Hylics 2

My first hour with Hylics 2 was spent staring at the screen trying to decide whether what I was looking at counted as art, a hallucination, or a genuinely clever RPG wearing a very weird mask. The answer is all three. Mason Lindroth rebuilt the world of Hylics from an RPG Maker grid into a fully 3D Unity environment, and the jump in visual ambition is immediately obvious. Stop-motion animated clay figures shuffle across pastel abstract landscapes, and every enemy encounter is its own small gallery installation. The aesthetic is not decoration slapped on top of a middling game. It is the game, woven into every attack animation, every NPC non-sequitur, every bizarrely named ability. The combat lands harder than its quirky exterior suggests. At its core it is turn-based, with your party of four (Wayne plus crew members Dedusmuln, Somsnosa, and Pongorma) exchanging Snaps and Gestures with a roster of over 25 enemies that each behave distinctly. Gestures consume Will (the game's MP equivalent), and the design actively pushes you to spend it rather than hoard it. The standout mechanic is Charge Up, a skill you unlock via TV Island that supercharges a character's signature move on the following turn. Pairing it with Pongorma's lightning or a well-timed Soul Crisper creates the kind of satisfying action economy you expect from a much larger production. New Gestures are learned by finding televisions scattered across the world, which is a delightful way to incentivize exploration. The stat system is deliberately lean: HP, Will, and Strength, with gear and status effects doing most of the heavy lifting. It keeps fights feeling tactical without demanding a spreadsheet. Late-game encounters do drag slightly as enemy healing abilities slow the pace, but it never tips into the XP grind territory I usually dread. Where the game earns its minority of criticism is in its platforming. The overworld traversal adds air-dashing, rolling, and gliding, which sounds fun and sometimes is, but depth perception in the 3D environments is genuinely unreliable. Movement is locked to eight directions, hitboxes behave inconsistently, and the optional first-person Sage Labyrinth dungeon is the kind of design that would make a lesser critic question the developer's motives. The 2D platformer minigame fares somewhat better but still feels like a detour rather than a feature. None of this is fatal to the experience, especially since dying in Hylics 2 simply sends you to the Afterlife, which doubles as a fast travel hub and the place where you manually cash in your accumulated experience. Death is a mechanic, not a punishment, and that philosophy runs through the whole design. For RPG players who care about worldbuilding and narrative texture, Hylics 2 is genuinely rewarding in ways that are hard to explain without spoiling. The story (Wayne must stop Gibby's minions from resurrecting their tyrant master) sounds conventional written down, but the game layers it with surreal dialogue, cryptic lore about the Empire of the Sages, and party member conversations on the airship that accumulate into something oddly touching. The ending sequence, where Wayne and crew land on a concert stage and you can play instruments for a cheering crowd, is one of those closing moments that sticks around. Fans of the first Hylics will find additional resonance in the returning motifs, though the game is fully accessible to newcomers. Play time sits around 8 to 12 hours for a standard run, longer if you chase secrets. Chuck Salamone's soundtrack, which blends psychedelic rock and synthesizer work throughout, has its own standalone releases on Bandcamp and is worth seeking out separately. Monika, Scout Team