Moises Taveras
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Writing For
Kotaku
Digital TrendsLatest Reviews
If I pull up a Google Maps street view of my old house in the Dominican Republic, I’m met by a stranger. I don’t mean the literal stranger eyeing the camera from the garage, but the place itself. The exterior’s been repainted. The little garden out front has been ripped out. The parking spaces, which were once just aisles of concrete between dirt patches and tufts of grass, have been paved over, and the pathway to the door is no longer. The stoop on which I’d wait for my friends and count ants is gone. Through the barred windows, I see the now vacant sun room where I once spent a summer playing Super Mario 64 on my uncle’s purple Nintendo DS. The sight of my once-home prompts a stinging in my eye.
Speaking of, though Hinterberg’s dungeons lean heavily into Zelda territory, its combat most notably cribs from Dark Souls, though it’s never so grueling. You have a light and heavy swing which can be woven into short and simple combos that might stagger and even topple opponents. When you’re not on the attack, though, you’ll be dodge-rolling like a motherfucker, as well as managing your stamina and MP gauge, which are tied to the use of two abilities which rotate depending on the region you’re currently in. The cherry on top are these super-effective moves called attack conduits which have cooldown timers rather than gauges, and can be swapped out at nearly any time. If this sounds pretty standard, it’s because it is, and Hinterberg doesn’t mess with this winning formula for the sake of player comfort. In a game brimming with novelty, it’s a little disappointing how cut-and-dry encounters grow to be.
Upgrades and other pieces of equipment build upon and feed into the promise of the shell system and make it explode. A grappling hook, for example, allows you to pull shells toward you in the middle of combat, rewarding quick thinking when the going gets rough. An upgrade I unlocked allowed me to recover my shell’s health, which gets knocked down when you block, by attacking immediately afterwards ala Bloodborne’s health mechanic. A hammer upgrade lets you stick any shell on the end of your weapon and make it more powerful, while simultaneously granting you a second shield and set of abilities if you choose to swap between your armor and weapon. After unlocking a nearly impervious shell—which needs to be sought out and worn or bought to unlock permanently—I insured it at a shopkeeper (meaning that I could spawn with it), found a way to duplicate the shell, and doubled up on it as armor and a weapon. By the end of the game, I was effectively in the chunkiest armor imaginable, fat rolling all over the place, and two-handing a max-level Zweihander that I swung with reckless abandon. If you know, you know, but for the folks that...