I gave it a fair chance and it's just not fun. I knew going in it was going to be different from the first one, but I thought it would be a good time. It isn't.
The game is too reliant on meta progression to get anywhere, which is unlocked too slowly... you want to have more skills on your heroes so you can actually try different strategies? Well you gotta unlock them. One. At. A. Time. For. Each. Hero. And the locations to unlock skills are not even guaranteed to spawn! Plus, you don't get anything else for that run, just the skill unlock, so you might have missed a location that actually improved your chances on that run. The "paths" (classes, basically) that you unlock with candles, the meta currency, modify skills you might not even have unlocked yet.
The runs are too long and, worse, not interesting enough. I have already seen the same encounters repeat many times, it feels like there is half a dozen per biome plus a few that show up in multiple biomes. Three bandits and their dog. Three melee bandits and a gun bandit. Two dudes behind a barricade. Four giant worms. Two worms and two spiders. Some giant fire guy and the two guys that buff him, and themselves, every turn. Speaking of...
The game is too hard. It is possible that when you eventually unlock everything, after many, many hours, it feels better. I'm sure as hell not finding out. Every enemy feels like it does a bit of everything. Damage + dot. Damage + self buff(s). Buffs for multiple enemies. Crits. Stress for everyone. Crits. I heard this game had less RNG than DD1 and it sure doesn't feel like it. Crits, everywhere, even when they don't have the crit token. What's the point of the token system if that ♥♥♥♥ can happen anytime anyway? Oh, well, with the token you are *even more* screwed? Ugh. It's like they designed each encounter without remembering you are supposed to fight other encounters too... or have fun while playing.
I'm really not sure who this game is for, or where the fun is. At the very least it seems you need to slog through 20? 30? more? hours of tedium doing runs you don't intend to win to unlock the stuff that lets you play the game. It's the worst meta progression I have ever seen in a roguelite, and this is the genre I play the most so believe me when I say I have seen some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ meta prog before. This game takes the cake, no, the whole bakery.
Okay the good parts: it looks good and the narrations is good. Music is ok I guess. The token system looked interesting and I would love to see it in a good game, to give it a fair shake.
As you might imagine from the wall of text, I had expectations from this game and I'm dissappointed enough to rant about it. This game is bad enough that I'm not gonna bother with anything Red Hook in the future.
