Review: Risk of Rain 2

4/12/2019

I don't have any significant news to share this week, and yet I'm trying to blog more frequently than twice a month, so as promised, here's a review!

There were a few requests for "my favorite roguelike" and other similar indie game requests, but I'd really like to review Risk of Rain 2 because it's what I'm playing now and it's great.

The first Risk of Rain was one of my favorite games. I'm not a completion player, but I played that one to 100% several times because you unlock new things as you complete achievements.

It was a 2D platformer with light roguelike elements, which here means your whole run ended when you died, so you had to start over, and the levels were randomly arranged (though not randomly generated). Basically, you ran through each level killing enemies and collecting items, which were permanent passive buffs to your character. Each character you picked was different, and the items drastically changed how you played, so you ended up with some wildly different builds by the end of the game.

The signature element of the Risk of Rain series is a real-time timer at the top right-hand corner, which steadily ticks up the longer you take. Every second, the game gets harder. So if you spend your time scouring the level for every item, you might get stronger, but your enemies do too. You have to strike a balance between progressing quickly and getting strong enough to handle the next level.

The gameplay sunk its hooks into me pretty much immediately, and I played the crap out of the first game. If my copy were a book, it would be worn and dog-eared, with a broken spine and faded ink.

When they announced a sequel about two years ago, I was delighted! And then they said it would be in 3D, and my heart sank.

There was no way it could be good. Design elements almost never survive the transition from 2D to 3D, and no doubt they knew that, but they wanted to challenge themselves. I could respect that, but I was still disappointed. All I wanted was Risk of Rain 2: More Risk of Rain.

So I paid halfhearted attention to their development over the last couple of years until they surprise released their sequel on Steam about two weeks ago.

Lo and behold, the game is fantastic.

They managed to capture the same feeling as the original, despite having to re-design practically everything to account for a third dimension. The same enemies have new attacks that take advantage of the 3D space, new enemies work with new mechanics, and the shooter gameplay is smooth and well-polished.

It's only in Early Access for now, and I hear they've promised to add an endgame like the last one had. Right now, unless you voluntarily end your run, you just loop levels over and over until the difficulty is so crazy that you have to die.

I can't wait for the ending, which was one of my favorite parts of the old Risk of Rain, but already my friends and I have over 20 hours into it.

Oh, did I mention it's multiplayer up to four players? It is.

Give it a shot.

-Will

27 Comments

Sam

4/12/2019 04:46:22 pm

You know, I was just about to make a post assuming you had gotten eaten by one of your manticores after seeing you hadn't posted something on reddit or facebook for a whole week!

Sword Immortal Darknorth

4/12/2019 04:51:20 pm

You know, I got the original as part of a humble bundle back in 2014. It's sitting in that massive pile of games I have purchased but never played. I'll have to check out the first one!

Bamfious link

4/12/2019 05:50:01 pm

I do miss video games. Perhaps I’ll give it a shot when it comes out

Diego

4/12/2019 08:05:26 pm

Never heard of it, maybe im too young or in a backwater that never learned of true retro..

Ps. Does anyone else think Lindon's arm could be confused as his goldsign?

Madeline

4/13/2019 12:56:03 pm

Unsure. On one hand, Remnant prosthetics are common (no one even really notices that Naru Jing has one orange wing and one orange eye), so it would be weird for someone to assume "Goldsign" rather than "prosthetic". On the other hand, people with no visible Goldsigns like Eithan are unusual, so someone could easily assume that, in the absence of any other thing that could be a Goldsign when he isn't drawing on Blackflame madra, the white arm is a Goldsign.

4/16/2019 07:21:09 am

Just a curiousity, funny how you said on one hand haha. Lindon originally thought Eithan's goldsign was blond hair and wide blue eyes i think. So it was just a curiosity.
The blackflame empire is Asian-like while Eithan is clearly a Skand, Im curious about the different cultures, but its a big world, doubt we will see even half of it by the series end.

DjFlopdog

4/12/2019 10:01:35 pm

I have never played Risk of Rain, but from your description it kind of reminds me of Princess.Loot.Pixel.Again
I have only played the second one, but it is a 2d "maze" game that reminds me a lot of a cross between Contra and Zelda for SNES. Not a 2d scroller, but has rooms, randomly generated, in a 4 direction branching system. Very fun, different characters provide different abilities, but also a difficulty level. The first character is the easiest to play with, scroll right in character select and it gets harder. You have a life bar, but when you die, you start all over. You pick up items as you go, but don't expect to grab to much loot!
Very fun, I guess "arcade style" game.
I recommend to anyone who enjoyed NES or SNES games and is willing to replay MULTIPLE TIMES to beat the game. Promise you won't beat it on the first run through, but if you somehow manage it, just choose a harder character!

Fiddler

4/13/2019 07:30:04 am

Never heard of this but this looks right up my alley! I have 3 brothers and every now and then we get together to play video games, this would be perfect.

Count De Monet

4/13/2019 11:52:01 am

I checked that out on YouTube,the first game reminds me of my childhood playing such games. Oh, also searched YouTube for "will wight cradle" while I was there and got some hits. You know you have arrived when you and/or your work is discussed on YouTube.

Muadib

4/13/2019 01:11:56 pm

If you like rougelikes, I really have to recommend Hoplite on ios/android. Top tier game/timesink and is just great all around!

Will link

4/17/2019 09:44:57 am

Oh man, I used to love Hoplite. I haven't played it in a while, but I'll have to give it another shot.

Bob

4/15/2019 03:50:47 pm

I'm intriuged by the game, and may give it a look... perhaps TIDE me over to OKAK..?

PumpkinVision

4/15/2019 04:33:15 pm

Since the mobile game Oreo: Twist, Lick, Dunk was not reviewed, I will add my own here. I did not play the game. I began an Android install, but the game wanted access to my identity, location, documents, pictures, contacts, and genome. No thank you, Oreo.

Lyrian

4/17/2019 10:02:36 am

Well, actually, about the 'gets harder till you die' thing, there is a thing where if the difficulty gets high enough, things just stop spawning because the game decides that the hardest boss is too easy for you, so....

Yeah, you can currently just scare the shite out of the entire world(s?) right now xDD

Robert

4/18/2019 12:58:49 am

2 questions totally unrelated to this post, sorry. Also, you may have answered these elsewhere that I'm not aware of.

So I know the explanation for Mercy's clumsiness is her inherited (and trained?) balance and agility was sealed by her mother, but to me that still doesn't explain why she's so clumsy. Even a normal, average, unathletic person in the real world isn't as clumsy and uncoordinated as she is for the last 3 books. People don't trip over their own feet and generally stumble and misjudge things as often as she did. When you add a magical puppeteer's iron body, even if it was mostly suppressed to just be equivalent to an average iron body, I'd think that'd still make her much better than an average real person, but she's not, she's much worse. Am I missing something? Stuff like this in books is what makes me think author's give character's interesting unique traits and then after the fact try to explain them ;-) I suspect the best explanation is Mama Monarch went overboard knowing that would be the hardest thing to bear and most likely to make her come back (voluntarily or by "dying").

My second question is regarding this line in Ghostwater

"Each Redmoon emissary counted as two opponents, since their Blood Shadow could fight independently." .. and so they fought 3 on 1 etc.

This in inconsistent with what we learn in Underlord, that most treat their blood shadow as just an extra special weapon which is useful but far from counting as a second opponent. Longhook would fall under this category. The second option was turning it into a kind of sacred beast/remnant thing that lived inside you. I guess that kind of counts as a second opponent but not an equal opponent according to the Blood Sage. Only his path resulted in a 2 for 1 deal. Obviously I'm not saying fighting 3 on 1 isn't a good strategy, the rational just seems inaccurate based on Underlord.

4/18/2019 06:43:18 am

1.)The thing with Mercy's body is that she likely grew dependent on her Puppetier Body from early childhood and advancing so quickly only worsened it. Her mother sealed her body functions and her Body reflexes. I see it as someone with average eyesight suddenly becoming blind.

2.) The Redmoon Hall thing isnt necessatily inconsistent. Redmoon are rumured to be 'able' to fight sacred artists two on one. Many simply say they fight above their weight class. The parasite certainly helps you in a fight, it throws attacks at you enemies when it senses weaknesss or to defend you. The sage is prideful, the blood shadow is a boon either way, Longhook had a formless shadow and likely could have defeat normal Underlords. Eithan is a skilled superior Underlord (I think he's waiting for the tournament to become an Overlord), the Emperor quoted he trusted Eithan alone was the match of 3 Underlords.
End of story I see it as Sacred Artist w/ formless = 1.5, Sacred Artist w/ beast= 1.75, Sacred Artist w/ copy=2.

4/18/2019 04:08:14 pm

1.) She didn't go from average to (way) below average she went from far above average to far below. In other words, Malice took away more than what she should have. To use your eyesight analogy, it's like if you had a complex contraption attached to your head that was combination binoculars/telescope/microscope that you could use whenever you needed seamlessly. If you took that away, you should not suddenly be legally blind, you should have normal 20/20 vision. Even if you'd grown super used to having that advantage, you wouldn't suddenly not be able to use your normal eyes like a normal person.

2.) That makes sense. I guess the quote doesn't say 2 equal opponents, and even a formless blood shadow has some will/independence, just not a lot. I'd probably say it's 1.25, 1.5 and 2 at best though but I'm quibbling over minor details.

I have to disagree with you a bit on Eithan though. Saying he could handle 3 was likely a hopeful stretch and it's more like "distracting 3" not actually fighting 3 at best. As for Longhook beating him, I think Eithan could have beat him in a straight fight if he hadn't just used/lost so much madra fighting Naru Gwei, Jai Daishou, and to the Archstone. It even mentions he was almost drained and though I think there's a day or 2 between the end of the fight and when Longhook shows up, I don't think he'd entirely recovered. He may be able to hold an ocean's worth but I don't think he can refill it all so quickly, and it's well established that using too much too quickly strains your channels/spirit which also takes time to recover.

4/18/2019 05:15:59 pm

2.) Addendum. There is evidence to support my theory that Eithan was significantly weaker than normal when he first fought Longhook because he was very low on madra.

2 quotes from Ghostwater about Lindon after he drains his cores fighting Carp and Ekeri

"He would love to start a fire...[because] he needed something to generate Blackflame aura. If he simply waited on his soul to recover madra naturally, it would takes weeks to refill his core, and that would be without refining or adding to his power in all that time".

"He had barely recovered any pure madra over the last several days - he hadn't realized how much he'd relied on Eithan's elixirs to refill his pure core. As a result, he'd only been able to make one low-quality scale for Little Blue."

Because there's no such thing as Pure aura, waiting for his madra to refill naturally is the only way, other than elixirs, and it takes a weeks. In Eithan's case, he has many orders of magnitude more madra than Lindon, so all the elixirs he'd been giving Lindon would be like adding teaspoons in a 50 gallon drum. Even if he refilled proportionately faster than Lindon, that still means weeks to fully recover.

Also if you (and the Emperor) think he can normally handle 3 Underlords, at least enough to not die, then him being weakened is the only way he'd be losing to Longhook's 1.25-1.5.

Avinash

4/19/2019 05:25:10 am

Regarding mercy
Its like peor who are on bed rest for too long or get muscle atrophy due to accident or something
They go from normal to being barely able to stand or walk
The puppeteer body although advance for other , was the normal for her and when it was taken away she became normal by others standard but by her own standard it was barely controllable.

Cool Person

4/21/2019 07:02:08 pm

Regarding Mercy

shes used to moving fast, so her mind is basically telling her body to do 'step, step, step', which her body could do w/ puppeteers. without, she can only do 'step, step'. most normal people only think 'step, step'. simply put, her mind is going faster than her body can keep up.

4/23/2019 03:24:03 pm

@Avinash

I don't think that analogy really works. Those people can't walk because they're physically incapable, not because the skill was lacking, and it's just a matter of gaining back that
muscle.

@Cool Person

That would make sense for when she's pushing herself doing acrobatic and athletic things, because her balance/coordination/proprioception isn't what it
used to be, so her mind can do it and she thinks she's capable but her body betrays her. However, it doesn't make any sense for just walking. Whether you have a puppeteer's iron body or not makes no difference for doing normal things so losing it shouldn't change anything. There's no need for, or advantage to great agility or balance in those things.

Does an Olympic athlete walk
or lean on a staff or sit at a chair any differently than a normal person? No. In fact, you'd have a hard time telling the difference between an average person of healthy weight doing those activities and a professional athlete. (It'd really be impossible if you reduced them to idealized skeletons so you could only see movement, not any indications of body composition, muscle fat etc.)

Even if I accepted the argument that suddenly walking and all these other things that require no training or extreme balance/speed were suddenly problematic, I would argue that it would take a matter of a month or 2 at most to adapt but she's just as clumsy right up until she gets her iron body back which is many times longer than that. I think it says somewhere she lasted over a year before she lost the bet but I can't remember exactly.

4/25/2019 03:54:13 pm

@ robert

2 explanations
1: she got iron body super early on, so she hadn't learned 2 walk at ALL without it. in that case, she wouldn't have been able to walk when it was first taken away, she had to learn.
2: this is less likely, but when her iron body had been ripped out, it took away some of her natural skills, so she just isn't as dextrous as a normal person without iron body.
3: There is no explanation, but it was just to really showcase the fact that she missed her iron body, so the scene where she got it back would be even better.

Lord of The Tower

4/19/2019 07:36:34 am

You should try out Hollow Knight Will! That game is a rogue like darksouls crazy good art an atmosphere

Billy

4/20/2019 01:25:03 pm

Will has been trying to blog more than twice per month, so a new blog post is probably coming soon...

I expect this new blog post to be life changing Will! I want to have my third eye opened and the world's true nature laid bare!

manty05

4/21/2019 03:04:06 pm

Speaking of games have you tried Outward, I think it might be relatively close to what a Cradle game would be like at the Foundation stage.

4/25/2019 03:56:25 pm

will, it's been 13 days! I can feel my life essences dripping out without a blog post to revitalize them!

4/25/2019 04:17:01 pm

was browsing blizzard store when I found this... https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/world-of-warcraft-helm-jewel-of-the-firelord

wait. so theres a glowing crown salvaged from the remains of RAGNAROS? does that ring a bell to anyone but me?

In which we ramble on.
And by we, I mean me.