Unfinished: Risk of Rain 2 (04/13/2019)

That guy who you said sucks and you shouldn't play him? Yeah, just the most overpowered class in the game.

You should re-read the rusty key's description. It doesn't work the way you describe it. Instead once you have it a rusty lockbox (brown, so hard to see in most maps) spawns on each map that you can open for free (doesn't use up the key). Having multiple keys increases the chance of a rarer item coming from that box.

I highly recommend opening all the chests before you activate the teleporter, since activating it temporarily seals the chests while the teleporter is charging.

And also communicate about who loots what and who gets which items not just picking shit up that someone else might want, wait for everyone to be ready for activating the teleporter both for summoning the boss and also for finishing the level in case someone wants to loot more.

And no, the developer has not posted a roadmap on steam yet. In their latest news update from April 9 however, they announced that they are working on putting together a content roadmap for everyone to read in a near future.

On a final note, the robot character MUL-T is actually quiet good. It can carry 1 extra active item, and has an ability that gains strength based on it's movement speed. One of my favorite characters right now, and also the one character I've made it the farthest with on solo. I highly recommend people trying it out and experiment with it despite Ben's opinion on it. =D

GOTY 2019

Jeff seems to hate this and I kinda can see why. It just doesn't have the same appeal of the first game it's almost like the graphic style just makes the game feel lifeless. I have been having fun but I hope they have a lot more planned because it's pretty bare bones.

Echoing the first two comments.

The game is basically just 3D Risk of Rain 1, but these days maybe it's simpler to describe it as "it works like Binding of Isaac" where every run you start as a blank slate and gradually gain more and more power-ups as you go.

I know it's a QL so there's a lot to consider, but you really want to be using your character abilities (not equipment ability) almost on cooldown. It's not like a moba where they really need to be saved, as things are balanced around this. Also at any time, just run away from a fight - even/especially bosses - if you need to breathe.

I've been having a ton of fun with the game so far, both single and multiplayer. Huntress and Commando are my faves, and I really want to like Engineer more but feel like he needs a little something extra, between only having two turrets and grenades feeling awkward and weak. My longest solo run was 200+ minutes, and I only stopped because my hands and eyes were start to bother me. Once you get enough of a head of steam with the right upgrades, you can become pretty unstoppable.

I'm not sold on this in early access for all the reasons they noted, but watching them jump in the teleporter with a ton of money and unopened chests seemed like a recipe for getting blown up on the next stage given that original game is all about spending all your money stacking items to eventually create ridiculous combos.

Mainly seems like they need a lot of quality of life features and improvements to the maps. The original had some fairly rough maps that you just had to kind of learn to get around, but translating that into 3D makes it far worse to just have these aimless samey maps you have to navigate to find one key object. At least in 2D most of the maps you could just kind of loop around until you found the teleporter.

Vinny was great in this. Maybe Jeff just brings out the best in him, but this reminded me of the glory days.

Ben mute discord next time

Every time they get a discord notification.

This is the first roguelike I've gotten into since Gungeon, good shit. It does need more but it still has a ways to go in early access, so as long as updates keep rolling in I'll keep playing. But yeah, you should really get as many chests as possible before moving on.

I haven't been able to play this since I don't have a PC but it has got me replaying RoR so that's cool.

I've played a fair bit with friends, and really the only negative I have is that every run felt exactly the same, aside from which character I picked. The items mostly seem to be straightforward stat boosts, in comparison to something like Isaac or Gungeon.

It doesn't matter so much in the long run, since the game plays great and the basic loop is fun, but it's not hooking me like most roguelikes.

This game looks fun if got people to play with. Doubt it be that great solo though.

I've been playing this solo for most of the time, and I'm having a great time. I get to stack all of the items on my own character, which eventually turns out to be incredible overpowered.

A) That is not how dying in a black hole would feel (it would last forever). From your POV, time would move normally for you. Chances are the energy right insight the horizon would vaporize you (assuming its not a small hole, in which case you were very, very quickly ripped apart before you got there). You were joking, of course, but I just to reply as if you were not... because internet.

B) I didn't like the first game, it felt too much like a bullet hell thing. For whatever reason, I am very much ok when someone translates that into 3d, and regardless, this game looks like a lot of fun.

That said - how does it feel to solo it? Enemies any less spongy? EDIT - Posts above basically answer this question. Anyway, this was really fun to watch, hopefully if I by it, it's as fun to play.

Hope the music is as good in this one. The original has one of the best OSTs ever.

I've played this game for about 9 hours, both single player and with my brother. It's extremely good. It works way better in 3D than 2D surprisingly. Partially just because you can actually aim attacks in all directions. It does that good thing of making you feel completely invincible one level only to get completely destroy by 5 Imp Overlords the next.

It's a "Wiki game" though, you'll have to look up how to unlock stuff and what they do. Especially since some of them are pretty well hidden and you really have to explore to find them.

"You guys wanna hit this?"
- Ben "Ben Pack" Pack, 2019

Looks pretty generic

I love cross coast videos but the audio is always on different levels. Ben is way too loud and I can barely hear Alex and everyone else in-between. And the gameplay is pretty low.

The Satisfactory video Vinny and Brad did was perfect. If they can replicate that, that would be great.

All the unlocks are hidden behind challenges which you can look up in the logbook and the amount of "wikiable stuff" is really small, most of it already kinda covered by Ben in this video, like Newt Altars opening up a portal to the Bazar.

@nethlem said:

That's not exactly true. It doesn't tell you a lot of the specifics. Your log won't tell what that item you just unlocked did until you find in game. You have to remember what each item does by looking it since it won't tell until you pick it up. It only tells you the specific numbers of how items stack in the log which you can't access during a run (as far as I'm aware).

For example, there's challenge text just says "Find the Altar of N'kuhana". Doesn't hint at what level or where in that level it is. You COULD stubble upon it if you're really searching and maybe there's some hints in the log, but that's some wiki stuff.

It's fine. I don't mind doing that. It's certainly better about that stuff than other games (Binding of Isaac). But some folks really don't like it, so it's worth pointing out.

@d_w: The log not telling you what the item does until you find it, is imho completely fine because it adds a good surprise factor. In no way does it make the game a "wikigame" because you don't need to wiki anything to "progress" there.

The ability to just tab and mouse over any of the items, to get an explanation what they do, is also not really a genre standard and in that context rather positive, just like having actual % values for what the items do when stacked in the log.

Those are things that in many other games of the genre are entirely relegated to Wikipedia deep-diving. Here you get both inside the game, and ideally, they will maybe show actual numbers while you mouse over your stacks during a round, it's EA after all so there's plenty of time and intent on improvements.

Finding different altars is also not really required for progression, to me, it's more like a neat easter egg and something I will just try to keep an eye out for, solved most of the others in a similar semi-random way.