I really wanted to like this game. I played the original Risk of Rain back in 2015 and loved it. So when I heard that the game has gotten a sequel that I missed and that it was allegedly quite good I was excited. I picked it up with basically no hesitation.

I was unfortunately quite disappointed when I finally got into my first run. My first few runs were disappointingly easy, which surprised me. I guess perhaps my knowledge of its predecessor transferred over but the game never made me feel nearly as challenged as I did in the original. And when I did die, it always felt like it was a result of the game spawning enemies out of my line of sight to attack me from places I wasn’t aware of. Every new world the game thrust me into looked and felt exactly like the last, barren, ugly, and larger than necessary. I believe the worlds in the original Risk of Rain could get away with this scale given its 2D graphics but in Risk of Rain 2, the emptiness of these worlds is truly apparent. The gameplay is much the same, in Risk of Rain 2013, the limited movesets of the characters felt like a fun game of micromanaging cooldowns but in Risk of Rain 2 I found the most effective strategy to spam as many attacks as possible, especially as many of the few moves of each character blended into each other in aesthetics. The interesting items of Risk of Rain 1 were also greatly weakened by a transition to 3D. In the original when my character shot off a missile I could see where it ended up and be satisfied that it was helping to protect me. In the sequel the missile is equally likely to fly to a point I could not see and hit an enemy I didn't know was there.

In all, I simply believe the transition to 3D is a poor choice for the gameplay of Risk of Rain. It turns these massive, interesting, and beautifully sprited worlds of the original into bland, basic cell-shaded unity worlds that all look the same. Ironically, I believe the addition of a 3rd dimension strips a lot of the depth away from the original.

so much cool, ok the graphics are not detailed but the base game is 2 GB!!
and it's awesome! And the graphics are refined rather than simple.

- All the different objects allow complex and varied builds, same for survivors.
- It can be played alone or with others
- mod support so more items!!
- musics are sooo cool, some times it's like pink-floyd and sometimes it's remind me some C418 music (Minecraft) or Lena Raine (Celeste)

It is a very well done job

This game is something special. Every single time I play it, no matter how much I know the mechanics, I always genuinely feel like I'm stranded on an undiscovered alien planet. It always feels fresh no matter what, especially in multiplayer. The music, done by the legendary Chris Christodoulou, definitely helps that feeling. It's one of those soundtracks that starts incredibly, but it somehow gets even better. And the survivors, too. Perfectly balanced. Even if some of them are more useful and fun to play as (cough cough loader cough cough), none of them feel useless or bad to play as. It's not easy to strike that sort of balance, but somehow, Hopoo Games did it. And the lore, too. Scattered and esoteric, yes. But it's so well written, makes you want to complete every log you can. You even start to feel sympathy for Mithrix at the end. This is rougelite perfected. Please, give it a shot.

Also, I'm pretty sure it gave me a gambling addiction.