Insanely repetitive. I open the game sometimes to have a run, then I realize how boring it is, especially into NG+. Enemies just take forever to kill, apply curse, and if you play Paladin or Warrior, enjoy having no scaling off your main stat. Since the game wants you to take STR for spell power, you get some very fun miniscule amount of extra armor with you, hurray. Anyway, enjoy hitting this boss for the next 10 minutes, and then eventually lose because you got so bored you stopped caring. Maybe this will be good in the future, but god it feels like an absolute slog to play sometimes.

So far basic but fun, I would wait for a sale though. Not really worth $18 so far ---$10 would be a solid value

It's good. Doesn't feel as good as the first one, but it's mostly because how good your character is is now based on luck of the draw skill upgrades instead of a skill tree. Also projectiles are a nightmare, they're fast, they track, and depending on how much stuff is on your screen they smack. Some minor bugs and gripes are annoying. Very stylish compared to the first though. Bring back the Sun/Moon Temple? Or something cool with the Pirate Cove? Idk. Also Release the Priest.

Yes, BUT*
(Never played Hammewatch/Heroes of Hammerwatch)

I really do enjoy the game. It's a fun, simple, relatively decent scaling game with some unique classes and playstyles to mess around with. The collections, in-game achievements, and upgrades are really fun to find and collect. Each class has subclasses, there's a different weapons that are locked between classes, the dungeon generation is different each time, and there are plenty od different playstyle, so there's some variety. The dungeon itself is also nicely designed. You can easily sink a couple dozen hours into this game with or without friends to try the different classes, grab all the different items and skill upgrades, and watch your base grow. The base is my favorite aspect, there's a lot of life in the layout and design of the starting town as you watch it grow and expand. I will definitely keep this game in a back pocket, as it's not the best rogue-like dungeon runner our there, but certainly not a bad find to pick up.

BUT*

It's relatively lacking in replayability. After getting to NG+ for multiple characters, the gameplay loop grows slightly stale. The generation and monsters are different each run but the patterns and fights repeat the same loop. Attack, group them up, kill them, recover, repeat. Items and upgrades don't really change the gameplay loop, just make numbers larger/change statistics. The mechanics don't change either, as most changes in NG+ revolved around shadow curse and heavily debuffing your charecters. Don't get me wrong, the game is amazing. There's plenty of upgrades, titles, and numbers that grow larger and larger, but at the end of the day, this playstyle is not for me. I'm waiting to see more content, more maps/pathways, and maybe new upgrades and trinkets that really feel like they change the gameplay loop.

For more details, I agree with everything Maru states here in their review:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198060384439/recommended/619820/

Borring gameplay loop. need way more varaity in maps, and the gameplay itself is just press buttons without any thought. Builds are bacically impossible to control, and you just get random stuff and have to llive with it.
Secrets are nice, and bossfights needs some balancing but is nice in general

Great pixel-like ARPG ala Diablo done in a roguelike style. Loops involve running the same general environments until death where upon various currencies are taken back to town to unlock meta progression over a slew a catagories. Features a variety of classes that one is encouraged to swap between to unlock permanent global buffs for all characters.

Decent as a solo title but far more entertaining with online-coop.

Thank you for this game my friends.

Ehhhhhh? Eh? I dunno. It's just kind of repetitive. It doesn't encapsulate the best parts of an ARPG or a roguelite. It's almost purely built around grinding

It actually almost feels like an ARPG mixed with an idler more than anything. It's very much just about running over and over again, incremental improvements, until finally you stat check through the bosses and stuff. There is SOME skill involved (mostly kiting. Actually almost entirely kiting), but your choices have a minimal impact on anything that happens in a fight.

The "roguelite" stuff is my biggest disappointment. The in-run trinkets and "skill orbs" BARELY have an impact. They're functionally just varieties of stat boosts (+dmg or +sustain or +tanky) and so it's really just about picking the strongest one presented. In most cases it has next to no impact on how you actually play the character. You have class specializations which do have an impact but you pick that in town, and it just adds 1 active skill and 1 passive to your already existing class abilities, so it's not always much of a shift.

The shortcuts you can unlock are also not really great, because you end up with less resources that way, and resources are ultimately all that matter. So if you want to progress, you are just blasting through low tier enemies for 20-40 minutes per run then continuing on to the harder stuff and then finally to the level where there are mobs that might insta kill you. Being able to save anywhere in a run (in single player) is fantastic but the runs themselves are just uninteresting after you've seen in through a few times.

In less than 14 hours (sat with it open for a few hours once while I had to go do something) I upgraded enough to get through the final boss. I could try to do that with other characters (and might) but you end up just rerunning the same content again and again and again and again. It's just less than the sum of its' parts.

I actually really like the idea of the town building as the progress element, but the rest of the game kinda falls flat from that. I think they need to really dial up the roguelite bits so the runs are more dynamic. That's ultimately what's missing from the game - variety.

It's not bad. But it's not good. I'd recommend a buncha other ARPGs if you want that or a buncha other roguelites if you want that. This doesn't fulfill either well enough for me to recommend it.

It's an enjoyable experience from the get go and the visuals are really nice. However it's worth mentioning that for a 'roguelite' the game experience is disappointing, there is barely any item that drastically changes a run to the point where the game really just plays like a watered down ARPG pretending to be a roguelite. Worse, classes and their related subclasses lock you into fairly linear and not very exciting playstyles, and that's assuming you chose a class that even has 2 interesting or impactful skills. I find myself bored out of my mind having to play through runs that are both long and feel vastly unexciting.

For the price that this game is, there are so many more engaging and exciting roguelites and roguelikes.

Feels more like a game in the later stages of early access, rather than a complete 1.0 game. No purple items, no uniques, balance changes constantly happening

For the price point its good game, especially if you play with friends, but for a game to grind and invest long term in, its kinda lacking in variety.

Overall I'd recommend the game, but the fact that it feels like a early access game just makes me feel I cant recommend it