I didn't have any particular expectations for Heart Machine's open world roguelike Hyper Light Breaker, but I wasn't expecting it to feel so... broken-up, I guess. In this sequel to 2016's alternately wistful and frenzied action-RPG, you are a debonair-looking sod with a hoverboard, paraglider, blades and guns, sent out into the procedurally generated realms of the Overgrowth to kill Abyss Kings, eat stat boosts and extract with loot.
The aforesaid hoverboard and glider, together with the streaking neon visual direction, suggest a game of fluid acrobatics, akin to the studio's last release Solar Ash, which, to quote Ed's review, "has you rollerblade around shattered worlds like a post apocalyptic gazelle on wheels". Perhaps that game exists deeper within Hyper Light Breaker, but during my 20 minutes with the game at GDC, I found myself stopping and starting and struggling to build momentum using a combat system that felt both deliberately challenging and stilted.
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