genuinely one of the best roguelites ever for these four reasons:

1. amazing music and environment design
2. doesn't overstay its welcome; it's clear when you've seen everything there is to see
3. mercifully concise. i love long-winded VNs and RPGs but they keep putting millions of words in games that don't need them these days
4. the music's good (i'm saying it twice cos it's that good)

The first game I've ever finished to 100%

Absolutely GOTY 2020, one of a kind rogue-like that exhibits your masochistic tendencies as you attempt to do that one Mercenary achievement, or finish the game on Monsoon having previously said "why would I ever play on Monsoon, it doesn't have any special rewards".

RoR2 is a basically a 3D bullet hell where you pick your character and go from level to level collecting items to eventually either attempt to either beat the final boss, either obliterate to end the run. There's a character for everyone, from brawny melee fighters to fast and agile die-in-one-hit rangers.

Play it, I can guarantee you'll enjoy it.

(Huntress best survivor)

tendo terminado uma run completa do jogo depois de inúmeras tentativas falhas, acho que consigo dizer que esse é um dos, se não o, meu roguelike favorito. não exatamente da mesma maneira como Hades, até por que aqui história não é o foco.

a principal questão que torna esse jogo tão divertido é o potencial extremamente caótico dele, graças a quantidade absurda de buffs que você consegue ganhar em uma run, e a enorme capacidade de customização do seu modo de jogo. Depois de aproximadamente 20 minutos de gameplay parece que você está sobe efeito de cocaína e virou um barril inteiro de energético e tudo isso só melhora ao desbloquear os artefatos que tornam o jogo ainda mais caótico. simplesmente a maior mindless fun que eu tive esse ano.

Roguelikes have never been my favorite genre of game. Every single time I've tried to get into one, I just end up giving up at some point. Dead Cells had awesome gameplay, but I never felt like I was making any progress. I loved so much about Hades, but I just couldn't get past Elysium and it got so frustrating that I just wasn't having fun anymore.

Funnily enough, I actually didn't go into Risk of Rain 2 knowing that is was a roguelike. The only reason I picked the game up was because some friends of mine told me the multiplayer was fun, and because I had heard the song "...con letitud poderosa" and thought "Holy shit, whatever this is from I need to play."

I was obviously thrown off when I realized what I had gotten myself into. I expected to like it, but get bored with it eventually, just like what had happened many times before. But that didn't happen. Just about the opposite, actually.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that this game is basically the video game equivalent of crack. The basic gameplay is already rather fun, but the item system is quite possibly one of the best upgrade systems I've ever seen in a video game. Every round, you gradually obtain more items with varying effects, dealing more and more damage, inflicting a large range of status effects, and healing yourself with many different methods, until you're essentially an unstoppable killing machine. But the enemies are also gradually getting more powerful, and at a faster rate than you. You can kill most things in about 3 hits in the late game (even faster if you get lucky with your build) but so can the enemies. its perfectly balanced to be difficult but super rewarding too. Every time I died, I kept on telling myself "Just one more run." No other roguelike has ever done that to me before.

So, I kept at it, grinding at the game harder and harder until, just about 40 minutes ago, I finally got the god run. the circumstances surrounding my first victory are actually kinda funny. I was planning on just doing one round on monsoon difficulty before going and doing my homework (I had been playing on rainstorm most of the time, but I had just decided the other day to switch it to monsoon), but on my first attempt, I died during the stage one teleporter boss. I wasn't gonna let it end like that, so I immediately restarted, and, well, I think you can guess what happened.

If it wasn't clear already, I love Risk of Rain 2. Its not only an exceptional roguelike, but an exceptional game, and I plan to sink even more time into it than I already have. Also, Risk of Rain Returns cannot come soon enough. The 2D gameplay might throw me off a bit, but at least I'll get to hear more Chris Christodoulou bangers.

obligatory shoutout to him, btw, the music was half the reason I had the motivation to complete this game. will be looping for the foreseeable future.

Super visually impressive. Setting + enemies are colorful and, combined with the music, give off these "edge of the universe"/"lost in space"-vibes.

Shooting + choosing upgrades is easy fun. Each class is unique and satisfying.

Downsides: the game doesn't explain itself very well. You'll need to dedicate some time to understand each upgrade. Also there'll be times where you're just waiting for enemies to show up, and that can slow down a run, which sucks because a run can last an hour if you're like me.

The potential of this game is clear from the first run, but sadly it never reaches it due to the inescapable feeling of wasting your time. Excessively large environments, tedious charge times for teleporters, and poor difficulty progression (feels too easy until you get one-shot and learn nothing from it) sour the game and culminate in the final level and boss, which take the game's shortcomings from unfortunate to unbearable as you hold forward running through nothing while occasionally waiting to charge pillars for 10+ minutes.

You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and gained nothing
You offered to the shrine and were rewarded!
You picked up (x1) Bison Steak

A fun cooperative experience - playing this game with friends is a blast and with all the diferent characters and the different abilities and challenges, this has a lot of replay value and playing this with a group of friends really brightened up my nights. The bad things for me are that there are not a lot of map variety, which can lead to some repetitive gameplay and after you hit the teleport, all the money that you have cannot be used on chests left out and it going to xp is kinda lame - this money should have some other use on items, in my opinion. But otherwise, it`s a fun little game and worth checking out if you looking on something to play with your friends.

Major props to the Risk of Rain team deciding that the only way forward with the series was to immediately jump to the 3rd dimension. The first game is perfectly translated to 3D in Risk of Rain 2, and it's a much better game for it.

Much like the first game, the fun of RoR2 is to get as much shit as you can to upgrade your character, within the least amount of time possible. Difficulty and enemy count increases as time goes on, creating a very engaging dynamic of risk and reward, where you decide how far you wanna go in a stage to find new items before bringing forth the boss.

Just as RoR1, the levels are very expansive, but with the 3rd axis, it's much easier and enjoyable to assess the landscape and figure out where the items are and what path to take. Movement options are also much more entertaining and strategic, that depend on the character you choose from.

Unfortunately RoR2 has the same problem for me that its predecessor had. There's a considerable amount of "dead air" time, where you are just running around at the start of each stage without enough enemies to increase your cash flow so you can unlock new items. Unlike, for example, Binding of Isaac, where you dictate the flow of enemy encounters as you decide which rooms to pick, in RoR2 you have to wait it out for enemies to show up in greater numbers so you can get the action going. This isn't that big of a deal, but it starts to weight in after a nubmer of hours, and it makes restarting runs more a chore than they should be.

Despite that nitpick, RoR2 is a very fun time, and now that it has co-op up to 4 players, it's even more exciting to see how much you can fill the screen with enemies and bosses your brain can't keep up with.

This was solid, there's a lot of characters who all have very distinct identities and different playstyles, and the core rogue-like gameplay of just getting stronger and blowing through waves of enemies is very satisfying once you get going, but for me there's a lot more bogging it down than most roguelikes like Slay the Spire/Spelunky 2 etc.

For one thing, finding the portal to the next level is just kind of a hassle. Once you've played enough, you can start to learn where they spawn, which streamlines things quite a bit but when you're first starting out you can spend minutes of boring, slow, listless wandering around the level looking for it. Supposedly they're supposed to be made easier to find by little black and red particles in the sky above them, but this is made almost completely redundant by the game's art direction. Many weapons and the game's effects and particularly a specific enemy type called The Imp also give off black and red particles, so.

Not to mention, the portal was bugged for me on more than one occasion. Appearing half inside and half outside a shipping container in Level 3 and generally appearing in ways and places they weren't supposed to. A character I was supposed to be able to unlock by buying also quite literally just did not physically appear where I was supposed to able to buy them either. I don't think the art direction or soundtrack is "bad", in fact it's very clear what they were going for. The prog rock soundtrack works well for a big sci-fi "fight the horde" game like this but it kinda just wore on me over time, just not my kinda thing - personal preference, and the neon art style is just kinda not for me too.

Risk of Rain 2 also doesn't give you as many interesting decisions or choices to make as most roguelikes. In Slay the Spire you choose cards and rewards and mulligan your opening hand, in Risk of Rain there's only one kind of drop that lets you "choose" which buff you want, but even they're just represented by pictures with no information attached, again meaning a new player unfamiliar with which icon represents which buff isn't gonna be able to make an educated decision or really feel like the limited choice they had mattered. Otherwise the buffs are random, I suppose there's some inherent enjoyment to be had in just having to work with what you've got, but I'd prefer more agency. It's still fun! Very satisfying and a great game to just switch your brain off to, but I've played better.

Beautiful game with equally as beautiful music. It was very fun to see the characters from the first game fully fleshed out into a 3D form, and I've never seen a game go from 2D to 3D so perfectly. The second game also so perfectly fulfills that rogue element in making you feel powerful in a way that you know YOU (the player) are the reason for. It's very satisfying. A very fun game to play with friends, too!

Overall though, Risk of Rain 2 struggles with the same problem that its predecessor did; an addictingly fun game that continues the fun until you learn to easily complete it, which then leads it to become so repetitive it becomes almost boring. Though that's more a problem with the genre than the game itself. I wish I could give something in between a 3.5 and a 4, but understandably can not, feeling like the instant loss of interest once mastering it has me leaning more towards a 3.5 than a 4.