Recent reviews by A Large Wallaby

It's much nicer looking but every bit as annoying as the first game. I've already 100% the first game, this time around I was really hoping for some sort of balance update, but they really meant it when they said this would be a faithful remaster, to the chagrin of my sanity.

Addendum:
I didn't make it clear in my original review, but I don't hate this game. I loved the first game, and by extension that means I love the same things in this game. But ten years ago the action roguelite genre was still pretty young. A lot of the game mechanics present were antithetical to its design though I was willing to overlook them in light of the game's combat loop and the novelty of time = difficulty VS infinite item stacking. but ever since RoR2 came out I haven't really had a reason to look back... until I saw the tagline "Risk of Rain 1 but updated" and I misinterpreted it as "improved" or "modernized" when it actually meant "remastered," which is why I'm disappointed, though I suppose that's my own fault for not examining it more closely before buying. If I could, I would give this game a neutral review.

The word "deliberate" gets thrown around a lot, even during the first game's time. It's deliberate that you have to adopt rigorous, repetitive movement techniques in order to avoid fast enemies or those with homing/predictive aim. It's deliberate that you have to section off tanks and flying enemies to fight properly. It's deliberate that this game plays more like a moba than a platformer.
The crux of the issue is, no matter how efficiently you are playing (and the maps will try their best to prevent you from playing efficiently), you will more than likely run into something you can't reasonably deal with, and this happens much more often than you would like. Maybe it doesn't end your run immediately, but chances are it gets the ball rolling if you suddenly have to eke through an overbearing horde or boss over several minutes. It takes looping completely out of the question if you don't chance upon core items. I would prefer to lose a run due to an accumulation of bad choices or misinputs, not immediately due to a bad matchup. And that's where I think the term "deliberate" becomes a cope. It's a codeword for "s### happens," which is befitting of the title but doesn't make for a compelling gameplay loop.
(Back to the original review...)

Survivors are able to kite more effectively (sort of) but now more enemies can climb ledges and even ropes, meaning you will be kiting even more. The chest system has been overhauled to be more like RoR2 so you don't accidentally get equipment from a small chest or multishop but equipment chests and the more expensive category chests now account for half the chests on the map, which was never that many to begin with. While a few of the new alternate skills do feel like legitimate sidegrades, a lot of them do not feel well thought out at all, and the Artificer feels like an afterthought due to how dysfunctional her entire kit is. Many of the new "Providence Trials" minigames are quite innovative and fun but unfortunately they are separate from the main game and only serve to unlock those hit-and-miss alternate abilities, cosmetics and a few items-- I would have preferred if they were somehow incorporated as Hidden Realms between runs for bonus loot but as they are implemented feel like squandered development time.
The new monsters include 2 enemies that try to ambush you, a flying divebomber, and a zoning monster that can stretch vertically to meet you with slow projectiles, but the list of new engaging enemies ends there as every other new monster feels tanky or overtuned, none more than the new boss, which is like if a Scavenger could appear at any point in a run and I groan whenever I see it spawn in.
The new items are fine. I especially like Prophet's Cape. The problem isn't and has never been item bloat as a whole, but rather that the rarity spread of items feels commensurate at the best of times. Especially with how unimpactful many of the game's original white items are, having access to varied common items more often would go a long way, I believe.

Every single map barring Sky Meadow and Risk of Rain is still a nightmare to traverse. The worst contenders are the ones which can only be traversed by doing a full rotation of the map if your mobility is inadequate. This game has semisolid platforms and it chooses to not utilize them anywhere that they would make sense. Large enemy corpses can completely obscure small ledges, and some of the solid terrain blends into the background by design.
Many bosses completely counter certain survivors. Bosses can still drop equipment instead of an item. Bosses capable of receiving knockback can fall far below the teleporter, forcing you to meet them before climbing back up to the teleporter. Bosses immune to knockback but unable to follow the player around the map can spawn in a very disadvantageous spot where you cannot fight them quickly or safely causing you to lose the run. Volatile elites are still not fun to fight. The credit cost for elite bosses still feels extremely low. Small elite enemies that are dangerous to get near can stealthily spawn into dense crowds of enemies. Dense crowds of enemies have no synchronization meaning they can spam-fire longer than you can stay airborne or give you no opportunity to trade damage.
"Mobility" and "Special" ability placement is inconsistent across survivors, rendering ability-augmenting items for some survivors useless. Until an ability finishes casting the game will still completely ignore the input of any other ability, including your primary. Many survivors require items that help them cover angles or perform crowd control that they normally don't have access to, which of course is not guaranteed. Drones are extremely fragile in proper engagements and only effective when out of enemy reach (which is now a lot less common). Bungus doesn't heal while you are attacking, despite what we've learned.

The feedback from attacking enemies as well as the sound design and music is still phenomenal, and I know recreating all of the game assets in HD must have been time consuming but game's fundamental mechanics involve archaic and aggravating features, which means they're not going away soon.
I just hope the developers continue to tweak the game to keep the game's high moments present while ripping the cord on your run less often.

Nice artwork, however;

Black Skylands >> Properties > Betas > Beta Participation > early_access_game_version - Early_access_game_version

Loved Postal 2, Apocalypse Weekend and Paradise Lost, and I'm loving this game and it's updates so far, despite the jank.
One thing I feel needs to be said though, is that (in the current build) the NPC's act identically to Postal 2. On it's own this doesn't sound like a dealbreaker, but I feel that this game is trying to be a little more than just Postal 2 HD.
The three main examples of NPC's similarity to their predecessors are Behavior, Animation, and Voices.
This game has several sprawling open areas. A lot of the combat missions are located in segmented indoor settings just like Postal 2, but the overworld is a lot more busy than before, albeit lacking in verticality. What this amounts to is awkward behavior from the NPCs whether they react passively or aggressively toward the player. Fleeing NPCs will completely neglect their pathfinding and zig-zag around until they get stuck or hit a wall, or just stand completely still to make matters worse. Aggroed NPCs will make a beeline toward the player, or make jarring sharp turns around corners before firing immediately as if aimbotting. All NPC movement includes some degree of instant acceleration, stopping on a dime, immediate sharp turning, etc. It feels very unnatural, affects aim, and throws tactical/pacifist playstyles out of the water. (though sometimes retreating NPCs will accidentally pull off a serpentine and I find this cool)
There are also very few cancels or interruptions in NPC animations, and absolutely no animation blending, which many modern games take advantage of. Sometimes this is funny, like you can make an NPC start to puke and then kick it to death while it's stuck puking. In the fairness of combat it either puts the NPC's or the player at a disadvantage, whether it's the npc getting stuck on an animation or voiceline proceeding an aggressive reaction, or when an armored NPC plays a "stunned" animation but is still able to fire immediately or too soon before it expires.
All of this stuff was excusable in the old Postal 2, and I'm nearly certain that their programming was lifted directly from Postal 2 to save on development time. I would really like to see NPC behaviors and animation get overhauled before the game gets out of EA because along with the voices (which are DEFINITELY from Postal 2, and make Dude's new voice seem even more out of place, being recorded 2 decades ago) it just makes this game feel so disconnected with its graphics and scale.

The physics in this game leave a lot to be desired. Bugs range from frustrating to game-breaking. Fragments of deformed terrain block movement. Grabbed objects retain collision momentarily, flinging nearby objects away. Simulated collisions can scatter around your resources or even undo hours of progress as crafted/purchased objects clip through the ground or fly away beyond the world boundary.
Calling this an indev solo game project is generous; this feels more like a tech demo, one that's for sale on the Steam Store.

Wow I don't get it

Beautiful, but totally incompetent as a game.
A one-on-one boss fighter that revolves around a one-hit mechanic where either the player or the boss typically dies in one hit. The player has unlimited respawns, and a bit of walking between retries to give them time to strategize. There's a bit of a puzzle behind how to defeat each boss, but less times did I find myself cheering after the discovery of how to beat that boss than thinking "oh, I could have just done that the first time." And to top it off, defeating each boss rewards you with a quickly repetitive animation where you absorb the titular Titan Souls from the defeated boss. It hasn't anything to do with how you defeated the boss, even a humorous animation to spite how many times you had to repeat the boss would have been appreciated.
The whole point of a boss battle is as a test to see if you've improved with given abilities or disadvantages over the course of a level or front of enemies. This is just repeating several tests given no context and told which answers you've gotten right last time.
Maybe with a bit more effort a concept like this could have worked. Sadly I wouldn't even recommend it on sale.

• 4 points for artwork
• 1 point for gameplay,
• -2 points for bugs and technical issues

So there's this Early Access title called Killing Floor 2 that seems more complete and less buggy than this game and obviously Tripwire Interactive, the developers of Killing Floor felt bad for Torn Banner because people keep complaining that the game is broken and the combat devolves beneath games like Mount & Blade which look worse but play better. And I agree with these people, but I have a small bias against the claim, which is
Tom Banner[media.tripwirecdn.com] is literally the best thing that has happened since Harold Lott. He spews Olde English memes and comes with a weapon that is more or less a reskin (although it promises more effort than Torn Banner's partnership content which were completely cosmetic reskins that don't even look good or make any sense) and considering the game was on sale for $5 at the time, the same asking price for a character pack from the original Killing Floor, nothing of value was lost.

I would rate this game a 3.5/10 but I too feel bad for Torn Banner so adding Killing Floor 2's 9/10 and then averaging the two brings this game up to a 6.25/10 meaning I have to recommend it. (Get in on sale i/p)

The game will not launch since the update

The movement is clunky and the action is slow. Beginning game is extremely counterintuitive, adding a mag to your gun makes it weaker than the knife.
And I really wish the enemies respawned and there was contact damage. That would make this game so much better.

Someone get that sniper.