Or does it? You see that is the beauty of Risk of Rain 2. Sometimes you are on a way trip to the moon and the final boss but you also have the option sometimes to extend the run and push yourself further. More OP items, fight more bosses, conquer more areas, push your gameplay to the point where your gaming device (in my case, my steam deck) struggles so hard to keep up with you.
One of the many reasons I have moved on from Twitter is because unlike my last tweets about the games I've been enjoying, I felt Twitter's restrictive format would not be able to proper show my love for this game. Sure I could have used a Twitlonger but even that did not appeal to me. So I resurrected this blog of mine and now I can really tell you about my journey with RoR2.
This journey began with a simple video, it was the year wrap up for Skill Up's favorite games of 2020. As he extolled his love and why RoR2 was so enjoyable to him, I was entranced by the unique visuals mixed with a musical masterpiece (which I later came to find out was 'The Rain Formerly Known as Purple'). Unfortunately at the time, I was a console gamer exclusively and RoR2 was only on PC at the time. So I slotted it into my 'one day' category and I went about my business.
I would still occasionally hear about other people playing and enjoying RoR2. I watched Skill Up's full video review of it and he even went into more depth why he enjoyed it and highly recommend it. I would even listen to 'The Rain...' just randomly when I wanted some cool background music while I did chores or was just chilling. Whilst it was slotted for later, it was always in the front of my mind.
My chance finally came in the middle of last year and my eagerly awaited Steam Deck arrived. Now I'll need to do a separate RAVE about said Steam Deck but that will happened in the future, not now. The main thing is; Valve's impressive handheld is my gateway to PC gaming. With it, I am now really able to play some games I've always wanted to and could not and of course one of those was RoR2.
I waited for a sale (cause Steam sales happen so frequently and is almost addictive) and I snatched it up as soon as it was available. I booted it up and then I died. End of RAVE.
Then I hit continue and I was instantly thrown back into the fray and I continue to shot and dodge and shot and dodge and then I died. Again. You see Risk of Rain 2 is a Roguelite and a very challenging one at that and in roguelites when you die, all your progress is reset to zero. No matter what stage you are at, no matter what cool items you picked up along the way, no matter how good (or bad) your run was, the minute your health drops to zero this run ends and you try again.
Also whilst most roguelites have a meta progression to build too, RoR2 by its truest definition is a roguelike. So said meta progression only exists when it comes to unlocking more character classes (which it has plenty) and achievements. You don't get to say, I want to play this game from stage 3. No, it is always stage 1. When your run is over, its over and you start from scratch and that is a true roguelike. My whole decent into roguelites and roguelikes also deserves its own RAVE and all honesty that'll probably be my next one.
The first couple wipes was okay. I just started playing the game, I play Souls and Soulslikes for Pete's sake so I don't mind dying a lot. It is a part of the game. However one of the biggest differences between the Souls and Rogues are most of the time Rogues are randomly generated and no run is the same. In Souls, the bosses mostly stay the same, the areas are the same, even the same dirty mother freaking thief who hide in the shadows and stabbed you in the back that one time in DS3... wait, I am getting off tangent. Pause. I'm back. So dying is a learning process in Souls games. I should have dodge rolled that telegraphed swing, I should have farmed more experience before I fought that boss, I should have grab this very strong item from this specific chest which is always at that location. Rogues, you do not have this luxury. The boss at the end of stage 1? Can be one out of multiple choices, that chest with that OP item in another run? Nope. Its a chrono-bubble now and chrono-bubbles are practically useless.
Even the stage themselves change and have changes within those changes. Everything is randomized and you are at its mercy. Git Gud.
I tried to enjoy it more, switched classes to The Huntress from the default Commando and realized I died even faster with The Huntress called her trash and swore off her (more on that later). One of my best early runs I made it all the way to stage 3. I thought I had some cool healing items, some cool damaging items. I was timing my combat rolls better and placing my shots. Stage 3 immediately opens and I make a bad decision and I get overwhelmed and I die, not only that, I saw the teleporter not far in the distance and one of the biggest early struggles I had was finding the teleporters to initiate the boss fights and the progress to the next stage. It was soul crushing and I decided there and then. Okay, I've had my fun but this game was supposed to be the virtua version of crack and I was not getting that appeal from it. Hell, I have not even heard 'The Rain...' yet and I've been playing and struggling non-stop for a couple days now and I think I saw stage 4 once (out of the 6 possible non looping stages). I've played other Roguelites before. Depending on how fast it could get its hooks in me, I would find myself playing it more and more or moving away from it. Iratus: Lord of the Dead? I was doing runs back to back for days on end. Rogue Legacy? I stopped playing after a couple hours and I have not looked back and honestly I do not see me ever playing it seriously. Was the mythical RoR2 not what I had imagined it to be? With Rogulites for me, for every Slay the Spire a game I adored I have a Sundered where I quit playing after one session. I started playing other games on the side and I would sneak in a quick run now and again but nothing serious and the wipes kept coming. You will notice I am using wipes more and not deaths. That because a wipe is what it is. All your progress is wiped out and you start back from the start after every failure.
Then I realized, whilst I knew they existed (the game does tell you about them) when you start a run, you have choices of the 3 main difficulties but I was constantly missing picking it correctly, I know, user error LOL. After having a chat with my wife, who wisely told me, sometimes you need to crawl before you can run. I checked my ego at the door and moved the difficulty to 'Drizzle' instead of the 'Rain Storm' it previously was on and then it happened. Maybe it was the slightly easier difficulty, maybe it was me learning the areas better or maybe I did actually 'Git Gud' I started doing much better. Clearing areas completely where all the enemies would die and getting all the ideal set-up that I wanted. Only after a couple runs on Drizzle I noticed massive improvement in my game straight away and then it happened.
I warped into Stage 5 and then I heard the first couple notes of the one of the reasons why I started looking into this game. I finally found the stage that used the song I loved and it was gatekept by progression but because of the struggles it was worth it even more, like the creators at Hopoo games knew this. As I pumped the volume on my Steam Deck to maximum I started blasting and rolling to 'The Rain Formerly Known As Purple'.
And I continue and I moved to the final stage. I finally figure out what was asked of me and I head to the final boss arena and he DESTROYS ME. A run filled with ups and downs that lasted almost a hour and a bit and I was done. But when compared to previous wipes, I did not not get annoyed or frustrated. I was finally hooked and I just wanted to do it again but this time I wanted to beat the boss and we tried and we tried and then we did it. The euphoria I felt when I did was the equal of beating the toughest Souls boss and I just sat in my chair and let the credits roll and when it was done. I went for another run.
Since then, I have used a couple characters when I was using previously exclusively the Commando. I realized the power of jump traversing instead of just running and strafing like I was doing in other games. The Huntress is now my favorite character out of all my characters I have used and also the one whom I used to beat the game the first time. I have unlocked tons of items but not all of them, I have unlock tons of characters and I have visited all the Hidden Realms. As soon as I finished the game and because the Survivors of the Void DLC was on sale I snatched it up and now I have even more characters, even more items and even more unlocks and a new alternative ending.
I have different game modes, higher difficulties and so much more and well, I do not see myself stopping anytime soon. I might slow down on the relentless runs where I do them back to back but because of the appeal, the gameplay loop, the risk vs reward, the soundtrack, my goodness, the soundtrack in itself deserves its own RAVE.
In the end, if you are looking for a challenging but at the same time rewarding game that will just permeate your brain, this is the one. There is so much to recommend that I feel I am barely doing it the justice it deserves. Once this game clicks and it will click, trust me, you will be doing deep dives into the interesting lore (told in Souls fashion through item descriptions and environment instead of explicitly), using the in-game mechanics whilst you are constantly trying to achieve that God run and listening to the OST in your off time.
This is not a review, to quote T'Challa 'We do not do that here' but I can not recommend this game enough and it is why I had to bring back my blog. Now excuse me, I'm ready for another run now.
