25 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 133.6 hrs on record (33.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 17 Jan @ 12:44am

Heroes of Hammerwatch II is a generational leap from Heroes of Hammerwatch, the roguelite action RPG that accompanied the more traditional ARPG format Hammerwatch. Taking the best features of HoH and adding smart improvements makes this an easy recommendation, and while I would easily recommend both games I'll focus on what's new here.

The equipment system offers some flexibility in weaponry and builds, letting you experiment with a selection (though not an incredibly robust one) of different weapon and armor types. Try playing a rogue wearing light armor with a wand, or a wizard with a sword and shield and heavy armor, or a warrior with a bow and medium armor- while it might not be optimal, the flexibility is neat. Weapons and armor can be a good way to build up across multiple runs, giving bonuses to an array of stats and sometimes even special effects that can open up opportunities for a specific playstyle. It's not so overpowering that it feels like you're hitting a win button, but it is significant enough to really feel like progression, while not being so convoluted or deep that it becomes unapproachable without a theorycrafting guide. Later in the game, upgrading item levels and enchanting gear to change effects or increase rarity can be useful as well, though not required to do well.

Redone classes with additional customization offers more complexity to the gameplay loop. HoH had classes that had one attack, three skills, and two passives. HoH2 has similar, with weapons that have either one or two attacks depending on how many hands they occupy (both of which count as weapon skills, benefiting from your weapon power- including some very powerful staff attacks for casters), classes which have two active and two passive skills, and then on top of that a choice from three class specializations (unlocked at level 10) for each class that add two additional skills, one active and one passive that can transform your playstyle signficantly. Additionally, each run gives the chance to unlock temporary but transformative skill upgrades that allow you to leverage a class or specialization's playstyle in a particular way- regain health when using your melee attacks as Warlock to become a powerful caster tank, or become a demolitionist rogue who can drop grenades when you dodge away from enemies. These can even be used to transform a class's playstyle, like turning sorcerer's lightning crowd control shotgun style attack "Discharge" into a more precise ice cone that can easily destroy bosses at the expense of AoE capability.

Trinkets have been reexamined and a lot of them now either scale better into the later game (including the highly repeatable NG+ cycle) or are generally more valuable to begin with. Many of the "filler" trinkets in HoH that became annoying and could ruin runs because of their comparatively low value are gone, while most classics returned. Adjustments made to some trinkets seem to be balanced well in my experience. While I've sometimes been disappointed to get certain trinkets because of what a specific run needed, there aren't many I find myself disliking entirely and I am very strongly opinionated about trinkets.

Additionally, the graphics have been made much more granular, with a smaller pixel size than the original HoH. While there are a few graphical bugs at this time like flickering on specific floor textures or the occasional mistake with an errant tile or detail, there is some beautiful pixel art and the game looks spectacular. Importantly, it's also much more readable and easy to understand in busy situations, which is great when a bunch of particle effects are flying about.

If you enjoyed the original game, I can easily recommend this one. And, if you didn't play the first, I'd recommend this to you too if the combination of top down action RPGs and robust meta progression appeals to you, as I really haven't played anything quite like HoH/HoH2 in the action RPG scene.
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3 Comments
MaitreVaati 21 Jan @ 3:27am 
don't we all :cry:
Squire Zed 18 Jan @ 8:19pm 
I might have a problem
giant 18 Jan @ 12:55am 
the game came out three days before you wrote this review and had 33.5 hours on the game. i'm impressed.