Hyper Light Breaker

Update: (admittedly out of frustration) Definitely a no. And more so, this might be the definitive nail in the coffin for me purchasing early access games. There is nothing compelling here and no continuity from world to world. The idea of playing in the world established by HLD sounds great but that is where it ends. What story is being told except to grind and start over? Are you telling the story that the Breakers are what, taking dips into in a computer simulation and the characters are just processes that you attach functions to i.e. exes - meh? Sycoms provide what, throughput/bandwidth...hmmm. Bosses and enemies are rogue processes. Maybe there was a rift in the access to the original IP of HLD. But, this became a sad spin on TRON. What would compel me to explore in a rogue lite game? Players in this title are punished for exploring and not extracting successfully. Taking too long in the world?... "time to get assassinated" and "time to crank up the notoriety" even if you haven't engaged in combat. Weapons and sycoms..."wannabe ghosts i.e. Destiny" locked to characters/classes along with weapons none the less which does not sound like much openness for creativity in "builds." And, I can only look a certain way, also locked to class? Wow. Perhaps I was hoping for too much, HLD in a 3D representation with somewhere between Borderlands and Destiny openness. And RPG elements, compelling but abstract story (don't need text or voice overs), character progression, lore expansion through world exploration. No class based gate keeping. It truly is my fault for envisioning something different. What I do think though is that if its a platformer in a 3D world with a nod to HLD, just state that and make the time and $ investment worth it. Stop painting the picture this is something more. I would be perfectly alright with that. This is taking Zelda, changing it to Pong, and stating the paddles can be upgraded to hit the ball harder maybe even with backspin...if your paddle is blue. But playing a match too long speeds the ball up, makes it smaller and sends 5x the number while playing against the boss paddle on the other side. But I should explore how far off screen I can move my paddle and see if it comes around the other side or something. Maybe it will be a different color and not have anything I can use. Previous Review: TLDR, no or wait is where this falls with me. What you might want to know... Three things: One this is a rogue-like third person and not an action adventure RPG title as labeled/tagged so much as a progressive 3rd person title where you level up (0 character development and no role to play). Two, It is early access so understand you are stepping into an unfinished title. Three, there is not enough content presently and personally I could not make it that many hours before I decided to uninstall. There you go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why? Mainly, changing the direction of this title to be a rogue-like supposed open world 3rd person is not what I personally signed up for. It was coined as an open world action adventure RPG when it was announced and first released into early access. The game tags/attributes in steam still reflect that. I personally feel like this is bait and switch which saddens me. Hyper Light Drifter was an amazing title and I wanted to discover more of the world through this title. I loved its abstract nature and telling of story through the world, short animations and imagery. With the change in direction I do not believe this will be the case for Hyper Light Breaker. There is nothing compelling which would lead me to investing in character development. In fact, there is none to speak of, i.e. character development or role in a story. Progression for the sake of progression is not what I was looking for and not what the original title advertised itself as. I have other games for that. It is rare that I state a title may be out for a cash grab and I am reticent to apply that label here. That said, this title is starting to resemble an empty shell with shiny paint. Maybe there will be another shift in direction. But for now, if you were looking for story, adventure, exploration, and overall lore building which leads to those things that pull you into a title, this is not the one in its current state. Hyper Light Breaker is unfortunately breaking the formulaic world the franchise was so successful in creating.