Heroes of Hammerwatch II

As a huge fan of Heroes of Hammerwatch 1, this is a massive disappointment. Hammerwatch, Hammerwatch II, or Heroes of Hammerwatch... it doesn't matter, it's basically the exact same game over and over. The roadmap they provided is an absolute joke; most of those features are already fully playable through community mods anyway. This is definitely NOT a 1.0 full release. It feels like an Early Access game disguised as a finished product. The state of this game is a joke. Avoid it.

I found this game to be surprisingly unsatisfying to play. I thought I would love it considering I'm a fan of both ARPG and roguelike games. In addition, the pixel art is gorgeous and combat feels snappy, so why did I quit the game feeling disappointed? I think that the design principles at the core of this game made it unenjoyable for me. Hacking through monsters should feel fun and rewarding. However, the act of doing it becomes meaningless the second you think about its implications. Monster kills = EXP = levels = marginal improvements to your character in a form of flat stat increases or flat skill increases. The monsters don't drop any gear or currency or anything for that matter. The gold is found randomly scattered on the map and the gear is found in random chests. Speaking of gear, it's dull and shallow. Nothing exciting even when you manage to snag an upgrade. In my opinion, most of the temporary trinkets found throughout runs should just be a part of found gear that the player keeps permanently. The game tells you to be excited for a few pieces of gold or a few materials found in crates throughout the map. The game then also kills you and takes 40% of said gold and materials. I'm really struggling to understand the logic behind this design decision. The death is unavoidable before you earn enough marginal character improvements to pass the DPS check and complete a run, which, from what I heard, takes around 15 hours of gameplay. There's no room for skill expression or freedom for strategic gameplay, the player is on the rails and the destination is punishment. There's barely any variety in between runs which makes the gameplay repetitive and dull. You play through the same maps with the same monsters, with slightly different layouts each time. Sometimes an imp appears and if you manage to catch it in time, it gives you a few wood pieces (the same materials you lose when you inevitably die). There's also this "vine dungeon" level, where you get constantly slowed and damaged by the barely visible vines on the walls and floors. Because we all know that being arbitrarily slowed and damaged in games is fun. Overall, the game gets repetitive and dull early on and doesn't provide enough incentive to keep pushing. Underneath the beautiful art style lays a shallow, flawed game trying to convince the player to indulge in its identity crisis. Wouldn't recommend it regardless of all the hype that's around it.

I really wanted to like this game. Sadly, the beatiful pixel graphics are the only good thing. The rest, while promising on paper, is just an annoying mess of many fundamental desing flaws. In no particular order: [list] [*] The progression is PAINFULLY slow. When you die (happens a lot) you lose a good chunk of collected resources, which makes it even worse. [*] Some of the permanent upgrades are gained per-character, which means that you have to start grinding it all over again if you want to try a different class. [*] Upgrades themselves are plain boring and devoid of player agency. It's all just higher number = better. There's no meaningful choices to make when building your character. No skill tree, nothing - you can only change your weapon. [*] The entire difficulty of the game is just one big gear check. If you don't have good enough gear, you will die. It's frustrating and doesn't feel fair. [*] Your health and mana regenerates slowly, so you find yourself just waiting between encounters. It can be really annoying. [/list] I guess someone who likes repetitive games, and has way too much spare time might like this game. Sadly, it's not for me.

The game is okay. Once you hit end game, you realize the customization and build flexibility is rather small.

- HoH2 is my first Hammerwatch game. - I've played 246+ hours. 90% Steam Deck, 5% Computer, 5% TV with Steam Deck - I've played 99.9% with controller (Steam Deck, Xbox and Stadia controller) - I've played 95% solo, 5% multiplayer with one other player I highly recommend this game. I grew up playing NES, SNES, RPGs, Diablo 2 and grew to love dual-stick shooters. This game has a good mix and just enough to keep you coming back for another run. Maybe try different equipment or maybe re-spec a character to go heavy on spell power. LIKES ========= - The beginning feels a little disheartening once in a while as you die over and over. Get over it! Die, learn, die, grow, die, get good. - Once you get past level 10, beat a few bosses, upgrade your town, die 10+ times, you start to get the hang of it and have had a few "OP" god-like runs and really start to enjoy it. The dual-stick shooter is a good fit as you'll find yourself running backwards quite a bit. - The pixel graphics and animation are spot on. The lighting is excellent. Sound effects are nearly perfect. Music is a little repetitive but totally works. I look forward to the Conan-like music in the last level. - The leveling and power growth takes over as you start to finish building out your town. Building out the town feels like a struggle but I like how it added another layer to the early game. - The dual-stick action is SO good when playing a character with auto-firing skills you can simply hold the fire buttons down for while skillfully running through the mobs. GETTING STARTED TIP - Die and go again. It will get better. - At least create a character for each class. There are minor bonus shared by all characters. - Stay away from Shadow Curse when you first start. But, have fun with it later. - Use the wiki to learn. - Character speed is important early on. Outrun those enemies! - You don't need to kill all the enemies on each level but you might as well if you need XP. Dislikes: - I know this is more of an action game, but I wish there were more meaningful side quests. More tie-ins to people in town. - I'd like more add-ons and DLC. I realize this requires a large enough user-base to support this.

The game had an initially good hook, strong progression with a nice theme, fun abilities, etc. But then ... I hit effectively two walls. First was, I believe, the first boss, some kind of totem that has multiple stages. Getting to it wasn't easy, and then I wasn't aware (or prepared for) it's multiple stages ... so when I ground through the first stage, I breathed a sigh of relief only to get hit with the next stage. Second was the incredible drop off in progression. Each run would net me some resources, but it'd take 2 or 3 runs to get enough materials to upgrade a building or purchase a useful equipment or character upgrade, and each run was a lengthy affair. This second wall interacted in such a way as to make the first wall that much more frustrating ... if I didn't progress, I couldn't get stronger, so I couldn't get to the boss faster, so I couldn't practice defeating the boss, so I couldn't get past the first wall. I wouldn't mind that grind so much, but instead of multiplying what you pick up if you manage to get lucky and ship some back to base or actually complete a run (I never did the latter) (and no, you can't go back the way you came and quitting / aborting a run is treated the same as dying), you lose stuff if you don't get it back. This is the whole WoW rested XP situation. Think of it this way, if the devs wanted you to get, say, 10 units of something on a normal run, if you collect 10, you get 10, but if you manage to ship some back or complete the run successfully, you get 20 or something like that (so you're doubling what you find). However, and I'm not sure if this is standard for a roguelike, they instead let you collect say 20, but then fine you 50% if you don't complete the run ... to get you to where they wanted you to be at 10 units for a normal run. The game doesn't have that satisfying of a gameplay loop as to make me want to deal with that kind of punishment from the devs when they could have easily have framed it in a positive fashion.

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.

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