93/100 (With Bias, one of my favorite games of all time)

In this review I hope to analyze where most roguelikes fail, and how Risk of Rain 2 overcomes (even partially) these blunders. With over 130 hours in the game I find myself somewhat qualified, but I've seen the game played in depth more than enough to make a qualified statement on RoR2.

To start off, many roguelikes allow the difficulty scaling to overwhelm even the most experienced of players.
-RoR2 also has a steep learning curve when it comes to difficulty scaling, but with the option of multiple different difficulties to choose from, it leaves the power in the hands of the player. This is something that I find particularly good for new players, because as much as experienced players will talk down on playing anything other than monsoon, we all know that a good drizzle run for a few hours can be just as fun, and if nothing else, great for new players to gain experience without being totally destroyed.
-Once one gets past the learning curve, they may find themself still "stuck" to an extent when they reach a certain point.
RoR2 deals with this in an excellent way, because since scaling comes from item collection, the player is once again given the power to decide. One can decide (if their run isn't going the best or they just want a power spike) to pick up lunar items that cost a different currency than main chests. Lunar items can progress runs or end them just by the nature of their abilities, which makes them super fun, kinda like a glass cannon. Obviously the lunar coins you buy lunar items with are hard to come by, but any experienced RoR2 player knows a little way to get lunar coins *wink*.

The next problem one finds in roguelikes is that you find yourself with a false sense of security at a point.
RoR2 is no different in this nature, because as someone who's been one shot 100s of times on double digit stages, I get it.
-The items that RoR2 gives to combat this are pretty effective though. Anything from shields that can nullify damage as a whole to revives that give the player a second chance can be found as an item, which while not completely nullifying one shots, makes the game seem much more fair at a point.

Another problem you can find in close to any roguelike game is that there is usually one primary strategy that dominates runs.
-The great thing about RoR2 is that
1) Some strategies are better than other but all builds can scale to rival each other in power, and
2) Each survivor has their own kit, and some items suit one character better than another.
In this way, RoR2 has some of the best diversity in runs, and overall amazing replayability. Even if one masters a character, theres still infinite ways to play that character again, and the same can be said about the other characters in the game. At the time of writing there is 14 playable characters, and while some kits blend with others, the playstyle of each character varies significantly.
Therefore, RoR2's items, characters, and the overall nature of the game make it replayable for as long as one wants.
The possibilities are truly endless, no run is the same.

Finally, the last major problem that plagues the roguelike community is that many times, there isn't much of a way to avoiding/escaping combat.
Think about it, many games have the players as sluggish characters with nearly impossible to dodge enemies. While RoR2 does keep the player handicapped at the beginning of any run with no mobility for most characters, any good run ends with flying across the map, a typical feature of any run. Along with this, RoR2 gives the player many i-frames in a lot of survivor abilities, which makes dodging attacks quite an easy task.

While most of the things I analyzed above were positive, I should share some constructive criticism, because no game is perfect.
In my opinion, the time it takes to get to Mythrix by doing the pillars takes way too long, which is a shame because an obliteration is by no means as fun as a great boss fight, but most runs it seems like obliteration is much easier. If the pillar steps took less time up, Mythrix would be the most satisfying boss fight in the roguelike scene.
Other than that, there are up to 11 unique areas with 8 mains maps to be cycled through, (13 and 9 with the DLC) which can make runs significantly more boring as play count goes up. Along with total bosses in the game (13) combat can get a little stale, but a simple increase of maps and/or bosses would be a great improvement to replayability!

tl;dr: Get the game, most replayable roguelike and ultimately prevails where others fail.

Skul is a great game, all the way down to the bone.

Like any roguelike, it starts off as the hardest ♥♥♥♥ you'll ever play, not being able to get past the first boss, learning simple enemy attack patterns, the basic stuff. After you get past the first zone, you're posed with the harderest ♥♥♥♥ you've ever seen, but Skul does difficulty in a great way. While at first you may have trouble reaching any of the bosses, especially the final one, Skul allows you to continue progression by upgrading your overall stats throughout your playthroughs. Upgrading anything from initial health to giving the player a revive, the upgrade system eventually makes the early game feel like child's play for the final stages. Beyond this, Skul's pixel art style is well done in my opinion, and the settings are nothing short of beautiful. The overall levels are well done and feel balanced with practice, giving the satisfaction one gets when overcoming the seemingly hard levels.

As for replayability, you would think there would be a challenge, as many roguelikes feel repetitive after a few runs, but Skul allows for hundreds of hours of playtime. With over 30 different skulls to play as, each with different talents and upgradable abilities, the player is left with hundreds of choices that could lead to a multitude of runs. Above this, the items that one can pick up are numerous, with each item being contained into a certain class with their own respective class bonuses. Overall, with the amount of characters and items that Skul has, one is left with content for hundreds and possibly even thousands of hours of replayability.

Last but not least, one finds themselves looking for more. Sure it's replayable and hard, that just sounds like any good rogulike, but is there really that much that sets it apart from other roguelike games? Well to start off, the combination of items to characters is second to none that I've played, leading to more possible run outcomes than any other roguelike I've played. Secondly, there's a certain novelty I've found in Skul; The art style combined with the fluidity of the character play as smooth as one could want, and the upgrade system is probably the best out of any roguelike I've played. With the amount of scaling that one sees when upgrading to the next level, it leaves one scrounging for bones anywhere they can find them, all to upgrade to that next level.

Overall, between the difficulty scaling, replayability, and novelty of Skul, I would highly recommend the pickup, especially at the price of 20 bucks. If not that much, wait for a sale, because Skul is worth the playthrough.