I remember playing Risk of Rain back in the day. I think I had first heard of it from 4chan, where they obsessed entirely with high difficulty runs using some artifact conglomerate of glass and others I can't remember. Being impressionable, of course, I only played this way as well, and scarcely did I play the game with a more standard build in mind. Even still, I had quite a lot of fun with the game- the characters, variety in items, anti-hero-protagonist storyline, music, art, and so on all captivated mind. I had a bit of an obsession with roguelikes for a long time that allowed me to play very little else, and even if I didn't get quiet the full view of the game that I would prefer these days, Risk of Rain was still a wonderful experience.

I heard years later that Risk of Rain 2 was being announced, and my joy was predictably overflowing. Not long after, Hopoo started showing teasers for the new game, and the first big reveal about it was announced- the addition of a third axis, a transformation to 3d. In nearly an instant, my exciting turned to fear and worry. Roguelikes, in general, are more fond of a 2d-scape, and that made up the bulk of what I had previously played. So of course, I was understandably worried. Risk of Rain 1, which I will now refer to as One, worked perfectly fine with the axis it had, was another one so necessary?

Today, having recently just done what I never did with One-that is, finished it-I am happy to say this decision was not a mistake in the slightest. While One was a perfectly good game that could stand tall next to its brothers on the roguelike market, Risk of Rain 2 more than likely blows it out of the water. Nearly everything that worked well in One works phenominally instead in 2, and it seems like with this release that the game has finally gotten the full breadth of content and development the original so heavily deserved.

When I say nearly everything has been improved, I'm quite serious. Originally, One had captivated me from the start with its time-focused difficulty scaling. This particular method was not one I had seen before in a game like it, and it strikes me as quite a bold decision to design around, given the pitfalls it could so easily have fallen into. With time-oriented scaling, careful balance is required, lest it become impossible for a player to ever keep up, or lest it be well too easy for a player to shoot past it and never worry about that silly thing we call "struggle". Fears aside, Risk of Rain 2 manages its balance in this regard well. Every single run becomes an interesting puzzle of efficiency that seems so simply presented and yet so rich with layers that make dicision-making on the fly a brain-racking struggle. The obvious necessity of gaining money to gain items and scale as a character is clashed heavily with the clear timer constantly ticking down, forcing you to stop at any moment and question your proposed path forward. Getting to the point where the different aspects of design clash start to make sense as a whole and you get in a sort of groove, making each decision feel intelligence, is such a great feeling as a player. What a lovely design decision!

I've said the balance in this regard is quite good, and I'd say it maintains that well in most other systems. Though there is not an incredibly massive number of them like some other titles, the enemies and bosses in the game are ones you get quite familiar with and comfortable with, and each of which gains a strong personality in your mind as you play. In a similar sense, items typically have a strong semblance of design and balance within their own tier of rarity, and though their is not millions of choices like some other particular games, it seems like there's an almost perfect number to allow consistency in what to expect from any given rng drop, while also allowing for many difficult forms of builds between characters to flourish. As well, each tier of items feels just about as good as you would expect from the chance of getting each of them, and there's constistency to this aspect. The game does, however, have its negatives in this regard. Many rougelikes have a certain set of items that belong in their own tier- run-winning. Though, luckily, scarecely few natural items in the game fall into this category, and run-winning builds are made through a combination of some number of stacks of different typical items, there is mechanic to the game that I don't very well enjoy which ties into this idea more than any other- the bazaar.

The bazaar itself holds the strangest category of items regarding balance in the game- lunar items. It seems, every item in it is either an entirely busted run-winning item that trivilizes the difficulty of the game, or an item so niche that just about only one build will ever use it, and it would be particularly good. As well, it also holds the ability to pick the next stage you attempt, allowing you to avoid indefinitely any particular level you don't like. Finally, it lets you perform incredibly inefficient trades for items of high rarity. Now, all of this alone is not some grand sin of design. Oh, and of course, the Void Fields are there also, though some strange decisions surround that. Used to be that it was a particular area where time was paused and you could get a bunch of almost-free items, assuming the enemies don't happen to pick up some number of items that make victory impossible and death certain, but then they recently changed it so time is not paused. Now, it kind of just doesn't feel worth going to at all... eh. Anyway, it's a strange area, to be sure, that lets you skirt around some of the edges of balance, but not horrible as some side-piece to the main game. However, what leads it to be truly not-great in my eyes is that accessing it is dependent on one single thing: run-persistent currency. Essentially, what this implies is that if you play the game enough, you can eventually cash in some number of currency to have a win-guarunteed run. This decision strikes me as incredibly strange in a game where runs are more-or-less similar throughout, with a strong sense of consistency in balance is encouraged, and otherwise any sense of "grind" is completely absent. I used the bazaar quite thoroughly through the first half of my runs through the game, and then entirely excluded it for the rest, and I found myself having a lot more fun from that point on. This may just be me, but it strikes me as a bit of shameful wasted opportunity.

Other areas of rickity balance include some of the enemies. One of the difficult things of balancing any game like this where a highscore-oriented long-run is a high goal is making it so that it truly does scale up in difficulty with time. Aside from items like Shaped Glass (see paragraph above), it truly can be difficult to design so that it's possible for a player to go as long as they're able, while also making it difficult to ever reach a point where continuing on forever is guarunteed. In general, games like these faced with this issue, more often than not, end up implementing stop-gaps in the form of particular foes or mechanics that make dying to them as you reach late run-times a near inevitability, and this game follows suit similary. Particular high-time elites like malachite and other dreadfully strong enemies can end a busted run faster than you can blink. Though I understand the struggle, especially in a game with particular player and enemy scaling mechanics like this, it still is a bit of a sore feeling to die unexpectadly and nearly unpredictably so often to the same specific circumstances.

Don't let that criticism degrade your thoughts on the game- it is only a small portion of much more, and is easy to forget about if you decide to do so. Other areas of variety that Risk of Rain 2 keeps as good as One is easily the cast. There's as much variety here as before, but with the change to 3d and the introduction of many new mechanics, it feels as if the old cast members get a new chance to flourish and the new ones fit in just as well. The new axis adds such an improved possibility of expression and design that every characters feels so much more distinct and developed than before and, despite some similarities that emerge in general, playing as any given character feels like such a different experience from playing another. Even better, the new inclusion of alternate abilities (even if they sadly often feel simply worse than their original counterparts) allows for player expression in their how they play their given favorite character like never before. I won't say that all the characters are prefectly balanced against each other, but with a game like this I'd argue they don't really need to be- just that each are unique from one another, and the game resoundly succeeds at that.

I think the saddest aspect of the big change for me was certaily the art. 2d has, obviously, always been the standard of the typical game of this genre, and so pixel art in games has always been a certain pleasure of mine. The roundedness of the new artstyle, though it scared me at first, really grew on me once I got used to it. 3d is, sadly, much better at displaying something in full than 2d. In a similar aesthetic vein, one area that maintains 100% of the pristine quality of the original is, undoubtedly, the music. One had this incredibly techno-oriented soundtrack that constantly droned as you whisked by failure and boosted the cinematic impact of the experience of the game. Risk of Rain 2 keeps this up entirely, though forsaking some small portion of the original genre for a more spatial and rock-inspired sound. I cannot understate how much I love the soundtrack to both of these games. As many have said before, no one does it like Chris Christodoulou.

Story-wise, the majority of what you learn still comes from logs you unlock as you progress through the game- a mechanic in general I'm still fond of and think fits quite well in a game where the focus of any given run is, obviously, not on the story content. Though I do slightly prefer the sort of heartbreaking, anti-hero focus of the original, facing Providence and putting him and the other denizens of the planet down in such a brutal and tragic fashion, the newly expanded story content is quite good, even if it mainly does just put a sense of background story behind what we have known already and ditch most of One's tragedy.

As far as bugs... since the game's release from early access, it is, for the most part, pretty consistently clean. There's a handful of things here and there that are a little shoddy, but nothing to the extent of hurting the experience or breaking the game. I am somewhat worried, however, about these issues ever getting fixed, and in general about the longevity of the game, given that it seems they have completely abandoned development of the game for some time to focus on Risk of Rain Returns (though I am quite excited about that title as well).

Risk of Rain 2 is an incredible game. With its time-oriented difficulty mechanics, limited but consitent and strong pools of enemies, levels, items, characters, and so on, wonderful aesthetic design, and a simply fun struggle to win, it both appreciates and seperates itself from Risk of Rain 1– a revamp and reinterpretation of an underappreciated classic, rebuilt for a modern age of roguelikes. Not to mention, for some godforsaken reason it is only priced at $25. Unbelievable, and I unbelievably recommend- an immediate classic.

PS: To cover briefly the DLC expansion, Survivors of the Void, I recommend that quite well as well. The new regular items are a great, typical addition, and the new Void items are a mechanic I really, really love. They work shockingly well to add variety to the typical builds already present, and as well add compelling mid-game decisions. As well, the new bubble events are a fun little mid-level distraction. The added foes are quite good, with some of the enemies feeling so properly fitted that I often forgot they were not originally in the game to begin with. The two survivors also have a super unique style to them, and really fun and refreshing as a result. I can't write on the new Planetarium area, as my game is bugged and I only get a black screen when trying to load into it (though I've looked into the issue extensively and have not heard a single other player ever mention having this problem, so I think it may just be due to my own computer or mods or some such). I was, however, able to access the new alternate final boss... not good. It looks incredibly cool, but it has such a small set of incredibly dangerous moves and such an incredibly large hp pool that every time I fought it was either with a standard build, which led to a horribly intense fight to survive against the same attacks over and over, or a busted build that caused an incredibly boring drawn-out conflict where I did not struggle in the slightest and took twenty minute simply whittling down its hp three times over. Not a big fan of the design of this fight, and the time I beat it was the last I ever saw it. Otherwise, the expansion is quite good. It adds quite a lot of variety and additions to the base game to bring it over that edge of having just enough choice to be a thrilling puzzle.

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