This pass week Risk of Rain 2 was free to play on steam in celebration of it's new update. So seeing that it had a 96% Overwhelmingly Positive rating I decided to give it a try. After playing about 1 hour solo and 1 hour in co-op i'm not sure why this game is rated so high. In both modes the game just comes off as trying to hard to be "a hard game".
Now in this post demon's souls world there is a space of games that have high learning curves that require you "Git Gud" before it can be fun. However, Risk of Rain 2 does not seem to be on of those games. In face it is a very simple game at it's core with a simple gameplay loop.
Each time you start up a run, you begin as a weak level 1 character and as progress through the randomly generated map you kill enemies to level up and get money. You then take that money and buy randomly generated items from boxes or go to a shrine for a "blessing". While running around the map you are looking for a teleporter that will take you to the next map, but only after you beat the boss that is guarding the teleporter. After you beat the boss you go to the next map and repeat the process.
Now, you would think after leveling up and getting item you would start to get/feel stronger right? Well not in my experience, instead of feeling like you are getting stronger, you somehow still stay a weak character no matter how many enemies you kill, items you find, or how high your level gets.
This feeling of weakness you get from the endlessly spawning enemies that can kill you in a few hits, combined with the feeling of aimlessness you get from running around the generated map just lead to me and my co-op partner feeling frustrated with a game and overall not having fun.
So after my initial first impression, I decided to do some research into the game to see if I was missing something. After watch a few YouTube videos and looking through the Risk of Rain 2 wiki I think I understand what's going on.
Risk of Rain 2 has fallen into the same space that the Binding of Isaac was in back in the 2010s. The space where people keep playing over and over just hoping for a "Godlike Run" where they get all the right items at the right time. While every other run is just ends up being a waste of time only because the game gave you "trash" items or a bad map layout.
There have been many roguelikes games released in the last decade. Some like Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and Wizard of Legend were big hits for me. While others like Spelunky, FTL, and Crypt of the NecroDancer were big misses.
With all this in mind I have to say Risk of Rain 2 is not a game for me. However, to all that do enjoy it I wish you nothing, but the best.
