Ziggurat had its time and place as one of the first FPS roguelites, but it was also kind of barren, repetitive and ultimately boring, so I was hoping that the sequel would be bigger and better in every way. At first, it seemed like it might be since it boasts a new and somewhat unique "campaign" mode, but really, this is just Ziggurat II in every possible way, including the fact that it's still kind of boring.

I do love how fast and agile your character, no matter which one you choose is, and how you can zoom through levels quickly and easily. The "guns", aka wands, scepters and, in one category, actual guns, all feel good to use and throwing a plus-shaped formation of stars (from the top of a staff) at monsters does have a different and unique vibe to the shooting that gun games don't quite have. This game also has a soundtrack that punches far above its weight and sounds like it's for a much more ambitious game. Some seriously solid orchestral movie adventure music here! The campaign is also pretty cool in that you have to beat two or three regular runs and then a special run to both unlock something special (mostly if not all playable characters) and proceed to the next chapter, which is something I'm not sure I've ever seen before but I mostly like it. The game does also have infinite and classic roguelites modes with no metaprogressison.

The problem is that unlocking is quite slow, levels are very samey with too few rooms (as this is the kind of roguelite that only combines pre-made rooms into a level as opposed to generating new rooms) and, since unlocking is slow, you spend a lot of time using only the same weapons. So same rooms, same weapons, unlocks don't feel like they do much since they add so little (+4% wand damage per level, yay) and ultimately it all combines to just feeling like a chore after doing some five to seven hours.

I did enjoy those about seven hours, and I'd like to say I'll keep this installed and go back to it on very bored sunday afternoons just to see what the game is like with all of the metaprogression unlocked, but I really don't think I will, and any game that makes me feel like I really don't want to do this when I enter a room and am alerted to the fact that it has monsters in it. If I prefer a room to be empty so I can just move on, I'm just hooked on getting more metaprogression unlocks and not actually enjoying the game, so this is getting uninstalled. Ziggurat's time and place has come and gone.