I've never played the original, in fact I had totally forgotten this game was even in development, but when I saw the sudden release I figured why not give it a go. I had to after my love-quickly-turned-to-hate relationship with the terrible roguelite Heroes of Hammerwatch. there's a lot that can be picked apart and criticized here as plenty others have done on Steam, but I'd say I had an experience that was just.. ok at best.
Hammerwatch II is a retro-inspired RPG set in an open world, all the way down to the obscurity, ambiguity and archaic design elements. one criticism is how you have to backtrack through every dungeon since fast travel is limited to warping between towns. another point of contention is the fact that your map cannot be dragged or moved around, which wasn't that big of a deal. the multiplayer integration supposedly has its issues as well, but they seem to be addressing that and I've only played solo anyways.
my main issues were the pacing, a plot that was... serviceable at best.. and the so-called open world. take Elden Ring as an obvious example - many who criticize its open world design feel that it has interesting legacy dungeons broken up by a repetitive and needlessly large open world. the exploring in this game was a lot of the same where I'd run into the same Mysterious Cave for the 20th time, but with none of the other working parts that were present in Elden Ring that make up for it there.
the story never matters nor does it lean into comic relief in an interesting way, so I had zero engagement and kinda just drifted through it. I tend to play games for gameplay rather than story mind you, but if I'm gonna be reading some exposition in a longer RPG for 30+ hours, please just give me something that isn't juvenile writing. the general pacing started off great but the more I played the more it declined into monotony and dullness. after a strong start with the particular excitement of learning an unknown game and exploring a new world, interest started waning when quests had me going back and forth with nothing keeping me interested. I was then given a few endgame quests at the same time out of nowhere, all of which were underwhelming aside from the confusingly optional quest to slay a dragon. the dungeon was unique and the boss fight was intense - why was that optional...? compare that to the final dungeon and its boss, both of which were pretty unremarkable, and I'm just left wondering what the whole point even was.
unfortunately it's just one of those games where you're better off bringing a friend or two along for the ride, maybe even three, which.. means nothing because friends can make anything more enjoyable. my point is that I'm a solo player so it's really disappointing when games turn out to be markedly better in co-op. it's also designed to contain future modded campaigns and maybe even DLC, so content feels lacking. I'm one to play games for an extensive vanilla experience and then move on to the next one so I'm not interested in seeing it through. if you like those things then maybe you'd get more out of this bite-sized RPG, but that wasn't the case for me. it's at least a cut above Heroes of Hammerwatch yet still so very bland.
Hammerwatch II is a retro-inspired RPG set in an open world, all the way down to the obscurity, ambiguity and archaic design elements. one criticism is how you have to backtrack through every dungeon since fast travel is limited to warping between towns. another point of contention is the fact that your map cannot be dragged or moved around, which wasn't that big of a deal. the multiplayer integration supposedly has its issues as well, but they seem to be addressing that and I've only played solo anyways.
my main issues were the pacing, a plot that was... serviceable at best.. and the so-called open world. take Elden Ring as an obvious example - many who criticize its open world design feel that it has interesting legacy dungeons broken up by a repetitive and needlessly large open world. the exploring in this game was a lot of the same where I'd run into the same Mysterious Cave for the 20th time, but with none of the other working parts that were present in Elden Ring that make up for it there.
the story never matters nor does it lean into comic relief in an interesting way, so I had zero engagement and kinda just drifted through it. I tend to play games for gameplay rather than story mind you, but if I'm gonna be reading some exposition in a longer RPG for 30+ hours, please just give me something that isn't juvenile writing. the general pacing started off great but the more I played the more it declined into monotony and dullness. after a strong start with the particular excitement of learning an unknown game and exploring a new world, interest started waning when quests had me going back and forth with nothing keeping me interested. I was then given a few endgame quests at the same time out of nowhere, all of which were underwhelming aside from the confusingly optional quest to slay a dragon. the dungeon was unique and the boss fight was intense - why was that optional...? compare that to the final dungeon and its boss, both of which were pretty unremarkable, and I'm just left wondering what the whole point even was.
unfortunately it's just one of those games where you're better off bringing a friend or two along for the ride, maybe even three, which.. means nothing because friends can make anything more enjoyable. my point is that I'm a solo player so it's really disappointing when games turn out to be markedly better in co-op. it's also designed to contain future modded campaigns and maybe even DLC, so content feels lacking. I'm one to play games for an extensive vanilla experience and then move on to the next one so I'm not interested in seeing it through. if you like those things then maybe you'd get more out of this bite-sized RPG, but that wasn't the case for me. it's at least a cut above Heroes of Hammerwatch yet still so very bland.
2 Comments
Yeah, it's just weird how so many reviewers are strung up over things that I either don't even mind or actually prefer lol. I guess I'm the perfect demographic since I didn't play HW1 so there's no expectations based on that, and I hate HoH. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them are people like me who only played HoH.
Your concerns are definitely valid, it doesn't seem bloated to me so far but who knows what they'll do with campaigns and DLCs though. The simplicity is just right imo, e.g. having only str/int/dex to put points into. You aren't stuck with only default spells, and you can go full MMO mode with a ton of spells or just prioritize a couple spells and their skill trees. There's a lot of mutually exclusive skills inside their own skill trees too, at least from what I've seen as Warlock. I didn't play the demo, just watched some clips of it on YouTube, but it seems like there's been some readability improvements without compromising some of that aforementioned intentional obscurity.
My one word of advice about skills though is to think a little harder about your build because it costs a LOT to respec. For example, my Warlock build is pretty counterintuitive and I changed my mind about building for M1 damage. I made a huge mistake though, I leveled my class tier from Adept to Expert and now it costs 10K to respec instead of 1K. Worst mistake of my life
Your concerns are definitely valid, it doesn't seem bloated to me so far but who knows what they'll do with campaigns and DLCs though. The simplicity is just right imo, e.g. having only str/int/dex to put points into. You aren't stuck with only default spells, and you can go full MMO mode with a ton of spells or just prioritize a couple spells and their skill trees. There's a lot of mutually exclusive skills inside their own skill trees too, at least from what I've seen as Warlock. I didn't play the demo, just watched some clips of it on YouTube, but it seems like there's been some readability improvements without compromising some of that aforementioned intentional obscurity.
My one word of advice about skills though is to think a little harder about your build because it costs a LOT to respec. For example, my Warlock build is pretty counterintuitive and I changed my mind about building for M1 damage. I made a huge mistake though, I leveled my class tier from Adept to Expert and now it costs 10K to respec instead of 1K. Worst mistake of my life
Bojangles4th
8 months ago