There's a lot here that is a bit of a bummer. Side content is pretty nothing at best, and straight up bad at worst. The ending bit is paced a bit odd and way too fast, the writing/story while can be a bit funny isn't really interesting enough to want to read the mountaints of dialogue they give to you. But man the main meat of the game is really fun and a wonderful co-op experience!
I really think when this game is going, and you're doing the fun well thought out main quest stuff it's arguably the peak of this series! Character customization (while a bit daunting at first) has never been better, theres a ton of little optimizations and ability trees to fine tune your class exactly how you'd like. It was very fun unlocking new tiers of abilities and seeing the new spells/how passives change up your gameplan. The main dungeons and areas were pretty fun to explore, and the boss fights are probably the best yet in the series. The biggest downsides are how often you have to travel between places with no fast travel just for a few lines of dialogue to progress quests, and how absolutely boring and pointless a majority of the caves are. The caves aren't the biggest deal in the world, but you also can't fully ignore them if you are finding them tedious because some do genuinely have useful (sometimes main quest useful) characters or items! It's a bit frustrating. By far though the most annoying aspect of the game is how many little moments are locked behind time gating. The entire idea of a day and night cycle is fine visually, but locking merchants and quest progression behind pointless time gates is extremely boring and just wastes your time needlessly.
There's a lot that could be ironed out here, and it should by all means be my favorite hammerwatch game by far! But as of right now, it's probably around the same level as Heroes of Hammerwatch here. I think Hammerwatch 2 has the most potential of the 3 games, a lot of little fixes that could make the whole flow a lot more interesting and engaging. Either way Crackshell has easily made a fan out of me, and I'll continue to always look forward to what they have next!
I really think when this game is going, and you're doing the fun well thought out main quest stuff it's arguably the peak of this series! Character customization (while a bit daunting at first) has never been better, theres a ton of little optimizations and ability trees to fine tune your class exactly how you'd like. It was very fun unlocking new tiers of abilities and seeing the new spells/how passives change up your gameplan. The main dungeons and areas were pretty fun to explore, and the boss fights are probably the best yet in the series. The biggest downsides are how often you have to travel between places with no fast travel just for a few lines of dialogue to progress quests, and how absolutely boring and pointless a majority of the caves are. The caves aren't the biggest deal in the world, but you also can't fully ignore them if you are finding them tedious because some do genuinely have useful (sometimes main quest useful) characters or items! It's a bit frustrating. By far though the most annoying aspect of the game is how many little moments are locked behind time gating. The entire idea of a day and night cycle is fine visually, but locking merchants and quest progression behind pointless time gates is extremely boring and just wastes your time needlessly.
There's a lot that could be ironed out here, and it should by all means be my favorite hammerwatch game by far! But as of right now, it's probably around the same level as Heroes of Hammerwatch here. I think Hammerwatch 2 has the most potential of the 3 games, a lot of little fixes that could make the whole flow a lot more interesting and engaging. Either way Crackshell has easily made a fan out of me, and I'll continue to always look forward to what they have next!