Heroes of Hammerwatch II

Idk why people don't like this game. It's like the first one but better. After you get some stats under your belt, it is a phenomenal game. 9/10

In their attempt to make the graphics more detailed, they've made the game itself nearly unplayable. In the first game, you can clearly tell an enemy attack or AOE from the environment, but majority of the attacks in 2 are barely distinguishable from the environment.

The game itself is not bad, it is fun, but its clearly not finished. There are some basic UI options missing and there are quite a few bugs. The real downer is once you realize the whole game is a hamster wheel. It never ends. You complete 1 difficulty, another unlocks, you get +5 to max level, gear scales, and its endless. Not to mention you HAVE to level every character, because all of them give bonus to all your other characters. I just spend too many hours before googling anything about the game and after leveling all the characters and pushing a few new game + difficulties i realized its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hamster wheel and there is 0 point in progressing.

When HoHW2 came out, the reviews made me pause, but then I checked it out a short while ago and the reviews were much higher and I decided to give it a shot, and I am so happy I did. It is much more fun than I would've thought, and a great improvement to the first game. I really like the way the game works, the changes back and forth from doing a run and coming back to the town and spent your gathered ressources on new buildings or upgreades, and upgrading your heroes is just great fun, and feels both meaningfull and impactfull to your next runs. Every time you get to a new area or lvl in a dungeon, you can leave (quit, not abandon) and you can start up next time you wanna play the game and continue from where you entered the area or lvl. I was playing the first game for a while and really enjoyed it, it did get to a point where I thought it missed aomething that made me want to keep playing, Hammerwatch 2 for me really hits the spot, the fact that "you always get SOMETHING" with you after the run, makes it fun for me, losing everything like in the first game was too much grind for me, now I get to keep most of what I gathered, so nomatter what, I have a much greater sense of progress.

There is a starting death tax that takes 40% gold and resources for dying or abandoning run. There is a way to reduce it, however it’s buried in Chapel upgrades that are not available until late-early or mid-game. To avoid completely, need to do multiple hour full clear that is not possible at early game. It really sucks to watch a good portion of what you have collected get deleted, just as a way to slow down progression.

Great coop game the more people you have the harder it gets. Progression is nice and after 10 hours it feels good to complete first run and unlock new game+. There are multiple variants for every class and specialisations. Its really detailed pixel action rpg but it has slow start, same replayability as before. Good sequel.

When I bought it, I didn't realize the player is meant to go through the same adventure loop again and again. You can't turn back to bank all your stuff. Dying results in losing 40% of your stuff. You just keep going again and again slowly leveling up until you can beat it all in one go.

I hate to say it, but this game is leaving me wanting my $8 back. I found the maps to be extremely repetitive and uninteresting. When you hit level 12+, you're playing the same 3 maps on repeat. The character skills are equally as uninteresting. No combos leading to more devastating strikes nor satisfying mobbing attacks. The only redeeming quality is the class system, and that could have gone as far as to have 1 more job advancement. I'm surprised this has such great reviews, as I believe it was extremely boring, although I tried hard to like it.

A true spiritual successor to Gauntlet with elements of soul blazer... both classics and done extremely well.

This hits a sweet spot between nostalgic gaming somewhen in the nebulous region of SNES-PS1 era combined with a modern ARPG gameplay loop