I've already sunk a ton of hours into Returns just in this first day... it's a blast to play, and all the characters and new skills just feel refreshing
Having not touched or seen multiplayer beforehand the drone one caught me off guard and was so cool, so far some of my favorites have been Acrid's race and alt utility ones and the Enforcer one with the Gups
I've played the original. I never beat it, but I've gotten to Providence with a friend. The differences are pretty substantial, such as the pixel art being way more detailed, but the fundamental gameplay hasn't changed a bit. It's even more broken than the second one, as well. I remember my friend frequently exploiting a big where if you stop time at a very specific moment, the boss that automatically spawns then spawns over and over again, and when deciding to push it for science, he stopped time for a solid ten minutes, which was pretty wild. Even outside of bugs, though, the sheer absurdity of your power vastly exceeds what you know from two. I'm not actually all that fussed about how it's back and all that, but this was fun to watch nonetheless, and I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually. There's some fun stuff in there that I'd love to mess around with.
I'm a big fan of the first game, I exclusively play it with the starstorm mod. Since the mod's creator Neik was on the team of rorr, a lot of stuff was taken from/inspired by it! Han-d's saw, drone scrappers, pesticide item, mu construct's effect, and artifact of cognation just to name a few. First thing I noticed upon opening the game was that everything is suuuuper polished. The art, sound design, menus, everything just feels so good and miles better than the original game. The rebalancing of everything makes the game feel a lot more difficult to me, in ror1 I can get good runs somewhat consistently at least on rainstorm since you tend to outscale enemies pretty quickly, but in rorr I found them outscaling and overwhelming ME almost all the time. Just reaching stage 5 has been quite the feat (beat it on drizzle already though and wow Providence's moveset (and blue wurm's too!) got a huge glow up). The trials are super wild, some are incredibly fun, but others feel like they're too hard or have a too high score requirement to win and especially for the gold trophy. Either way they're a very interesting way to unlock the alt abilities. SPEAKING OF WHICH I love how they all feel super unique and like actual sidegrades compared to ror2 where the vast majority of them have a clearly better option of the two (coughBallistaEngiHarpoonSpikedGauntletPhaseBlastHackingBeaconcough). Also it's going to get officially supported workshop modding in an update so look out for that. Tldr guys please buy this game right now it's so dang good it's only 15 dollars
I’ve played ROR1 since 2014, and I’ve gotta say that this game is everything I ever wanted. It improves upon everything while staying faithful. There’s so much new that it’s pretty much a different game entirely. I will say that it is waaayyyy more difficult in the original, but I kinda like that.
After risk of rain 2 came out I wanted to go back and re live my memories of risk of rain 1 which was my game of the year. It was a little hard going back with the constant frame drops and poor item balance with uneven stacking. The remake is a dream come true. All of that is fixed AND we get something like 50% more game on top. It has been out for a few days and I have already lost sleep over it every night. More then ever I am so eager to see what the team does next.
Since you are new to risk of rain 1 and thereby also returns, I would love to see some episodes of gameplay where you unlock new survivors. It would be really awesome for a ror1 veteran as myself, to see someone new to the characters, try them out for the first time!
woke up in the middle of the night & didn’t know this was releasing. safe to say what is sleep today. can’t wait to try keyboard controls, currently playing on steam deck. Although it’s not verified, it works as intended 🤞🏼
"It's basically automation", yeah advanced RoR is basically indistinguishable from Vampire Survivors. And they did it earlier! Jokes aside very solid remake: feels like what they'd have made if they weren't just two kids in uni. If vision is an issue I suggest going in the settings and changing the zoom option: greatly helps, although I kinda miss the furthest zoom that let see like half the stage. A change I dislike a fair bit is the strafing they added to all characters, I think there is something that makes me shoot not where I want, much more frequently than in the original. Also something's up with ropes, they are not as responsive as the first one. It's so good to finally see again uncapped infusion, and chef, and so much more. Providence trials are definitely interesting, if a bit too demanding at times.
theres definely a few pain points, for me mainly the fact that you fully navigate the map like ror2 unless you have movement items for most characters, the fact that you dont shoot to the directrion your facing in keyboard and mouse, btw im talking left or right, im in the know that 360 shooting would not fit here for a number of reasons and finally im mad at the fact that some character unlock in stages not always generate, but regardless of this few issues, i been playing non-stop since the release especially the providence trials, they are incredible and a much needed shake up from the base gameplay and a fun challenge to unlock items and survivor habilities.
I'll be real, as a risk of rain one enjoyer risk of rain two was really hard for me to get into, and ultimately I didn't play it too much, so this game is a godsend to me 😊
its so great to see one of my favorite games come back in such excellent style, RoR2 was awesome, but it never captured the specific feel of OG RoR and it has been sorely missed, but man what a return. excellent review!
Yeah, RoR1 is a lot harder than 2. In 2, you can kite and dodge most things. The three big threats in 2 are AOE attacks, Wisps/Golems with their instant-hit attacks, and getting snuck up on by close range threats like elder Lemurians or jellyfish. In RoR1? EVERYTHING is a threat. You can't just duck and weave through them and beeline for the chests. You have to cull the hordes at every opportunity if you don't want to die horribly. 2 is a third person shooter. 1 is a horde management game. And I love BOTH. :D
I think they realized how much tougher returns is. I swear returns rainstorm is harder than monsoon In 2, I can't imagine what monsoon is like in returns
This game is HARD lol, I played the crap out of 2 but Returns is ROUGH. I'm sure I just need to "get good" but my biggest complaint is the inability to aim your shots other than just left and right, flying enemies become quite a nuisance and I feel like adding the ability to aim with the right stick, or wherever your cursor is at on pc, would be a HUGE QoL improvement, but maybe that's just me. (good video by the way)
Returns amazing blah blah (it really is). DUDE, you forgot the most important thing.there is finally RAIN in RORR. At the final credits, it starts to rain and there is a weather forecast guy saying that there is a chance of rain.
There is sort of meta progression in the form of dozens if not hundreds of items to unlock through various achievements as well as artifacts, survivors and skills, but there is no skill tree like say Vampire Survivors has.
No but it dosent really need it, the fun of risk of rain is developing an op build from scratch or dying trying. Meta progression would take away from that imo
Risk of Rain (2013) and, by extension, Risk of Rain Returns are way harder than Risk of Rain 2. The addition of a 3rd dimension and more control over your build* made the second game much easier. That being said, the fact that you don't need to kill every enemy after the teleporter event (like you had to in the original Risk of Rain) is a massive quality of life improvement that brings Risk of Rain Returns closer to Risk of Rain 2. (*ROR2 has way more loot on each stage. Combine that with the abundant 3d printers and scrapers and you get a surprising amount of control over your build.)
Quick tip for you! Check your general settings, there is a scaling/ zoom option. By default it's set to 2x but you can pull the camera back for a much wider view.
As somebody who has completed the first Risk of Rain, I'm excited to try this one out as well. I'm glad that the sound design hasn't changed much, and is just as meaty as it was in the original.
Already played returns for a little bit, its... WAY more fun than i thought it would be this game feels nuts and everything feels so snappy its awesome
Since release they have added optional left-right mouse aiming! Now your character will shoot in the direction of your mouse regardless of your movement.
Can't say I was too excited for the return to 2d, but it sounds like it's faithful to RoR 1 and 2 in a good mashup of ideas. And the pixel arts gorgeous! Thanks for the vid Astro!
The original and Returns are harder than 2 for sure. You're definitely not imagining it. However, the power ceilings are also higher and it makes it EXTREMELY satisfying when you finally start to taste the coveted "brokenness" the series is known for.
I was wondering if it was just me being new because I remember ror2 being pretty brutal the first couple hours but after playing more it's definitely tougher. Even on drizzle I couldn't get past stage 4!
@@JaySteiny Yeah, I finally got around to beating it for the first time last night on rainstorm, but my monsoon runs usually die on stage 2 or 3 unless I get greedy with the mountain shrines on stage 1
You should play RoR 1, I am still playing it since release, and I still play it at least twice a week, and I still enjoy it. RoR 1 is just an earlier - slightly less loaded and visually spectacular version of RoR Returns. I'm getting paid tomorrow, so will be buying this at full retail price, which isn't much more than the special price. I truly hope they make a macOS/Linux version of the game, as they did with RoR 1
If the online is better thrn original RoR, as having to do port forwarding never worked with my system so I could only play alone, I deff pick it up. Wonder if the ending blurbs will have both bad and positive endings like in RoR2 or will it be 100% faithful.
the 'aiming', if you can even call it that, feels like a 10 year old game. It is clunky and not fun and takes away from an otherwise fantastic game. Just because it is a remake doesn't mean it can't improve on old clunky design. It is like doing a modern mario64 remake and keeping the camera control of the original.
Idk I don't really struggle with it. It takes get used to, but I never felt like it needed aiming. Even the flying enemies feel like they are designed to be dealt with fairly easily without aiming.
Alternatively, hard name is hard. And most people legitimately don't know how to pronounce it. Instead of complaining, maybe do some growing up of your own.
@@HaxTheCharizard what do you mean? It’s just disrespectful, he literally pronounces it correctly on the last take. He knew how to pronounce it but did the whole mockery instead.
@nicklovett It’s fine- I appreciate your feedback! That audio clip was genuine, and unrehearsed. Had no idea if it was “Chris-too-doo-loo”, or “chris-ta-do-loo” in my American accent, so I included both to be safe. No mockery here!
Great video, thanks for the love!
You’re so welcome. You’ve made such a great game, and we all love you!! 💙
Seconded
No hopoo_games, thank you
I've already sunk a ton of hours into Returns just in this first day... it's a blast to play, and all the characters and new skills just feel refreshing
I never played the first but I do play alot of the second game, returns is really damn hard but it’s fun.
I already have 10 hours on it 😅
Oh, another thing... the "Providence Trials" are PEAK. One of the Bandit ones is a really cheeky reference that I enjoyed a lot.
Having not touched or seen multiplayer beforehand the drone one caught me off guard and was so cool, so far some of my favorites have been Acrid's race and alt utility ones and the Enforcer one with the Gups
Let me guess...The Castlevania reference stage where you get to unlock the whip upon completion?
I've played the original. I never beat it, but I've gotten to Providence with a friend. The differences are pretty substantial, such as the pixel art being way more detailed, but the fundamental gameplay hasn't changed a bit. It's even more broken than the second one, as well. I remember my friend frequently exploiting a big where if you stop time at a very specific moment, the boss that automatically spawns then spawns over and over again, and when deciding to push it for science, he stopped time for a solid ten minutes, which was pretty wild. Even outside of bugs, though, the sheer absurdity of your power vastly exceeds what you know from two. I'm not actually all that fussed about how it's back and all that, but this was fun to watch nonetheless, and I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually. There's some fun stuff in there that I'd love to mess around with.
Man I'm so excited to see this brokeness! Happy you enjoyed the video.
Sniper and enforcer break the whole game,and it is fucking great to witness
I'm a big fan of the first game, I exclusively play it with the starstorm mod. Since the mod's creator Neik was on the team of rorr, a lot of stuff was taken from/inspired by it! Han-d's saw, drone scrappers, pesticide item, mu construct's effect, and artifact of cognation just to name a few. First thing I noticed upon opening the game was that everything is suuuuper polished. The art, sound design, menus, everything just feels so good and miles better than the original game. The rebalancing of everything makes the game feel a lot more difficult to me, in ror1 I can get good runs somewhat consistently at least on rainstorm since you tend to outscale enemies pretty quickly, but in rorr I found them outscaling and overwhelming ME almost all the time. Just reaching stage 5 has been quite the feat (beat it on drizzle already though and wow Providence's moveset (and blue wurm's too!) got a huge glow up). The trials are super wild, some are incredibly fun, but others feel like they're too hard or have a too high score requirement to win and especially for the gold trophy. Either way they're a very interesting way to unlock the alt abilities. SPEAKING OF WHICH I love how they all feel super unique and like actual sidegrades compared to ror2 where the vast majority of them have a clearly better option of the two (coughBallistaEngiHarpoonSpikedGauntletPhaseBlastHackingBeaconcough). Also it's going to get officially supported workshop modding in an update so look out for that.
Tldr guys please buy this game right now it's so dang good it's only 15 dollars
I’ve played ROR1 since 2014, and I’ve gotta say that this game is everything I ever wanted. It improves upon everything while staying faithful. There’s so much new that it’s pretty much a different game entirely. I will say that it is waaayyyy more difficult in the original, but I kinda like that.
After risk of rain 2 came out I wanted to go back and re live my memories of risk of rain 1 which was my game of the year. It was a little hard going back with the constant frame drops and poor item balance with uneven stacking.
The remake is a dream come true. All of that is fixed AND we get something like 50% more game on top. It has been out for a few days and I have already lost sleep over it every night.
More then ever I am so eager to see what the team does next.
Since you are new to risk of rain 1 and thereby also returns, I would love to see some episodes of gameplay where you unlock new survivors. It would be really awesome for a ror1 veteran as myself, to see someone new to the characters, try them out for the first time!
Good idea! I’ll add it to the list. Appreciate the feedback.
woke up in the middle of the night & didn’t know this was releasing. safe to say what is sleep today. can’t wait to try keyboard controls, currently playing on steam deck. Although it’s not verified, it works as intended 🤞🏼
"It's basically automation", yeah advanced RoR is basically indistinguishable from Vampire Survivors. And they did it earlier!
Jokes aside very solid remake: feels like what they'd have made if they weren't just two kids in uni.
If vision is an issue I suggest going in the settings and changing the zoom option: greatly helps, although I kinda miss the furthest zoom that let see like half the stage.
A change I dislike a fair bit is the strafing they added to all characters, I think there is something that makes me shoot not where I want, much more frequently than in the original. Also something's up with ropes, they are not as responsive as the first one.
It's so good to finally see again uncapped infusion, and chef, and so much more. Providence trials are definitely interesting, if a bit too demanding at times.
Did you say *uncapped* infusion?? Ferb, I know what we’re gonna do today
@@degenerateastronaut Capped at 9999 but any amount of infusion will reach it.
theres definely a few pain points, for me mainly the fact that you fully navigate the map like ror2 unless you have movement items for most characters, the fact that you dont shoot to the directrion your facing in keyboard and mouse, btw im talking left or right, im in the know that 360 shooting would not fit here for a number of reasons and finally im mad at the fact that some character unlock in stages not always generate, but regardless of this few issues, i been playing non-stop since the release especially the providence trials, they are incredible and a much needed shake up from the base gameplay and a fun challenge to unlock items and survivor habilities.
I 100%-ed Risk of Rain 2 just in time!! SO MUCH HYPE
WOOHOO Great job! That's a big achievement
@@degenerateastronaut
I’m exited to play this over the weekend! This game looks so fun, ALSO ITS ONLY 13 DOLLARS!
Good guys Hopoo for making the launch week discounted!
You know a game developer is awesome when they put a game on sale at launch.
@@JaySteiny tru
I'll be real, as a risk of rain one enjoyer risk of rain two was really hard for me to get into, and ultimately I didn't play it too much, so this game is a godsend to me 😊
same here, the switch to 3D was jarring, but I loved the art style of 2
its so great to see one of my favorite games come back in such excellent style, RoR2 was awesome, but it never captured the specific feel of OG RoR and it has been sorely missed, but man what a return. excellent review!
I spent all of yesterday unlocking like 80% of the characters
"shut up mythrix, you're in time jail"
The only thing I wish they'd add is aiming so you're not limited to just shooting left and right
Yeah, RoR1 is a lot harder than 2.
In 2, you can kite and dodge most things. The three big threats in 2 are AOE attacks, Wisps/Golems with their instant-hit attacks, and getting snuck up on by close range threats like elder Lemurians or jellyfish.
In RoR1? EVERYTHING is a threat. You can't just duck and weave through them and beeline for the chests. You have to cull the hordes at every opportunity if you don't want to die horribly.
2 is a third person shooter. 1 is a horde management game.
And I love BOTH. :D
Very well said! I should have gotten your help with the script, lol.
there’s a reason overloading worms are called “The Reminder” lmao
Wrong... Enforcer was my first character unlock, not Bandit. I think there's a couple other possible first unlocks, they're pretty non-linear.
To sum up my experience of Risk of Rain overall, it’s a power fantasy that makes you feel either a god or an ant in the middle of the road
my friends hate how i control this...i use WASD to move, and alpha 1-4 for attacks, not numbpad...am i weird?
Not at all! I’ve got the special mapped to a mouse macro :)
Original RoR was just hard
Game looks amazing but all my friends and game library are on psn . Should I dust off the Nintendo switch or just wait for PlayStation release?
In 1 (and now Returns) there's no Eclipse system. Monsoon is *it*. And it's hard enough for that to not matter.
I think they realized how much tougher returns is. I swear returns rainstorm is harder than monsoon In 2, I can't imagine what monsoon is like in returns
Just looping for eternity with the boys will always be a good time, play until the game crashes!
The true ending!
This game is HARD lol, I played the crap out of 2 but Returns is ROUGH. I'm sure I just need to "get good" but my biggest complaint is the inability to aim your shots other than just left and right, flying enemies become quite a nuisance and I feel like adding the ability to aim with the right stick, or wherever your cursor is at on pc, would be a HUGE QoL improvement, but maybe that's just me.
(good video by the way)
I was so hyped about this game then I saw it wasn’t on PlayStation and was immediately sad 😩
6:20 I agree, rorr is much harder than ror2
Returns amazing blah blah (it really is). DUDE, you forgot the most important thing.there is finally RAIN in RORR. At the final credits, it starts to rain and there is a weather forecast guy saying that there is a chance of rain.
Boy I wish I didn’t just have that spoiled. 😅
The whole time i was into the franchise i joked about the rain. IT RAINED!
oops sorry@@degenerateastronaut
IT DID@@Reinoiro
This man made an entire vid just to flex how he got something from a shrine of chance
I needed to make sure every last one of you knew I got ceremonial dagger
why dont u turn off the fuckin ingame music when ur recording if you're gonna overlay a song
Yo first
You are cemented in history
@@degenerateastronautgreat video btw. I'm definitely gonna play the game
No meta progression?
There is sort of meta progression in the form of dozens if not hundreds of items to unlock through various achievements as well as artifacts, survivors and skills, but there is no skill tree like say Vampire Survivors has.
No but it dosent really need it, the fun of risk of rain is developing an op build from scratch or dying trying. Meta progression would take away from that imo
Risk of Rain (2013) and, by extension, Risk of Rain Returns are way harder than Risk of Rain 2. The addition of a 3rd dimension and more control over your build* made the second game much easier. That being said, the fact that you don't need to kill every enemy after the teleporter event (like you had to in the original Risk of Rain) is a massive quality of life improvement that brings Risk of Rain Returns closer to Risk of Rain 2.
(*ROR2 has way more loot on each stage. Combine that with the abundant 3d printers and scrapers and you get a surprising amount of control over your build.)
Brilliant? Like...Behemoth?
Quick tip for you! Check your general settings, there is a scaling/ zoom option. By default it's set to 2x but you can pull the camera back for a much wider view.
Oh nice! I don’t know how I missed that.
As somebody who has completed the first Risk of Rain, I'm excited to try this one out as well. I'm glad that the sound design hasn't changed much, and is just as meaty as it was in the original.
They somehow made the sounds even punchier it sounds great (also they made the mech spider hurt sound quieter thank goodness)
Within the few days its been out this game has become my new no life game
Already played returns for a little bit, its... WAY more fun than i thought it would be
this game feels nuts and everything feels so snappy its awesome
The opposite for me, I thought I would really like it (I played a bit of 1st game before), was excited for it before release, but ended up refunding
@@spiderjerusalem8505 what happened?
Since release they have added optional left-right mouse aiming! Now your character will shoot in the direction of your mouse regardless of your movement.
Can't say I was too excited for the return to 2d, but it sounds like it's faithful to RoR 1 and 2 in a good mashup of ideas. And the pixel arts gorgeous!
Thanks for the vid Astro!
"and his music was Electric!"
I only stopped playing to sleep.
The original and Returns are harder than 2 for sure. You're definitely not imagining it. However, the power ceilings are also higher and it makes it EXTREMELY satisfying when you finally start to taste the coveted "brokenness" the series is known for.
I was wondering if it was just me being new because I remember ror2 being pretty brutal the first couple hours but after playing more it's definitely tougher. Even on drizzle I couldn't get past stage 4!
@@JaySteiny Yeah, I finally got around to beating it for the first time last night on rainstorm, but my monsoon runs usually die on stage 2 or 3 unless I get greedy with the mountain shrines on stage 1
Yeah this game is what reinvigorates my passion for gaming every time I get burned out on modern gaming
You should play RoR 1, I am still playing it since release, and I still play it at least twice a week, and I still enjoy it.
RoR 1 is just an earlier - slightly less loaded and visually spectacular version of RoR Returns. I'm getting paid tomorrow, so will be buying this at full retail price, which isn't much more than the special price. I truly hope they make a macOS/Linux version of the game, as they did with RoR 1
If the online is better thrn original RoR, as having to do port forwarding never worked with my system so I could only play alone, I deff pick it up.
Wonder if the ending blurbs will have both bad and positive endings like in RoR2 or will it be 100% faithful.
Return of the Rain? No no, Return of the King!!! So glad to see you back, Astro :D
Aww thank you friend. :)
New ROR2 dlc is gonna drop, lets go
When will it come out on Xbox
the 'aiming', if you can even call it that, feels like a 10 year old game. It is clunky and not fun and takes away from an otherwise fantastic game. Just because it is a remake doesn't mean it can't improve on old clunky design. It is like doing a modern mario64 remake and keeping the camera control of the original.
Idk I don't really struggle with it. It takes get used to, but I never felt like it needed aiming. Even the flying enemies feel like they are designed to be dealt with fairly easily without aiming.
Don’t you mean Its Brilliant Behemoth…
That’s the easter egg ;)
Bought this for Steam Deck since RoR2 will cause tons of lag
It’s so overused and unfunny when UA-camrs act like they can’t pronounce something by saying it and stuttering like ten times. It’s tiring grow up.
Alternatively, hard name is hard. And most people legitimately don't know how to pronounce it. Instead of complaining, maybe do some growing up of your own.
@@HaxTheCharizard what do you mean? It’s just disrespectful, he literally pronounces it correctly on the last take. He knew how to pronounce it but did the whole mockery instead.
@nicklovett It’s fine- I appreciate your feedback! That audio clip was genuine, and unrehearsed.
Had no idea if it was “Chris-too-doo-loo”, or “chris-ta-do-loo” in my American accent, so I included both to be safe. No mockery here!