HyperParasite is a twin-stick rogue-lite adventure. This might be all you need to know to cement your purchase. It has an 80s esthetic that’s full of pixels, neon, and catchphrases that are totally radical. It has a really unique hook that separates itself from the other roguelikes out there, and requires a lot more skill from you as well. As quickly as you’ll die, you’ll just as quickly want to get back into the action.
In a nearly destroyed world, a hyper-parasite has come along, essentially making you the bad guy of the story. Other than that, there’s no preamble. You’re just let loose to wreak havoc on it. The hook to this game is the fact that you can inhabit nearly any enemy you have completely researched. This lets you take on their health and weapons. If they die, you’re back to your regular hyper-parasite form until either you die or find another host.
The action is pretty standard, varying from ranged to melee and some things in-between. In the world, you can use the environment against the humans by setting off explosions or getting them in the crossfire of their own turrets. There’s some shmup elements when it comes to bosses that’ll really put you to the test, and often seeing the game over screen. Moving about the world is grid based like Nuclear Throne or Enter the Gungeon before it. Nothing too surprising here, but the shop feels improved over other games in the genre.
There’s five acts to the game, with sixty enemy humans to fight and host. Each act has a different set of humans to “collect”, and making mini-goals for yourself so that you can have access to the cyberninja as soon as possible, feels good. It won’t be long before you find your favorite character. While there are a lot of them, it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of overlap. There’s just a lot of grinding to get the ones you want.
Each act is a specific area, but every level is procedurally generated. While it’ll resemble places like a factory, a downtown area, or the desert, the entire layout will be different from each run to the next.
There’s five acts to the game, with sixty enemy humans to fight and host. Each act has a different set of humans to “collect”, and making mini-goals for yourself so that you can have access to the cyberninja as soon as possible, feels good. It won’t be long before you find your favorite character. While there are a lot of them, it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of overlap. There’s just a lot of grinding to get the ones you want.
Out of the digital box, HyperParasite supports local coop, just like Enter the Gungeon. The game feels balanced to support an additional player to no consequence. If coop isn’t your thing, or don’t have anyone and have had enough of the core experience, then daily challenges will be something new to chase. The game lets you compete on a leaderboard for highest score of a set seed. You can retry it as many times as you want, which is a wonderful addition.
When you start the game up, the developers recommend using an Xbox controller. While I would agree, the keyboard and mouse works fine, it just feels a bit stiff. I feel through patches or updates, this control scheme can feel on-par with a controller. With the game coming to other consoles, it makes sense that the gamepad was prioritized.
HyperParasite has a consistent 80s aesthetic and feel. It’s very much its own thing though, as it doesn’t try to look like a game from that era. It just looks and sounds like that era, but made today. And I definitely prefer that, because it feels all its own with the modern lighting and pixel treatment. The game wouldn’t be complete without a synthwave soundtrack, and punchy beats. This is thanks to Van Reeves and Joe Kataldo, punctuating every element of sound in the game.
HyperParasite is “another one of those”, but it does it well. The fact that you can control one of your enemies for as long as you can last extends the lifetime of not only the game, but each run. A lot of it still comes down to randomness or RNG, but your skills get put to the test that help offset it. When the game becomes a shmup, it’s such a visual and aural treat. This the definition of a Steam Early Access success. HyperParasite excites and delights every time you play it.
A pre-release Steam code was provided by the publisher for review purposes