and then got unceremoniously abandoned. The fact that this game is still being sold, especially at the current price, is a downright SCAM. This game is UNFINISHED. There is barely has enough content to last more than ~5 hours, if you are lucky. DO NOT BUY THIS. Even if you liked HLD.

This game had so many changes over the course of its time in VERY early development It was drastically different depending on when you chose to support them and buy into the early access. From the start it was MUCH TOO EARLY to launch into EA. Lots of developers will push a game into EA with the plan to take about a year (typically) to flesh out whats left of the game and usually it starts at somewhere just over the 1/2 way done mark. This game genuinely launched with like 20% of the content they intended to have when fully done, rightfully a huge amount of people were mad about how little there was. So over the course of some months they slowly raised it to maybe somewhere arounds 50%. Soon after the game got dropped by the devs not JUST cause it was doing so poorly but because they made too many bad decisions across their whole studio. At the tail end of 2024 Heart Machine had a terrible round of layoffs and with everything going so poorly nearly a year after those they did another - that set of layoffs ended the development of this game. By this 50% mark the game was really starting to stand on its own, weapon systems started feeling good to use, more uniqueness to the characters and enemies. The dash & parry system was really starting to feel like it was the follow up to HLD. The world was starting to get fleshed out and it had so much beauty waiting to be revealed. Crisp and responsive, really coming into its own - the game is shelved. We won't get to see the other incredible ideas that they were starting to come up with as the game had found its identity as this beautiful , tough as nails, pseudo-extraction action co-op game. The Music was done by Joel Corelitz and the moment your ears were blessed with the sound track you could feel the love for Disasterpeace's incredible work form HLD. What exists of the OST is a genuine work of art and it breaks my heart that we wont get the rest. The birth of something that could have been a marvelous experience, killed in its infancy frozen in time. I miss something that never existed.

Dude it sucks when you have a visually impressive game that you just know would pop off with a bang. From the rough launch it had to now ending with a sad whimper is super depressing.

The game is very barebone right now, but I can see the potential. As of right now, I'd give it a 6.5/10, but with double the amount of content and a more polished gameplay, I believe it can be a good game. I want Heart Machine to succeed, and I want to come back to the game at full release. If not, I don't mind supporting their effort, even if it doesn't live up to my expectation