Hyper Light Drifter studio’s new 2D side-scroller is a chimera of my favorite things: the mythology of Neon White, Metroidvania tension from Animal Well, and perfect Smash Bros. combat
I like games that go fast, hit hard, and force me to commit their controls to muscle memory or die. These aspects make me feel like I’m chugging granulated sugar at two-time speed, which is probably something I would do if it couldn’t abuse my pancreas; I like feeling like the only thing stopping me from becoming the human personification of dopamine is all the annoying organs standing in the way. So naturally I, a hedonist, was drawn to Possessor(s), a game in which a demon decides to inhabit a girl.
Though, he does it for a good cause. At the start of my 30-minute demo, I watch protagonist Luca wake up confused in the rubble of her home Sanzu City, now overrun by demons who’d escaped the city’s corporate overlords Agradyne and its strange experiments. During the free-for-all, Luca’s legs were shredded like a long skirt stuck on a splinter, and the only way she could survive was by letting the demon Rhem inhabit her. But she doesn’t remember that.I do, of course, and as I help Luca barrel straight ahead with her spry, new demon legs, an image replays in my mind: her, this teenager, dragging the remaining half of her body across the ground like a slug leaving a blood trail. There’s a subtle horror to Possessor(s) in moments like these – a few seconds of blood spatter, the unwelcoming darkness of a city with a patina like an abandoned office, the green horns now clearly poking out of Luca’s forehead.
It reminds me of publisher Annapurna’s 2022 angel shooter Neon White, which similarly dabbles in Christian occultism without making a big deal about it. The games also remind me of each other in the sense that I was really, embarrassingly awful at Neon White’s platform speedrunning elements, and I’m a drunken disaster at using Luca’s whip to climb up to surfaces higher than her jump.
Nonetheless, as Twilight taught me young, a lot of crazy shit goes down when a demon and high schooler start commingling. In Luca’s case, Rhem imbues her fallible human form with a Super Smash Bros. beatdown ability – and this aspect of Possessor(s) is why I’m still thinking about it after only 30 minutes of interacting with it. Like two ghosts, we have unfinished business.
Possessor(s) combat feels like becoming a boulder that’s falling down a hill. It’s falling so fast, it’s even run over Sisyphus and freed him from all human thoughts. So my mind goes blank as I use the kitchen knives Luca’s holding to slash funny little eyeball monsters apart, and a computer mouse to harness the ones that can fly and drag them down to me, back into my blade. Remember, Possessor(s) is literally corporate hell.
But I’m not thinking about that. I don’t want to think about anything, I just want to feel capable. I swing Luca wildly around battle areas – which I have to clear if I want to progress past their locked areas – hopping over mutant spiders and beating up evil flies mid-air. The deal was, if Rhem helps Luca survive, Luca will transport Rhem where he needs to go. I was sad for my protagonists at first, thinking that they were both trapped. Though, as I reach the end of my demo, I feel unusually free.
Possessor(s) comes to PS5 and PC some time this year, and it currently has a demo on Steam.
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