Recent reviews by Mister Boy Himself

I like a lot of the new content. Races and more skill depth is certainly welcome.

However, you killed the retro vibe of the game and replaced the pixel icons with terrible, low-quality mobile game graphics. The game looks way worse than it should. You need to implement the old icons immediately or I cannot see myself playing this. It's intrusive and obstructive.

Fix the icons to be like the first game. Then we can talk.

This review is specifically geared at providing feedback to the developers as per their request.

After 13 hours and defeating the last boss of the Frozen Depths, I have completed all of the basic content for the game, unlocked and tried each character once, and seen all abilities. Keeping in mind that this is early access and that the devs still have plans to implement a deeper progression and end-game content cycle, I have high praises for the game.


In simplest terms, this game brings the satisfying wave-slaying gameplay of Vampire Survivors and expands on it by introducing more interactive gameplay and RPG elements. Aesthetically, the game captures the gritty retro look of the CRPG golden age. It looks fantastic and has crisp sound design.

The primary attack being controllable with manual aiming and attack buttons is great. It allows you to seamlessly swap between auto-attacking the nearest enemy and focusing groups or boss enemies, especially with how the weapons scale. This approach makes each class play very differently from one another. Chain-lightning, longsword, bow, frost spear, etc. all function radically different making the characters feel distinct.

The enemy behavior variety is a great improvement over the Vampire Survivors formula as well. It keeps the player engaged and provides a new layer of challenge and interaction to a genre that can tend toward AFK xp farm simulators. This game avoids that by providing reasonable ways for you to deal with enemies while also making it impossible to afk until you get a very very good build going. This does not seem possible with just basic equipment and levels, so, there is definitely more to explore here after the point I am at.

The different damage types and status effects are very cool. Building not only "damage" but physical, magical, fire/burn, electric, and frost as well as a kind of "holy" build is very satisfying. The different colored damage numbers may seem like a small detail but it provides visual feedback that what you are doing is working and is a pretty genius dopamine booster.

Lastly, the variety of builds is great. You can tank out, aiming for defense or block strength to deflect damage. You can go for physical damage and crit, various magical damage types and statuses like burn, frost, electrifty, etc. In short, there is a great foundation here for an in-depth RPG type experience.


First, all characters are not created equally. For example, the Shield Maiden is intended to be a character with the ability to avoid most damage while also having knockback and damage that scales with block strength. However, at least without late-game item options, she feels terrible to use out of the gate. She is tanky, but, she cannot get to the point where she can fully tank the wave of enemies. She still dies. Since she has terrible damage and attack speed, I see no use case for her character. On the other end of things, the Exterminator is just busted. His base weapon eviscerates everything with fire and flame. Once he acquires a few fire-based abilities and a basic burn-amplification item, the game is practically won. He melts bosses and destroys waves of enemies.

Basically, while the character niche system is great, it needs to be tuned to allow non-DPS classes to function better. You should not be afraid of allowing the Maiden to fulfill the fantasy of being an unstoppable tank. There need to be more defensive ability options similar to the laurel from VS because, as it stands, you essentially want a class that can stack a damage type/debuff type and just clear everything. There are not good options for the Shield Maiden or the Necromancer who require significant investment to merely function at a subpar level.

By the way, the necromancer is horribly glitched graphically. Please fix that ASAP.

I have played a full 13 hours without unlocking a single additional potion. I beat the game without every utilizing that aspect of the game. It could be luck, but, I think having a few more basic potion options would entice players to explore that aspect of the game more.

There is essentially a dearth of content here. More stages, enemies, abilities, and items are all necessary to really push this out of early access in a meaningful way. There is only one frost ability, for example, but there are three or four fire ones. Because of the available abilities it feels much better to play Exterminator, Sorceress, or Cleric thematically than any other class. Many players such as myself, I imagine, like this game for the RPG element primarily. I have tended toward these classes that can build thematically yet powerfully for this very reason. Getting ringblades and phantom needs on the warrior just felt wrong to watch. I would really like there to be more physical, tank, holy, and frost-themed abilities to round-out the roster. The Huntress, Maiden, Norseman, Cleric, and basic classes would feel much better with more options to let them shine and fulfill their fantasy.

So, it seems that you are already partially aware of what you need to do since you mentioned more meaningful progression and options for replayability. I really think this boils down to just MOAR stuff, but, I would definitely suggest that the MOAR you prioritize revolve around the basic essence of how you build characters. We need more abilities and more interesting item/build paths to allow every character to shine. You have a winning formula with how Exterminator and Sorceress (and, with a little help, the Huntress) function. Make tanks, burst damage-dealers, and niche classes able to fill that same space with abilities that work for them. No sense in having a slew of stats if some of them don't have clear build options to the same level of satisfaction of chain-lightning or burning everything to death.

So, in short, I would suggest more variety, but very focused around revitalizing the lacklustre classes and promoting the RPG element of the game much further. You have a great thing going here, and leaning into the RPG side of things will push HoT to the next level.

Boring. Very little content as of now. Novelty wore off after one hour.

The game is fun and has superb visual and sound design. It is by far the best auto-battler I have played.

The game is awesome!

Unfortunately, the performance is too unstable. I have a 7900 XT. The game ping pongs between 130 to 90 FPS constantly, and, after the tutorial area, has started dropping to 50-70 randomly.

A constant, smooth 60 FPS would have been doable. Elden Ring is a fairly smooth 60 FPS. But this has too much stuttering, frame drop, "hitching," and clunkiness.

I am so disappointed that I have to refund because of performance. I was genuinely enthralled by the game. But I'm not paying full price for a game that runs this poorly.

Unfortunately, I had to refund. Hammerwatch II has the trappings of a great game, and I hate to refund it because I want developers like crackshell to thrive. The game has some of the best pixel art I have ever seen and some amazingly smooth gameplay.

The problem? Well, it simply is not fun. It has many archaic and bizarre anti-quality of life mechanics holding it back. You will walk into a low level dungeon, walk around clueless into dead-ends with no map or indicators of where to explore next, and then have quests time out on you. Maybe if the game were half or a third of the price it would be worth it, but, sadly, this just doesn't do it for me.

I like what I've seen so far. Given that the game is in early access, I wanted to use my review space for feedback. This is subject to evolve:

I can somewhat understand, at least on a surface level, the comparisons to Morrowind in terms of atmosphere and maybe resource management.

While I do very much like the streamlined stat and skill system, I do feel the game could benefit from having at least 2 or 3 more governing attributes and a few more skills per attribute. I feel like with a world like this you have a big opportunity to add rewarding history, religion, occultism, nature, etc. type skills that reward investment and open up new avenues.

The block button should not make the same sound effect as an attack. That is off.

I've only played a bit, but I'm fairly engrossed and am glad to have caught this during the summer sale.

Unfortunately, this work of passion has ultimately failed. I played the original knights of honor with the HD mod. This game offers literally nothing over the original. The systems are just tedious and archaic. The AI has zero brain and literally functions off of random whims. The battles are, in a word, not worth doing. I'm not trying to hate on this as I really wanted it to be good and I'm sorry to speak so harshly against what was clearly a labor of love by THQ Nordic, but, the unfortunate reality is that the game is terrible. It's already selling for half off for a reason...

The game is great. However...

WHY IS RUSSIA IN THE GAME? IN DISCORD IT SHOWS THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RUSSIAN FLAG NEXT TO MY USERNAME WHEN I PLAY THIS????

SERIOUSLY???

Make the teams RED AND BLUE not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ real countries.

Combos are hard but as you learn you start to see the flashiness potential and it's satisfying. Also very aesthetic and gritty in terms of item management.