I don't know if, at the time it was released, hyper light drifter was doing anything interesting, but in the wake of years of weighty dodge-y indie action games, and especially ones set in a vaguely defined vibes-first world, it certainly doesn't give me much to think about now. It's a top down dodge roll action game.

Commits one of the most frustrating common sins in games, where environmental hazards are disproportionately punishing for no reason other than we game people have internalised those tropes (those stupid sliding block sequences). It's all rote, and that doesn't make it a bad game, but it gives me nothing to get excited about.

Idk, play Titan Souls

An utterly inscrutable and deeply malevolent ecosystem. Life is taken as quickly as it is created. Corrupted, parasitized, existing seemingly only in pursuit of its own destruction. Like a satanic Rain World, this is an alien place with its own life and laws, but it clearly used to be something else. Something that made sense, something balanced, maybe even peaceful. Not anymore.

Dap is possibly too enigmatic and beautiful to deserve being shackled down by its conventional action gameplay, but it does happen to be a pretty good action game.

Pretty fun action platformer with a lot of additional combat and movement options, many of which not afraid of being kinda busted which honestly? good. Lots of love clearly paid to the feeling of each and every one of your tools. I can't stand the katana though, getting knocked back whenever you hit something is criminal (might be alleviated by upgrading the katana? I discovered that way too late lol.)
Ultimately let down by pretty uninteresting level design that doesn't meaningfully build upon itself as your kit grows, with pretty much only the grappling hook being a mainstay. The last level has a dreadful extended combat survival test in a series of abstract nothing spaces.
Overall had a good time with it, not too long, pretty full of novelty to make up for its shortcomings, and full of the joy of movement.