My main thought when I finished my first run of RoRR was something along the lines of 'I swear there were way more chests than this', but after sitting on it for a little bit I remembered - I prefer it that way! Even when I was really into RoR2, the original was always sitting there at the back of my mind, and a big part of it is because it's *less* of a power fantasy. It's not hard to get to a point in the sequel where it's basically 3D Vampire Survivors and the game is quite literally playing itself, and at the wilting old age of 23 I simply do not get anything out of that - the biggest challenge at that point is fighting through all the aggressive overstimulation only to see that I haven't actually done anything myself in the past 20 minutes. RoR1, in contrast, is generally a lot more restrained - slower, more methodical and less immediately gratifying, where positioning is much more important and slight missteps are punished a lot harder.

Not to risk romanticising it, though - it's still a post-Isaac roguelike about stuffing yourself with slight passive buffs in the hope of pulling the fabled 'god build' and tearing the game into tiny little pieces. (it's not exactly a god build, but I did get pretty crazy luck in my run earlier!). Runs still live and die almost entirely based on how lucky you get, and it still wants your tiny little monkey brain to light up like a fireworks display when you do get lucky. Yet there's something weirdly captivating about it all the same that lets it stay fondly remembered by me - the #1 biggest roguelike hater of all time (as voted by me) - when I can't help but feel pretty 'eh' about RoR2 in retrospect. Could be the movement that feels like it came straight from an old action-platformer, complete with no vertical aiming in a game with loads of flying enemies. Could be the lessened amount of loot combined with a timer that feels much more meaningful making it difficult to feel *quite* as powerful as you want to be. Could be the indescribably beautiful soundtrack, crushing, contemplative and adrenaline pumping all in equal measure (seriously, this shit is GOLDEN). Could just be that it's a game I sunk a ton of time into with friends a decade ago. Am I just nostalgic? Please don't tell me I'm nostalgic for a game that came out in 2013, it wasn't that long ago.

The remaster itself is pretty great in that it polishes up a couple areas that desperately needed it - multiplayer no longer needing port forwarding or some other solution, and actually being able to use mouse buttons for keybinds (I don't have to use the fucking arrow keys for my attacks any more!!!!). Both of those pretty much justify this game, but it comes with a whole host of additions that... don't really do that much for me? I like porting the alternate skill system over to 1, but the unlock requirements are weird! Take your choice of Providence Trials (minigames involving the new skill, cool concept but mostly feel a bit gimmicky, unsatisfying and they probably don't let you have health regen), or.. Kill 3000 enemies as [character], pick up 300 items as [character]! I loathe timesink stuff like that so much that I still pushed through all the trials I have so far even though I haven't really enjoyed any of them. New enemies are cool though, and sand crabs are finally recognisable as crabs instead of giant walking rocks.

...and so they left, more bustling fungus than man.

I've come to make an announcement: Providence's a bitch-ass motherfucker. He pissed on my fucking wife. That's right. He took his humanoid fuckin' quilly dick out and he pissed on my FUCKING wife, and he said his dick was THIS BIG, and I said that's disgusting. So I'm making a callout post on Petrichor V. Providence, you got a small dick. It's the size of this Bustling Fungus except WAY smaller. And guess what? Here's what my dong looks like. That's right, baby. Tall points, no quills, no pillows, look at that, it looks like two Colossal Knurl and a Crowbar. He fucked my wife, so guess what, I'm gonna fuck the Planet. That's right, this is what you get! My SUPER LASER PISS! Except I'm not gonna piss on the Planet. I'm gonna go higher. I'm pissing on the MOOOON! How do you like that, MITHRIX? I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT! You have twenty-three hours before the piss DROPLETS hit the fucking Planet, now get out of my fucking sight before I piss on you too! Copied!

I must own up to the fact that I misjudged Risk of Rain Returns a bit in my first review. Some points I made still hold true for me (like right/left aiming and the rope mechanics), but other than that I think it is very addicting and fun. I wanted to let it rest for a while, but I couldn't, so here we are.

RoRR is just as addicting as RoR2 is, and does actually improve a bunch upon RoR1. After finishing the initial 2 stages, speed ramps up and the game feels very satisfying. I must say, the only real tactic for this is kiting, dodging, shooting etc. etc., but it's impossible to design it in a different way in a 2D environment.

The challenges in the form of Providence Trials were (controversily) refreshing and fun, despite people hating on it. I think it shows off new abilities and items very well, and puts you into a new perspective like manoeuvring through spaces and tactically using skills. That being said...

The Final Judgement trial needs some tweaking for sure. The only thing that messed me up in that challenge were the first two stages due to overly-present elite enemies. However, I also think that it is difficult in a fun way, because you actually have to tactically use skills instead of avoiding-spamming enemies all the time.

The thing I am definitely most excited for is the music and hidden art pieces, which are out of this world. I never really read item or enemy descriptions in Roguelites/Roguelikes, but these are very interesting and add to the overall world building.

If you like RoR2, I would still recommend for you to wait for a new update with improved aiming mechanics, unless you want to learn them really badly (just makes it more difficult). After that, you will definitely like it a lot.

Finished the game on Rainstorm in less than 3 hours of the game releasing, so these are just first impressions.

Wow, they took every problem I had about RoR1 and fixed it! Changing all the little problems I had with the game before made my opinion go from "Meh, its okay." to "Wait, I REALLY enjoy this". Also loving all of the new remixes and some items from RoR2 returning (lol). Definitely going to play this game more to get all the collectibles.

If you're coming from RoR2, I will say that you're going to get humbled a lot by this game considering how brutal the first game was. My only tip is to not full buy the stage you're on and just hit teleporter when you see it. Speed is war.

I've fully completed RoR1 twice, once in the original 2013 release and again several years later on the switch port. Didn't really follow RoRR announcments and I kind of expected it to be just a visual touch up and a new online system that wasn't a nightmare to deal with. But wow, I'm blown away. The environmental spritework is so gorgeous, there are tons of new items, encounters, a whole challenge mode full of custom maps and unique tasks, reworked survivors and even new ones. I'm super pumped to go through this whole game AGAIN. Way more than I expected.

At the time of writing this review, I recommend waiting for Risk of Rain Returns to get some much needed quality of life improvements. It's kind of weird, considering this is a repolish of the first Risk of Rain...But somehow, the game is clunky as hell.

My main gripe with RoRR is aiming. Never in my life did I expect a new Roguelite in 2023 to have "aim where you are moving to" mechanics, but here we are. What this means is that, when you're running away from enemies (which is always, because many do contact damage), you cannot shoot in the direction of your back; you have to physically turn around by moving towards enemies to shoot at them. I thought it would be common knowledge by now that this is very unintuitive, but I guess not...

Besides that, rope climbing is also inconsistent, even though you constantly need it to escape. And don't even mention the enemy AI: they can't even step up to knee-high obstacles, which means they get stuck on basically everything. Enemy damage is also severly imbalanced, seeing as some enemies don't do any damage whatsoever, while others can two-shot you from a distance.

I was looking forward to getting into RoR again after finishing RoR2 not too long ago. The one thing I am not disappointed in is Chris Christodoulou's soundtrack. As many of the reviews and comments on RoRR say: "Thank you for including a free game with this album!". Too bad the game isn't actually ready, but we'll have to see how that develops.

THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING HIGH I AM ON RIGHT NOW, OH MY GOD. Just finished my first ever victory on this game (on monsoon difficulty btw), and yep, this game is incredible. The gameplay is tight and satisfying, the item system is still perfect, the visuals are some of the best pixel art i've ever seen, the music mindblowing (COALESCENCE AHHHHHHHHHHHH) and the final boss might be one of the greatest in gaming. It also might be one of the hardest games I've ever beaten, way harder than RoR2. My expectations were high, and god, they might have been surpassed. I just really need the mouse aiming patch to come out already, and maybe for chests and shrines and stuff to spawn more often/be more condensed, but otherwise, 10/10 I fucking love this franchise. I will be getting all achievements just like I did RoR2.

Its an alright game but I just find RoR2 better in pretty much every way, the 3D plane helps a lot with navigation and knowing how to get to the teleporter, not knowing where the teleporter is in this is so frustrating. Also the printers and scrapers in RoR2 were great, it let you mitigate some of the RNG and really get a strong build, but in this sometimes you just get the worst luck with nothing you can really do to mitigate it. The platforming is also just really bad, and a lot of the new challenges work around it, which I find quite frustrating. Grabbing a rope often doesn't happen if your firing and sometimes just doesn't happen at all, the magnetic pull of the ropes can really screw you.

Overall, I dont hate it and i'm sure i'll dabble in it with friends but I'd rather just play RoR2

[ENG] Pretty faithful to the original, which doesn't mean it's a good thing.
They lacked some quality of life the first game could have had as well. Hopoo still doesn't know how to balance unlockable skills since most of them are worthless compared to the ones you already have.

The soundtrack's remaster left something to be desired since they barely are different from the original, and i'm disappointed Hive Cluster biome didn't get an original soundtrack.

Still, it's a great game to play with friends, and it's pretty challenging.

[PT-BR]
Bastante fiel ao original, o que não significa que seja uma coisa boa. Faltou algumas alterações de qualidade de vida que o primeiro jogo também poderia ter tido. Hopoo ainda não sabe como equilibrar as habilidades desbloqueáveis, pois a maioria delas são piores que as que você já possui.

A remasterização da trilha sonora deixou a desejar, já que quase não difere do original, e estou desapontado que o bioma Hive Cluster não tenha recebido uma trilha sonora original.

Ainda assim, é um ótimo jogo para jogar com amigos e bastante desafiador.

Good, but a couple things keep me from calling it great. The fact that enemies come at you from all 360 degrees but you can only attack left or right, how sprawling the maps are compared to how sparse the loot is, how the teleporter is more annoying to find, how sometimes you get lost in all the visual noise. I loved Risk of Rain 2 for letting you go wild, break the game with all the different synergies and tricks. This feels comparatively more restrained, adheres more to the classic roguelike formula. Not that this is necessarily a detriment in its own right, I still think it’s decently fun for what it is.

( Review da versão pós-lançamento do jogo )
( E já aviso que essa review virou um gigantesco colosso, estejam preparados! )

Um remake muito bom em questões artísticas e de conteúdo, mas que peca bastante nas questões de otimização mecânica de gameplay em comparação ao Risk of Rain original.

Antes de continuar, para que o peso que existe nesse remake seja melhor entendido, temos que dar uma olhada breve na história dessa série:
Risk of Rain foi lançado em 2013, em um período absolutamente escasso de Roguelites. Seu lançamento foi praticamente um tiro no escuro, mas todos os bem venturados, como eu, que descobriram esse jogo na época puderam facilmente ver e sentir que ele conseguia trazer o mesmo nível de diversão e desafio que o maior nome de todos os roguelites daquela época, que era The Binding of Isaac - o original. A versão Isaac Rebirth (que também é um remake) só sairia em Novembro de 2014, e ela que faria a chama dos roguelites brilhar com nunca antes, dando início ao período dos roguelikes/lites, que se estende até hoje.
Risk of Rain, diferente de Isaac, porém, não alcançou a fama merecida em seu tempo, mas agregou um clube de fãs que, mesmo que pequeno em comparação ao de Isaac, amavam Risk of Rain com todas as forças. Este clube, comigo incluso, pode ver a atualização do jogo em 2014, que adicionou as classes Loader e Chef (assim como mais alguns itens), com esperanças de que isso traria ainda mais atualizações, no entanto o que se seguiu foi um período de absoluto silêncio à série (período esse que os devs estavam focando em um jogo ala Hotline Miami em vista lateral, chamado DeadBolt), apenas com mods tentando manter a vida do jogo… até anunciarem Risk of Rain 2 em 2017!
Nem preciso dizer que esse anúncio, mesmo que trazendo altas dúvidas e estranheza pelo jogo ser 3D em terceira pessoa, fez com que todo o clube de fãs vibrassem de alegria por saber que a série estava viva. Por vários meses, seguindo ansiosamente as raras atualizações no Tumblr da Hoppo Games, pudemos sentir cada vez mais o gostinho da grandiosidade que seria aquele jogo. Cada atualização aumentava o hype. O hype ansioso que não fazia ideia de quando sairia esse jogo (se é que sairia – sempre existia esse risco), até que em 2019, no evento da Pax East, na sessão de anúncios da GearBox, onde ninguém estava ligando pra nada que não fosse o altamente teorizado anúncio de Borderlands 3 (que de fato foi anunciado no fim daquela sessão), ouve-se o apresentador proferir a sequência mais surpreendente e inesperada possível: “Estamos anunciando uma parceria com a equipe Hoppo Games!”. Seguido, um dev tímido sobe ao palco e intensifica ainda mais o hype da última frase, a níveis explosivos, com a seguinte fala: “Risk of Rain 2 está aberto para jogar em Early Access neste exato momento!”…. Nem preciso dizer o quão titânica foi a emoção de todos os fãs de Risk of Rain; aqueles que eram apenas uma pequenina fração dos que estavam vendo aquele evento, mas que puderam compreender em toda sua magnificência a emoção que aquelas palavras traziam.
Dalí pra frente a história começa a se tornar mais conhecida. A parceria com a GearBox finalmente trouxe à série Risk of Rain a sua fama merecida, e o pequeno clubinho de fãs torna-se a colossal fanbase de hoje.

Com isso tudo, dá para entender porque Risk of Rain Returns, sendo um remake de Risk of Rain, é algo tão importante para os fãs, principalmente para aqueles que faziam parte do clubinho inicial de adoradores da série.
Um remake daquele jogo que iniciou tudo, e que nós amávamos e ainda amamos com todas as forças!

E é com isso que eu devo dizer que, no estado atual, o remake é uma mescla de felicidade e tristeza. Comparando ao primeiro jogo, as artes são incríveis, o conteúdo é fantástico, as melhoras que permitem a adição de DLC’s, mods e online sem problemas é uma bênção, mas a gameplay se difere em vários aspectos que, mesmo que sejam mais detalhes, juntos acabam causando um incômodo tremendo – algo que perpassa o mero incomodo de costume, caindo no que parece ser uma falha de balanceamento.

Como uma leve medida comparativa dessas mudanças, a alguns anos atrás, quando meu primo comprou um PS4, eu comprei o Risk of Rain 1 para ele de presente, com a condição que eu pudesse jogar a primeira run. O save estava novinho, com nada desbloqueado e só o Commando liberado. Peguei pra jogar e, no meu nível de vício maldito, zerei o jogo na primeira run, desbloqueando sabe-se lá quantos itens no processo.
Com Risk of Rain Returns, morri na segunda fase na minha primeira run de Commando. Talvez tenha sido azar? Vamos tentar de novo! E bem… não era. Nas quase 30 mortes que estou no momento (quase liberando Dio’s Best Friend) eu só consegui terminar o jogo uma vez.
Então, por experiência, de fato esse jogo está mais difícil.

Os mapas possuem mais variedade agora, com versões bem grandes que te fazem perder bastante tempo explorando. Tempo, para os que não sabem, é uma medida crucial em Risk of Rain, afinal cada minuto de deixa mais próximo de um aumento considerável de dificuldade. O tempo que se perde explorando essas fases não é a crítica em questão, mas sim o fato de, mesmo elas sendo bem maiores, elas ainda possuem a mesma quantidade de baús e interagíveis que uma fase pequena – é aí que mora o desequilíbrio. Demorar mais tempo explorando não é um problema se você consegue obter recursos para deixar o seu personagem mais forte no caminho, porém esses são escassos nessas fases maiores, te jogando numa correria desesperada por uma fase vasta que parece vazia.

Outro aspecto é quanto aos personagens/classes do jogo, que parecem muito mais fracos. No primeiro jogo, mesmo com itens mais básicos, seu personagem conseguia aguentar e dar uma quantidade boa de dano, graças também as evoluções de nível – o que, de bônus, aumentava bem a velocidade do personagem. No remake as coisas estão bem mais difíceis (no infeliz sentido ruim), principalmente por não importar quantos itens de defesa você pegue, sua vida sempre vai ficar sambando cruelmente próxima da morte. A mesma situação para a velocidade, que escala muuuuito lentamente. O dano demora um pouco para juntar, mas não está ruim – mas junto a baixa defesa e velocidade, ele nunca parece suficiente para limpar e domar hordas perigosas antes que elas lavem o chão com a sua cara.
Esse desbalanceamento, por estar no núcleo da gameplay do jogo, reflete em altos outros elementos, como por exemplo, fazer com que vários itens do primeiro jogo pareçam ineficazes ou nerfados (ou pode ser que alguns tenha sido realmente nerfados - ainda não conferi essa parte).

Os inimigos novos são divertidos, com exceção dos voadores, que são o inferno. Já era um saco lidar com as abelhas do templo e com os Evolved Lemurians no jogo original, e agora nós temos mais dois bestas para o time dos voadores.
O range de alguns inimigos antigos foi aumentado, assim como o dano de outros – pelo menos utilizando como base a fraqueza dos personagens no remake.

Os trials são divertidos de fazer, em boa parte, e ajudam a liberar mais possibilidades de builds, skins e itens para os personagens, o que é uma ideia bem interessante. Conseguir a medalha de ouro em todos eles deve ser o inferno, mas um inferno divertido de fazer - pra quem é um masoquista de roguelites, como eu.

Com isso tudo, vale a pena jogar?
Sinceramente eu acho que vale, mas também recomendo esperar um pouco antes de comprar pra ver se lançam updates de correção e balanceamento – especialmente se você for fã do primeiro jogo.
O que temos aqui no momento é uma joia fosca que, se corretamente polida, pode ser que brilhe bem mais que o belo diamante ao qual foi inspirada.

seemingly simple on the surface, Risk of Rain Returns presents a philosophical proposal—should one continue to reject modern times and live out their nostalgia for the past, or leave that behind and accept the ever-changing future?

Risk of Rain Returns is a renaissance of the game that got Hopoo Games started in 2013. for context I didn't get into the original Risk of Rain (RoR1) until the holiday season of 2015. a good friend told me about it back when I was a NEET and it was my first roguelike whatsoever. I loved it! once it had ran its course over a good 100+ hours and I realized that it was abandoned by the devs I moved on from it. then I found out a 3D sequel was in the works and my hype was off the charts. Risk of Rain 2 released in early access right when I got my first job, funny enough. I was there for the whole development cycle—from the days of pre-release Tumblr dev blogs, all the way to its first expansion—and here I am now with ~1450 hours in it. that's my background with this series.

after RoR2's tumultuous development cycle, time constraints and all, it seems like Hopoo kinda just.. gave up on it and handed the rights over to Gearbox. that's completely understandable given the fact that their core dev team used to be just three people getting help from Gearbox. the co-founders themselves had no experience with 3D game development nor the Unity engine. rather than pushing themselves through something they didn't enjoy anymore they decided to move on to other projects, with the first being a return to what got us all here in the first place.

I'm not here to dissect every little gameplay change/addition or whether or not it has """held up well""" a decade later or anything of the sort. the bottom line is that it's a classic that holds personal weight and sees nothing but improvements. what's important to me is the fact that it convinced me to critically reassess my thoughts on Risk of Rain 2, particularly its status as a favorite of mine that I put a ton of time into as my "time sink" game, and the series as a whole. RoR2 used to be one of my favorite games and one that I considered to be a direct upgrade over RoR1. why play 1 when 2 exists? while Returns might seem like more of a remaster of a game from 2013, in my eyes it is the best that the series has to offer. it's a culmination of Hopoo's best efforts after their dabble into 3D development and the expansion of their development team which has more than doubled in size, as well as additional help from some of the most prominent RoR1 modders.

the two new features that I find worth mentioning are the catch-up mechanic and the alternate game mode, Providence Trials. firstly, when you die in co-op you live out a second life as a measly gunner drone for the remainder of the stage. you can't interact with anything, but you can pick up items and fly wherever you like while drawing aggro off your friends. it's funny, it's fair and a very welcomed inclusion. as for Providence Trials I find them to be entertaining minigames that are a breath of fresh air as the main gameplay loop of runs can get rather stale after all these years. I don't see them as gimmicky, frustrating events that you have to force yourself through to unlock alternate skills. in fact I spent some number of hours getting gold ranks in every trial and never grew tired of it, not even the hardest wildly imbalanced ones. I'd argue that although many aren't applicable to regular gameplay, some do teach you lessons and build up habits or provide knowledge that can be utilized in your runs.

my only real complaints which are still pretty negligible would be balance concerns that'll probably be addressed in future patches, and the fact that so many item unlocks are gated behind hyper-specific challenges. the issue is that a handful of them are much more difficult and/or conditional than the rest. reach the third teleporter as Commando without getting hit, reach level 10 as Miner without getting hit more than once, kill x enemies simultaneously with a certain skill/equipment... these are all very tedious to unlock without using artifacts or the intensity sliders. yeah it's good that there's a variety of challenges here but they most likely won't happen naturally, so they felt like things I had to go out of my way to complete rather than just enjoying playing the game normally. that's on me for being so insistent on doing them the hard way, but it's annoying that I have to unlock more items to diversify the item pools.

aside from those minor concerns I'm enamored by this release.... or at least I would be if I wasn't so burnt out on Action Roguelites. it's a bittersweet feeling, but at least I'm not tempted to dump hundreds of hours into it until it overstays its welcome. every single change—from improving the flow of combat by allowing each survivor to attack and move at the same time, to the remastered tracks giving more detail and texture to an already incredible OST—seems well thought out and done for the better. I can't say the same for its sequel. simply put, it's basically the Remaster vs. Remake argument all over again. the original has its own charm that its sequel is sorely lacking, whereas this "remaster" keeps it intact and even amplifies it. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this so it doesn't need further explanation, Soul vs. Soulless and all that, but I have been steadily creating a list of all of my gripes with RoR2. you can find them in my other review for it if you'd like to divulge in its handful of flaws for more context.

---

and so I loop back to that initial question: will you continue to reject the present and live out your nostalgia for the past... or will you leave that behind, escape this planet, and accept the ever-changing future?

there is no answer to that. neither, a mixture of both, it's all open to interpretation. in my case I found RoR1 during my not-so-fond NEET years and RoR2 dropped right as I got my first job. I put many, many hours into RoR2 and enjoyed it in the moment, but the more time that passes after breaking my obsession with it, the more its appeal wears off and the harder it gets to be willfully ignorant towards its flaws. I've finally realized that getting tons of playtime out of something doesn't automatically make it better or more valuable. RoR2 generally feels like a product of its time for me as I've lost that passion for roguelikes, which is rather ironic considering that one of the other games in this discussion is from 2013. the problem is that RoR2 feels like an overload of sensory stimulation that I just don't even want to go back to. in my eyes it tried way too hard to lean into being Fun for the player that it lost its identity in the process, possibly as a result of its explosive popularity and the intent of responding to player feedback. I used to consider it one of my favorite games and gaming experiences overall, but that's changed. and that's a good thing, personal growth is necessary to be able to discover and articulate my preferences. I'm sure RoR2 will be fine in Gearbox's hands too, but who knows. I'm mainly looking forward to whatever Hopoo Games will create next now that they're done with this roguelike series. as its final sendoff, Returns has been a blast. play it by yourself, with your friends, with or without artifacts, whatever. it's a great game!

while Risk of Rain 2 may have missed its mark and became its own thing entirely, I'm just glad we got this.. remaster? re-release? something like that. Risk of Rain Returns is a slight re-imagining of an influential title, a game that's important to me, and it's one of the best of its kind. it may not be some masterfully crafted experience (besides the community memes) but I love it all the same. it's one of my favorite roguelites for good reason; one that lets me turn a blind eye to the typical shortcomings that plague this subgenre and the fatigue that comes with it. it's an exception to the rule. I'll take a compact, essential experience above an oversaturated time waster any day.

...and so she left, her soul still remaining on the planet.

A very rare instance where a remake actually could very well completely replace the original. This plays absolutely fantastic with all the new stuff from RoR2 tossed in and even more new things on top of that.

My only real gripe is that if you disconnect during a session with your friend where you both unlocked a nice handful of things? Kiss that stuff goodbye. It fucking SUCKS. Your unlock progress ought to be saved the minute the achievement pops but it just doesn't for some reason. Otherwise? I'd consider this pretty much a perfect game.

its a very good refinement of ror1, removing things that make that game feel much slower than it needs to, such as needing to kill every enemy before you can leave the level (which took an immense amount of time in such large levels). the new characters and updates to old characters are quite enjoyable, and many of the new skills are fun to use (with some exceptions that feel weird, like giving sniper a melee attack). new enemy, item, and stage variants are also all good and are more interesting than a lot of the original variants. if you like risk of rain 1, you'll like this, but if you didn't like the core concept/ gameplay of 1 then this probably isn't for you.

finally got 100% steam achievements today and will definitely keep playing after this.