Imagine this, you wake up after a weird dream, you remember literally everything from said dream, and you write everything down in your little dream journal. You want to turn this dream into a reality, but it was so insane that you can’t really make it in real life, so you decide to make it into a game. That is how I can describe Hylics. It is so surreal and I honestly love every bit of it, from its wacky, digitized claymation, to its soundtrack. Hylics was even put in the Telfair Museums in its Artcade gallery, so, without further ado, let’s get started.

Hylics is an RPG (Roleplaying game), akin to Earthbound. You play as Wayne and your main goal is to defeat Gibby, the cruel king of the moon (which, ironically, both Wayne and Gibby are named after different phases of the moon). Along the way, Wayne meets up with other characters that join the party; Dedusmuln, the archaeologist who praises paper cups and water coolers; Somsnosa, who runs a farm of bugs; And finally, Pongorma, a knight. There’s barely even a story in the game to begin with, however, this is what I could pick up. Again, the game has RPG elements, but instead of the game naming it normally, they named HP, “Flesh” , and your magic power points, “Will” , seemingly to fit in with the rest of the game’s crazy and wacky style. 

On the topic of the Magic Powers, the way to get these powers, or “Gestures” as they call it, is through TVs throughout the game. There are some gestures that only certain characters can do. For example Pongorma can only do the gesture “Partial Destruct” , and Wayne can only do “Hypno Sigils” ,. Moreover, this battle system is very odd, as the attack orders are random. For example, if one of your teammates needs healing, you make one of your other teammates heal them but if it looks like the enemy killed the teammate, now you have to use one of your warm burritos to bring them back to life. This random attack order can be super enraging.

When you die in the game you get sent to an afterlife, where you can rest on the couch and restore your health. You can also use a meat grinder that transfers meat (that you collect throughout the game by winning battles) to more HP. It’s pretty crucial that you do this because although you can make your attacks super powerful, there’s a high chance that you won’t survive after the attack, especially with the random attack order. 

Away from the gameplay, there’s the art style of the game which is absolutely wicked. Everything is this digitized claymation.  To quote Emily Gera, a contributor from video game review site Rock Paper Shotgun, “God, just look at this game. Like a scene from Bosch by way of Videodrome.” It’s truly a game that has to be seen to be believed. Everyone’s gameplay experience could be very different because most of the words in the dialogare randomly generated.

Overall, I like this game. I find it very entertaining and interesting. I could genuinely stare at gameplay footage for hours because it is truly a piece of art. Overall, I give Hylics  5/5 rays.