Recent reviews by Zarcos

I would rate it neutral if I could. Ultimately, unless it's on an excessive discount 75%+ or if you're extremely nostalgic of the game, I wouldn't bother.

It's a solid port, but the combat is extremely dated and not refined. Combat boils down to Melee and Spells. Melee is by far the strongest in the game and it boils down to just pressing A. That's it. No movement required. There are a few good melee character spells that you can mix in with you're melee attacks, but that just adds 1 or 2 more buttons to your mix of A pressing. It's primarily a menu/grind game, with little substance in the combat. And while there is an "optimal" upgrade path in how you approach your character's skills (just upgrade Determination first, that's it), it's very simple and it hardly affects the combat of the game. Your success is almost entirely based on your level. The gear plays a very small part, at least during the main story part of the game. And the game also prompts you with a menu to equip any new gear you find/buy that is better than what your character has equipped.

There is a dodge/counter mechanic that I thought would make the game fun and let you take on bosses you might normally be under-leveled for, but that isn't the case. If you're under-leveled (and in some cases not over-leveled), most enemies, especially bosses, will not flinch when you counter their attacks. Which results in the boss doing another attack immediately while you're still in the counter attack animation, preventing you from doing another counter/dodge. I've died many times to bosses and normal enemies because of that, to the point I don't bother countering/dodging anymore. You MUST overpower them/out damage them to progress.

Finding the best way to level quickly and over power your character is where any of the fun in this game comes from. Since I've already spent $25 on this game and can't return it with my 40+ hrs of game play (mostly idle), I will still beat the game because I do enjoy this one aspect of the game, but having known what I know now, I would not have purchased it.

P.S. Story is trash like most RPGs/APRGs, don't bother.

Easily my GOTY. Absolutely amazing story and engaging/fun gameplay the whole way through. Loved every second of it and meticulously went through each level to find any little secret or piece of lore. Did anything I could to keep playing. Honestly sad the ride is over and there isn't anything left for me to experience.

Took me about 80hrs or so to 100% the game with no guides. The rest of my time was looking for extra passives I missed and dabbling in NG+.

How much time have I spent playing this game....?

Jokes aside, ahem, this game is very dense. But don't let that scare you away, it's quite approachable and they introduce new mechanics at a good pace. Game has a TON of depth and is a lot of fun to experiment with friends in multiplayer or solo. It does have a light combat element to the factory building process with biters (aggressive life forms that attack your factory), but it's hit or miss on whether you like them. Early game they can be a real pain, especially as a new player, as it can be difficult to deal with combat AND designing a base. However, once familiar with the game and once you've progressed enough in the base, they're little more than an afterthought. Thankfully, with Space Age (DLC), the combat elements has a new purpose with defending your spaceships travel and other indigenous life on the new planets.

The game can be as complicated or as simple as you like. You can just simply build what you need and then move onto the next step and etc. Or you can spend a lot of time designing an aspect that is easily scalable. Then you can spend EVEN MORE time designing a scalable solution that is more condensed and factors in edge case issues.

Incredibly fun game and even at my crazy 1000+ hrs, I'm still learning a lot and needing to revisit old designs because I've learned so much more while tweaking other aspects of the factory. I bet I won't have ideal design/blue prints for the majority of the game until I'm closer to the 3000hr mark. (Space Age introducing Qulity has been a game changer and a real time sapper).

One of the best expansions. More Factorio is never a bad thing...unless you value your time.

As much as I loved Heroes of Hammerwatch 1, this game sadly disappoints on several levels. The game isn't all bad, but I sadly can't recommend it.

My main gripes with the game boil down to a few reasons:



In the first game, they added an option to downscale your game so that everyone who joined would be essentially put on the same level and stats. This was an amazing mechanic, as the game was very easy to beat for the first 15 NGs, resulting in a large gap between players and essentially making it so that you would either be getting carried or carrying others when you joined random players or friends who started playing later/earlier than you did. This mechanic allowed players to actually play the game together without there being a huge power imbalance.

While it wasn't perfect and could have been improved, it was a welcome addition and filled that role of allowing others to play with each other without carrying/being carried. In HoH2, instead of them improving it's functionality to be more "all encompassing" it's instead completely omitted from the game. Now you're essentially all but guaranteed to be joining others who are substantially farther ahead or behind you in terms of character progression, resulting in either getting carried or carrying others, both of which aren't nearly as fun as playing with someone on a similar level as you.


First, this benefit to weapon damage/spell damage/damage reduction/health regeneration is not based off the host of the lobby. Meaning, every player will have their own individual level of progress to this donation stat, resulting in players who've cheated, played with cheaters and benefited from ill-gotten gains, or simply just played a ton, will have a huge donation stat bonus which will make that player significantly stronger than anyone else they may play with.

Second, this stat has no limit or cap based on your current NG difficultly progression. Meaning, if you play a ton, play with cheaters/get carried, or cheat yourself, you can improve this stat to a point where you simply just can't die and do infinite damage. This, obviously, trivializes the game. And it's a major issues because even if their donation stats are legit, it results in a significant power imbalance between players that can't be controlled in anyway. It's just a badly implemented mechanic in it's current state that ruins multiplayer.


While people might say "HoH 1 was out for years, so it's of course going to have more mechanics and improvements" is just plain stupid. This game is a sequel and should have benefited from all the improvements and implemented mechanics that HoH 1 acquired through the years, and it should of had them ON RELEASE. Now, I strongly believe they will add these mechanics and missing tiers of gear/trinkets/classes...eventually, it's just sad it's so glaringly obviously missing.



I've seen that this is somewhat contested by players who played HoH1, but I believe by far the majority will agree it's an improvement and it will certainly draw newer players into the series.


Yes, there is still a lot of balancing needed for some of the character's subclasses, but overall it's a huge improvement for replayability...if they can get all the subclasses in a similar state of competitiveness. Which I am confident will happen.


This further adds to the ability for players to enhance their playstyle. While the game is missing tiers of gear (Epic and Legendary are currently missing), I am certain they will add them and it will further enhance a player's playstyle and allow from some unique setups.


I want this game to be good, I want this game to be a complete improvement over HoH1...but that just isn't the case at this moment. Despite the improvements they've added to HoH2, all of the missing mechanics and obviously missing tiers of trinkets/equipment/classes make me not recommend this game currently. In particularly, the glaring progression issues with character levels, titles, and donation stats not being able to be controlled in anyway in a multiplayer setting is really upsetting and results in this game being something you will be primarily playing solo. If you do decide to venture into multiplayer, you will either be getting carried or doing the carrying yourself, which gets very boring very fast.

No depth at all. You complete one run in the first 2-3 hrs. After that, it's more of the same with next to nothing new added on subsequent runs. Save yourself some time and money and look else where. Also, it's hardly an idle game. It automatically pauses if you go afk for 5-10 minutes.

Really fun game, enjoyed the playthrough from start to finish.

Note that some characters get better once you unlock more cards, because some of the cards you unlock actually become starting cards for some of the harder characters. Wish this was more obvious at the start, as some characters feel impossible to play without the unlocks.

Overall, great game. Definitely worth the price. Completed the game and all achievements in about 30hrs~

This game was spectacular. Beat each campaign on the hardest difficulty and got all the achievements. (One achievement is bugged currently, but is getting fixed in next update). Though a bit of context, I played the original Hammerwatch for 500+ hours, Heroes of Hammerwatch for 1500+ and Hammerwatch 2 almost at 100. So I am pretty familiar with this game franchise.

If you're coming from one of their other Hammerwatch Titles, this game is a bit different. It's a more concise, but still a full experience. I believe it was inspired originally from the Gauntlet game. It's very much a dungeon crawler experience.

Features:
- 3 Campaigns
- 7 Player Coop
- 7 Unique Classes
- Drop-in Multiplayer
- Good Variety in Enemy Design
- New Enemies (Not in the Original HW)
- Fair, Fun, and Precise Combat
- Amazing Sound Effects
- Thrilling Boss Fights
- Many...Many Secrets
- Great Replayability

I spent roughly 20hrs beating all the campaigns on the hardest difficulty on just one class. Though keep in mind I've played the game before...a lot. I would expect most will get 30+ hrs easily on their first play through. Also, the combat is very fair. Every attack, whether from mobs or bosses, can be worked around. It's possible to beat the game without getting hit. Yes, even as a melee class. They even have a 1hp mode for those wanting a challenge. It's a great game and they absolutely stuck the landing on this one.

TLDR: Great game. Nothing like HoH. Don't expect that when coming into it.

Biggest complaint you'll see on the reviews/forums revolves around multiplayer. Multiplayer is akin to BG3 or DoS2. Meaning your characters are tied to the Host's Campaign save file. It is NOT like Diablo or PoE, outside it being an ARPG with randomly generated loot. You CANNOT keep your character and grind/progress solo while your group is offline.

Does it make the game bad? No. While it is a drawback for myself and many others, it's simply just going to be a solo experience as BG3 and DoS2 was for me. It's a fun game and I love the ARPG gameplay over the turn-based gameplay of BG3 and DoS2.

Great game. Easily worth the dough. Enjoyed all my time with it.