Recent reviews by Cardamom

My Gosh-dang Essay:

Like many of the people here I've been a huge Heart Machine fan for years now, and have been eagerly anticipating the release of this game even through the multiple delays and push-backs. I assumed incorrectly that with this extra time would come a level of polish that is demonstrative of a year of Heart Machine's effort and wish to release a fun/playable product. Despite the claims HM made when the game was delayed from Summer last year to January this year I see now Hyper Light Breaker was probably delayed because it wasn't in a playable state. Many devs have over-promised before and maybe there was a pressure on this team to release sooner rather than delay again and draw the ire of their community.

Unfortunately the game is not fun in it's current state.
Of the game's core mechanics- dashing, parrying, gliding, hovering, and shooting all feel dissatisfying and "sticky". There is something off between the blending of each animation to the next. It's too slow and clunky to go from one action to the next which makes for a very icky basic mechanics loop. Only attacking in melee feels rewarding and immediate at the start of the game, which leads early players to focus on this as a sole strategy.

It's hard to not compare Hyper Light Breaker to more satisfying multiplayer games- this game doesn't offer a new or unique experience to what is already available. I've seen people mention Risk of Rain 2, Hades, Atlyss, Supervive, even Fortnight. For me the looming giant in the room is the recently released Helldivers 2- game that includes a disposable arsenal, generated terrain, and permanent upgrades with a thorough amount of lore and the much desired tutorial zone missing from Hyper Light Breaker. With such stiff competition there is real challenge to carve a niche and even more so for a multiplayer game released unpolished with unsatisfying combat, little to no story, and no in-game communication.

Heart Machine recently started a Patreon which would have been a perfect opportunity for them to release this early build to their patrons and get some VERY necessary QA testing as many game studios have done before. Currently the Patreon is a mess of slop with over-promises and unclear benefits, it's scarcely updated and what is on there has already been available to the public for those who go looking for it.

My boyfriend and I took today off because we were so exited to play this. I told all my friends how excited I was for this ever since I saw that first animated trailer - the one that ended with the 3D reveal. This has been a really sad release. I hope the devs can bring this back, but it's a real No-Man's Overgrowth right now.

Things to fix out the gate:

Easier Fixes:
-Start with both gendered Blu characters unlocked
-Keybindings
-Graphics Options including vSync and render scale
-A popup text tutorial explaining basic movement/combat controls
-At minimum a chat, but hopefully VC
-A way to get back into the overgrowth without visiting the Hub
-Faster Hoverboard / A way to switch from gliding to hoverboard

Harder Fixes:
-Make combat animations more immediate (especially a more satisfying parry)
-Tutorial Zone
-Some story direction, preferably a cutscene that leads into the tutorial zone
-Something needs to happen with the difficulty, like scaling with increasing loot rarity/rewards
-Worldgen fixes regarding boss spawns
-World Hazard Clarity fixes
-Optimization with load times/stuttering (It's not great when the livestream on the Steam page is running into issues with this)

Many of these are available in games developed by a single person and released for free on itch.io, this is a studio with an impressive resume, I know y'all can make Hyper Light Breaker appreciated and successful by 1.0!

The heroes are not all balanced for Duos, but it's fun and I like the aspect of exploration each game allows.

Beautiful and immersive. The dueling gameplay, lighting, models, effects, atmosphere, and dialogue are all finely tuned and showcases the unbelievable talent at Fireplace Games. Amazing game, a must-buy at any price.

I also love the dotted oil paint-like effect of objects as they get further away.
And chicken <3

Similar to the first, but with more.

i really want to get to the point where I start breaking the game, but unkillable melee enemies spawn and I have to restart the run because there's no way to kill them. I'm just sitting there holding down the attack button forever and they take zero damage.

You've been frozen for over a thousand years.
Super Earth was destroyed ages ago.
The Helldivers are an effective weapon built by an ancient civilization.
Gaslighting them could not be easier.
Who's really controlling things?

This game is very fun to replay thanks the the large array of weapons, although the first boss is a huge difficulty spike!


BEWARE: I got this game after the 1.0 release so I'm not sure how it was before, but right now the game is unplayable. The controller input is absolutely broken.
Randomly the game decides buttons on my controller do different actions and the only way to fix this is to disconnect my controller and reconnect it to my computer. I've tried every other solution and racked up 2 hours just trying to fix this. This is the only game this happens with. I thought I would enjoy this game since I play Brawlhalla very often and this is similar. The game has potential for sure, but right now it's absolutely a scam. Broken as hell. Very frustrating.

Edit: Just tried using a friend's controller. Yep, it's broken only in this game, everything else works like it should.
Nevermind! This got fixed in the last couple patches!

Has a 3rd party launcher that asks to download another 70 gb. Launched the game and noticed the controls were inverted, so naturally I searched the options. After not finding how to fix it for 20 minutes I went on the internet to find if anyone had the solution. Every single post I found was met with hate from the community who tell people to spend hundred of dollars on custom controllers. Overly complicated controls and snobby community. Wish this could a review about the game.

In many ways this game still feels more modern, relevant, and revolutionary in 2023 then when it was released.

I genuinely believe the creators looked into a time cube and predicted an impossibly reasonable future, maybe this scenario has always been coded into the human experience. "What if I could poison the world and sell them the antidote?" But this game presents the most realistic depiction of this I've ever read.

Deus Ex allows players an ultimate sense of freedom with the situation and environment, asking "How do YOU want to play this?" For me it's taking a rocket launcher and killing my closest allies - BUT Deus Ex replies; "Oh good, they were evil and you just avoided a future boss fight.".

For people who want to get into this but may be intimidated by this game's age and verbose features, I ask you please spend one level and try your best to get past the jank of roughly 500 useless keybindings and graphics shenanigans. After the first mission all the jank fades into the background and you'll find the vast majority of the game is played through simple mouse clicks. This game absolutely has a problem with presenting new players with too much at once, but most people don't realize all of this can be skipped or ignored until later.

My personal recommendation- skip the intro cutscene and come back to it later. All of the dialogue you need to know is within the game and you'll be caught up with the major conspiracy by the end of the first level. And for me the game and story feel better with only the knowledge Denton currently has.

This game also allows you to keep the skillpoints it gives you at the beginning of the game until you're better established, so don't feel pressured to use them in the title menu.

Story, gameplay, graphics- all timeless. -There's a reason this game's ideas and culture are still so prevalent today.
Play this, you will not regret it.

I want to have tea with the big cows.