I honestly feel like Hylics is more of an experience than a game. Just taking a glance at it, Hylics isn’t anything special. It has basic jrpg gameplay, boring level design, and almost no customization for your loadouts. However, Hylics makes up for all of this with its unique art and presentation. Every frame of this game is so surreal and hypnotic to look at, the music makes it feel like everything is melting away and the story and dialogue just sound like someone gave a monkey a typewriter. All of this just makes Hylics such a special and a one of a kind experience. Don’t go into this game expecting anything deep gameplay wise, just let yourself take in everything it has to offer and you’ll find yourself with something completely new.

It is actually not hard to describe what Hylics is but it is hard to describe what it is exactly. Only interpretation of the facets of the game. To me Hylics was all about changing shapes. Morphing. Twisting, Distorting, Changing. The whole game feels like a post-world. Humans don't exist anymore only the objects and that which is human-esque but is not human. Hylics creates a kind of melancholic and solitude with its world and art and music. You have little sparks with the other characters of the game but it all feels a little estranged. By design. The gameplay is pretty average at best for an RPG but I think it's actually alright because I believe the main part of this game was its exploration facet rather than its fighting mechanics. The fights in themselves are set pieces too to be viewed and played with. Though I can't help but wonder if it would have been fun to be able to interract in the fights to a deeper extent rather than what is provided in the game. Maybe a kind of morphing mechanic where you use your mouse to fuse different parts of clay to create a spell or something. The whole world is a-move, twisting and turning. Little creatures explode when you touch them, some share esoteric words. The feeling of being there is so excellent in this sense that I still feel really positive over the fighting.

It's less polished and less fleshed out than Hylics 2, yes. But for how much I'd heard this described as a quirky little oddity or throwaway prankster experiment in comparison to its sequel, I was surprised at just how rich and enjoyable a gaming experience it wound up being.

It does, however, lean much further into being a parody of the JRPG genre (while at the same time toying with the genre's mechanics in genuinely interesting and creative ways). Lindroth seems to take a sort of impish, anarchic glee in "breaking" the genre's fundamental systems or rendering them pointless and absurd.

Near the end of the game, for instance, you walk into a room, open some chests, and are suddenly given what for all intents and purposes amounts to an infinite amount of money — a completely random, unearned, hilariously disproportionate "reward" for doing basically nothing at all. The game's biggest laugh-out-loud moment for me occurs when you defeat the final boss, upon which you're again given "999999 BUCKS" (which you now have no reason to spend), as well as "A HOT DOG," and are informed that you've gained "999999 EXP" and that all of your party members have now reached "LEVEL 63." Neither experience nor levels have been mentioned at all in the game prior to this moment.

The implicit message seems to be: none of this matters! You didn't play this game because you want to crunch numbers¹ or to fight repetitive battles until your avatar is as souped up and powerful as possible. You played it so that you could have the experience of being a weird little yellow guy with a moon for a head, wandering around a dithered 8-bit clay world, squashing vegetables, petting cats, watching trippy animations, and listening to NPCs with goofy walk cycles recite gobbledygook flavor text. And on that front? Hylics delivers.

I can't wait for Hylics 3.


¹For an example of weird JRPG parody that goes the opposite direction and leans waaaaay into the number crunching, check out the games of Damien Crawford!

"Hylics" é um jogo de role-playing indie surrealista desenvolvido por Mason Lindroth. Lançado em 2015, o jogo é conhecido por sua estética única e psicodélica, com gráficos feitos de modelos 3D renderizados em sprites 2D. A narrativa segue Wayne, um protagonista que se aventura em um mundo distorcido e surreal para derrotar uma figura sinistra conhecida como Gibby.

O enredo é marcado por elementos surreais e abstratos, com uma trama não linear e uma ênfase na atmosfera e experiência visual. Os jogadores exploram ambientes estranhos, interagem com personagens bizarros e enfrentam inimigos em combates turn-based. A trilha sonora, composta por Mason Lindroth, contribui para a atmosfera única do jogo.

"Hylics" destaca-se por sua abordagem experimental e estilizada, oferecendo uma experiência de jogo única que apela para aqueles interessados em narrativas não convencionais e visuais distintos.

je pense que ça m'a bien pris trois tentatives avant de réellement jouer à Hylics. je ne tenais pas plus de trente minutes, largué dans ce jeu à l'atmosphère absconse et à l'écriture inexistante.
puis j'ai décidé de lire la page de téléchargement du jeu, qui dit "Hylics est un programme récréationnel avec de légers élements de JRPG" ; programme récréationnel ? la lecture de cette phrase m'a donné l'envie de donner une dernière chance à ce jeu, et vu que Hylics n'est pas un jeu, je l'appréhenderai comme ce qu'il est, c'est-à-dire un objet de divertissement.

ainsi, j'ai rappris à jouer à un jeu sans l'intellectualiser, et j'ai beaucoup aimé hylics. c'était nul scénaristiquement, c'était médiocre en terme de gameplay, mais en termes d'oeuvre, d'objet manufacturé, c'était vraiment fou.

i really like hylics 1. hylics 2 may be objectively more polished, plays better, has more interesting mechanics, but i absolutely love how jank and homemade hylics 1 feels. the limitations of rpg maker can lead to some really interesting creations, and i feel hylics 1 is the posterchild of that. if you look at mason lindroth's other works from around the time, you can see just how smooth and refined his style was, so to see it trimmed down and chopped up as it is in hylics 1 due to rpg maker's limitations is really interesting. definitely worth your time, and is at a really low price on steam