Hammerwatch II Review (Sheex)
While I have yet to finish the game, at around 16 hours in playing on the hardest difficulty I cannot for the life of me understand the legion of negative reviews. While it seems the game has its share of odd bugs, thus far I have yet to encounter a single one. Likewise, while I have not touched multiplayer, the general sentiment seems to be that the game is simply not Heroes of Hammerwatch and the multiplayer experience does not align well with this predecessor.
Bugs there may be, and multiplayer game this may struggle to be, but for what it is I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. The game has an interesting enough story to make me want to pick up the OG Hammerwatch, and does so with an unforigiving, old-school open world that harkens back to old DOS RPGs. Most of my struggle has been from not meticulously reading the quest text to tell me explicitly where to go, and is in this vein that I feel most people are struggling to enjoy the title. The game tells you exactly what you need to do, but at the same time simply gives you text and leaves the rest for you to figure out. Too often you find yourself drifting around the open world just wanting to explore, only to stumble upon some place unexpectedly that you were not supposed to be quite yet while fighting the urge to explore it.
Don't get me wrong, Hammerwatch II has its annoyances and flaws. By far the most annoying quest thus far is a "loan" where you're given 20k and have to pay back 30k where the consequence of not doing so is to be endlessly annoyed for the remainder of your save. But, generally speaking, these are relatively minor and are offset by the solid gameplay and enjoyable challenge at the hardest difficulty. The bosses I have encountered thus far have been well-composed and enjoyable to fight with a great measure of creativity ala Heroes of Hammerwatch, and the skill and equipment systems are interesting.
As with all publishers, I am sure Crackshell has been under pressure to deliver with tight schedules and unforgiving budgets. But they did not churn out a garbage title with Hammerwatch II, and while it looks like the early release had some problems and bugs those seem infrequent to non-existent in my personal experience. The amount of vitriol really just seems disproprortionate to what the product has to offer. For my two cents, I think it's a solid game and I look forward to finishing it and perhaps doing a playthrough with another character or two.