For a fistful of dollars, you can have the original Risk of Rain; a classic but clunky forerunner of the roguelike genre.

For a few dollars more, you can have Risk of Rain Returns; a faithful & polished remaster of the original.

The good: the original soundtrack still bangs. Remastered sprites are beautiful. Gameplay is fluid. New items & survivors are ace.

The bad: only a few survivors a rewarded for beating the game, so there's little to strive for. Most items are locked behind gimmicky challenges instead. Almost all meaningful unlocks can be cheesed by altering player damage & defence. Adjustable difficulty sliders trivialise the game. It's a weird design choice imo.

The ugly: Providence trials are hit or miss. Some are interesting gimmicks, many are frustrating and irrelevant to the core gameplay loop. The final Providence trial is tried to 15 Steam achievements. To 100% this game, you have to beat the same trial 15 times, and it's identical every time (i.e. same items, same levels, same monsters). It takes 20 - 30 minutes per attempt, and most failures occurs on the final stage, so it's a slog. It's also locked behind all 48 of the lesser trials (also a slog). Crazy to me that 10% of the achievements are tied to one challenge which features no randomisation. It's repetitive & boring. More weird design choices.

For a fistful of dollars, you can have the original Risk of Rain; a classic but clunky forerunner of the roguelike genre. For a few dollars more, you can have Risk of Rain Returns; a faithful & polished remaster of the original. The good: the original soundtrack still bangs. Remastered sprites are beautiful. Gameplay is fluid. New items & survivors are ace. The bad: only a few survivors a rewarded for beating the game, so there's little to strive for. Most items are locked behind gimmicky challenges instead. Almost all meaningful unlocks can be cheesed by altering player damage & defence. Adjustable difficulty sliders trivialise the game. It's a weird design choice imo. The ugly: Providence trials are hit or miss. Some are interesting gimmicks, many are frustrating and irrelevant to the core gameplay loop. The final Providence trial is tried to 15 Steam achievements. To 100% this game, you have to beat the same trial 15 times, and it's identical every time (i.e. same items, same levels, same monsters). It takes 20 - 30 minutes per attempt, and most failures occurs on the final stage, so it's a slog. It's also locked behind all 48 of the lesser trials (also a slog). Crazy to me that 10% of the achievements are tied to one challenge which features no randomisation. It's repetitive & boring. More weird design choices.