Throwing myself into each playthrough of Risk of Rain 2 has been engaging and incredibly addictive with many thanks to its smooth gameplay and rewarding loot structure. Risk of Rain 2 kept me hooked for over 70 hours, a number that could easily see doubling.
Risk of Rain 2 is a roguelike game and the sequel to the 2013 platformer, this time as a third-person action shooter. Its shift to third-person successfully pulls off a sequel in the best possible way Risk of Rain could have. It keeps the core mechanics of the original yet greatly changes the way the game is experienced through its explorable stages.
Roguelike games for the unacquainted are dungeon crawlers where the player typically has just one life. Often there will be some bonuses that permanently unlock to make the following rounds a little easier, though generally speaking each playthrough is a separate experience. Good roguelikes are able to make each playthrough feel like a fresh experience to avoid too much repetition as replayability is so important. Recent successful examples include The Binding of Isaac, FTL: Faster Than Light and Spelunky.
For Risk of Rain 2, you can choose from several characters each with their own sets of abilities, complete stages filled with enemies, gather items to enhance your character, and kill bosses. Then at some point you can decide whether you want to keep doing more stages or try taking out the final boss.
There are over 100 items that can be found in the game, these cover several rarity types and range from simple bonuses like attack speed or crit chance, to having homing daggers spawn out of killed enemies that seek another target. Items can synergise together making for some interesting and satisfying combinations. You obtain these items via chests which must be opened with currency earned by killing enemies. These items also typically stack further increasing the effect of the item. As the items you typically run into each round are different, it can often result in you building your character in a different way.
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as getting all the items you want early in a run. The power difference between a fresh character and one that’s pushing through stage 20 is practically god-like. As chest spawn locations are randomly generated, along with the items inside. RNG can factor into your success with a run, but it’s something that seems fairly inherent to the genre.
As you only have one life outside of the bonus of a specific item, dying is game over. There are three difficulty levels you can choose from that affect the rate of the game getting progressively harder. The middle one is how the developers say it’s supposed to be played, but to be completely honest, I think this game shines best at its hardest difficulty, and I don’t mean to sound like some kind of difficulty elitist when I say so. There’s more challenge and more thinking that goes into each play-through, item choices become much more meaningful as a strategy is important, and death could come from any corner, as such is the spirit of a rogue-like game. Not to mention the unlockable skins you can get from completing the game at its highest difficulty which you can show off to your friends in co-op.
There are some unlockable things that carry over from round to round. Characters have ability loadouts with alternative abilities that can be unlocked via achievements such as passing stage 20 as Commando or not touching the ground for more than 30 seconds as the Mercenary. Items from chests also can be added to the loot table via achievements. The game does get a little easier the more you unlock. I do think that maybe it became a bit too easy once I had almost unlocked everything as there are some powerful items that are fairly common once you unlock them.
Combat feels particularly good amongst all the playable characters, especially when some quality-of-life items are found that boost attack speed, movement speed, and the item that gives extra ability charges. Most importantly it feels incredibly satisfying when the effects of your abilities and items begin to interact and deal huge amounts of damage, annihilating prior nuisances like a hot knife through butter.
Mercenary for example is particularly fun to play, incorporating several fast-striking attacks that zip you around and through your enemies. Where most of the other characters have ranged attacks Mercenary’s are melee range, which makes things more difficult, but it pays off in his extremely mobile toolkit that’s fun and satisfying to execute.
The music in this game is fantastic. Commendation really needs to be given for taking this game to another level. Mixing drums, synths and guitars, the music sets the game’s atmosphere of loneliness, and then when things start building up, high-flown extravagance. Track lengths often match the time it takes to complete a stage, which causes some of the more intense parts of a song to match up with the stage boss fight. There are very few game soundtracks I would consider listening to outside of their respective games, I would happily listen to this soundtrack.
The games performance with a 1080 and 6700k at 1440p flawless. I haven’t encountered any major bugs, crashes or performance issues worth mentioning in my 70 hours of playthroughs so far.
I suppose my only complaint would be the amount of content. While this game has kept me entertained for hours there has been a tangible desire for more, and perhaps that doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing. The game is good enough for me to want more, and I’d be happy to play it again after some of the planned DLC is released. I would like to see more locations, more characters and more items, which have been promised for the DLC. It doesn’t affect my opinion of the game too much but is coming from the perspective of hours upon hours of replayability.
Whether I recommend this game or not really is going to come down to your acceptance of the rogue-like genre. I recognise that the genre isn’t for everyone, as I too have struggled to get into it in the past. Yet I think this addition to the genre is exceptional and shouldn’t be ignored even by those that have turned their nose at others. If you like action games for their gameplay I think you’ll enjoy yourself, especially if you play co-op with some friends. At the very least, maybe wait for a sale, but for everyone else, this game is a solid buy.
Nocturnal Hour 