a hellspawn amalgamation of a bunch of negative tropes of the modern Action Roguelite. it's a very front-loaded experience, designed to force you into grinding for the sake of nothing more than masochistic progression. I have my reservations when it comes to meta-progression, ultimately I get the appeal but I just don't like it. I'd much much MUCH rather play something that's not designed around it. like yeah it's cool to see and feel that you're making some type of progress but, beyond feeling rewarded for your time investment, it doesn't feel earned.
this game is the poster child of the rote process of a difficulty spike pushing you to spend permanent currencies on stat boosts, and I hate it. it trivializes the inherent difficulty and authenticity of the learning curve. these bonuses make the game incrementally easier every run, which is counteracted with yet another present design flaw: giving enemies bloated HP and damage.
you progress by restoring your hub, you level up your class(es) and put points in enough stats to finally get your first win, and then it just gets worse from there. barring DLC campaigns there is no proper ending past that point, you just continue grinding minuscule stat upgrades for an eternity while its systems are at odds with one another. "progressive taxation" (?????) has to be the worst thing I've ever seen in any of these games, maybe even in all of the video games I've played period. on higher NG+ cycles it was a necessity to do farming runs just to prepare yourself for your 1+ hour long slog. this is all without even mentioning combat that boils down to walking into a room of 891341 enemies and constantly backpedaling.
it's just a horribly designed game that even fails as a roguelite. in all honesty about 10 hours in I edited my town file for infinite gold and ore to cut down on farming/grinding, went for 100% completion years later while depressed or something, and that still took me ~300 hours in total. I hate that it's still one of my most played games on Steam lol, I should just reset my achievements and pretend those 346 hours never happened, but I digress. all in all, playing Heroes of Hammerwatch solo with a completionist mindset was a nightmare. I'd never recommend it, definitely not to someone with severe completionist tendencies. I find it hard to say anything positive about it. it's a shame too since I liked the initial gameplay, but it was overshadowed by the unpleasant experience I had when I was a NEET that was glued to this game lmao.
this game is the poster child of the rote process of a difficulty spike pushing you to spend permanent currencies on stat boosts, and I hate it. it trivializes the inherent difficulty and authenticity of the learning curve. these bonuses make the game incrementally easier every run, which is counteracted with yet another present design flaw: giving enemies bloated HP and damage.
you progress by restoring your hub, you level up your class(es) and put points in enough stats to finally get your first win, and then it just gets worse from there. barring DLC campaigns there is no proper ending past that point, you just continue grinding minuscule stat upgrades for an eternity while its systems are at odds with one another. "progressive taxation" (?????) has to be the worst thing I've ever seen in any of these games, maybe even in all of the video games I've played period. on higher NG+ cycles it was a necessity to do farming runs just to prepare yourself for your 1+ hour long slog. this is all without even mentioning combat that boils down to walking into a room of 891341 enemies and constantly backpedaling.
it's just a horribly designed game that even fails as a roguelite. in all honesty about 10 hours in I edited my town file for infinite gold and ore to cut down on farming/grinding, went for 100% completion years later while depressed or something, and that still took me ~300 hours in total. I hate that it's still one of my most played games on Steam lol, I should just reset my achievements and pretend those 346 hours never happened, but I digress. all in all, playing Heroes of Hammerwatch solo with a completionist mindset was a nightmare. I'd never recommend it, definitely not to someone with severe completionist tendencies. I find it hard to say anything positive about it. it's a shame too since I liked the initial gameplay, but it was overshadowed by the unpleasant experience I had when I was a NEET that was glued to this game lmao.