After reading a lot of the reviews — especially the negative ones — I feel like it's my patriotic duty to leave a positive one and set the record straight on some things.

1) This game is in fact a remaster of the original, and that was the entire point of it. They took the base game from the first Risk of Rain title, added a bunch of new content, tweaked some controls to make it more enjoyable for people to play, and completely redid every piece of pixel art in the game to make it look absolutely stunning! With this in mind, obviously if you didn't like the first game then you might not like this one (although it might still be worth a shot because of the aforementioned additions and changes), so if you buy it expecting it to feel more like Risk of Rain 3 than the original, I'm sorry but that's on you, not Hopoo Games.

2) This game is unconventional to play, and that is buy design. In one of their videos, Paul and Duncan share that they designed the original because there weren't any games like it and they wanted to play something like it, so they made it themselves. This design philosophy carried over into the movement and combat, which, if you're coming from Risk of Rain 2, will take a while to get used to (although not as long as the original as they added a control setup to be more like Risk of Rain 2, which was impossible to do in the original). You are limited to only shooting left and right unless your character's ability does something else, and the combat is less directly involved than in Risk of Rain 2, but that does not necessarily mean it is bad. Having the combat be different simply means that you have to approach it in a different way: no longer can you theoretically just walk up to Mithrix with 2 items on Eclipse 8 and win because you have 3 dimensions to dodge in, instead you actually have to truly adapt your playstyle to your current items and equipment, and think of new combos you can do with them on the fly. For instance, I just recently did a run where I was playing Artificer (a new character for the original Risk of Rain game) and was in multiplayer with one of my friends, the only problem being that he died nearly every stage because he was still learning a new character he got and we were on the hardest difficulty (our fault, not the game's). Anyways, because of this, the game was a lot harder as I was effectively playing 2 player by myself, but I luckily found an equipment that resets your cooldowns when activated, and, just like in Risk of Rain 2, Artificer here does a lot of damage but is balanced by all of their abilities being on cooldown, so I was able to still stay afloat in the game with this equipment. Of course, the equipment alone would not have been enough to save me, so I also had to get Hopoo feathers for more mobility, more damaging items, and even some good drones — yes, you heard that right my fellow Risk of Rain 2 players, my drones were integral to my victory, imagine that! All of this to say, the run should have been a lost cause, but, because I had learned the game and the items and character, I could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and man did it feel good to do so after so many deaths before it!

I think I had more points to make about it, but honestly all I want to do now is just keep playing it because, again, it's a fantastic game with lots to unlock and discover, and if it sounds at all interesting to you, I'd highly recommend it even at full price, it's just that good.

After reading a lot of the reviews — especially the negative ones — I feel like it's my patriotic duty to leave a positive one and set the record straight on some things. 1) This game is in fact a remaster of the original, and that was the entire point of it. They took the base game from the first Risk of Rain title, added a bunch of new content, tweaked some controls to make it more enjoyable for people to play, and completely redid every piece of pixel art in the game to make it look absolutely stunning! With this in mind, obviously if you didn't like the first game then you might not like this one (although it might still be worth a shot because of the aforementioned additions and changes), so if you buy it expecting it to feel more like Risk of Rain 3 than the original, I'm sorry but that's on you, not Hopoo Games. 2) This game is unconventional to play, and that is buy design. In one of their videos, Paul and Duncan share that they designed the original because there weren't any games like it and they wanted to play something like it, so they made it themselves. This design philosophy carried over into the movement and combat, which, if you're coming from Risk of Rain 2, will take a while to get used to (although not as long as the original as they added a control setup to be more like Risk of Rain 2, which was impossible to do in the original). You are limited to only shooting left and right unless your character's ability does something else, and the combat is less directly involved than in Risk of Rain 2, but that does not necessarily mean it is bad. Having the combat be different simply means that you have to approach it in a different way: no longer can you theoretically just walk up to Mithrix with 2 items on Eclipse 8 and win because you have 3 dimensions to dodge in, instead you actually have to truly adapt your playstyle to your current items and equipment, and think of new combos you can do with them on the fly. For instance, I just recently did a run where I was playing Artificer (a new character for the original Risk of Rain game) and was in multiplayer with one of my friends, the only problem being that he died nearly every stage because he was still learning a new character he got and we were on the hardest difficulty (our fault, not the game's). Anyways, because of this, the game was a lot harder as I was effectively playing 2 player by myself, but I luckily found an equipment that resets your cooldowns when activated, and, just like in Risk of Rain 2, Artificer here does a lot of damage but is balanced by all of their abilities being on cooldown, so I was able to still stay afloat in the game with this equipment. Of course, the equipment alone would not have been enough to save me, so I also had to get Hopoo feathers for more mobility, more damaging items, and even some good drones — yes, you heard that right my fellow Risk of Rain 2 players, my drones were integral to my victory, imagine that! All of this to say, the run should have been a lost cause, but, because I had learned the game and the items and character, I could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and man did it feel good to do so after so many deaths before it! I think I had more points to make about it, but honestly all I want to do now is just keep playing it because, again, it's a fantastic game with lots to unlock and discover, and if it sounds at all interesting to you, I'd highly recommend it even at full price, it's just that good.