Have you ever wondered what it feels like to travel at the speed of sound with a shoulder mounted missile launcher and a ukulele with a meat hook that is alive? Well, now you’re probably wondering it, anyway.

Let’s talk about Risk of Rain 2: the story of a delivery ship getting captured by a king of pure vengeance. This game is $25, and it’s worth every penny.

Background

Risk of Rain 2 starts with a lonely commando fighting his way through an alien landscape with nothing but his trusty sidearm. He has to kill everything in his path to earn his freedom, and then do it all over again.

All right, let me break this down a little more for you.

Gameplay

In the first couple seconds of the game, YOU WILL DIE. After leaving your escape pod, you are stranded, alone, and scared (unless you are playing with friends, which is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), and you must get off of this Distant Roost or these Titanic Plains by finding something called the Teleporter (creative name, I know). You have to fight a boss. Then, after you kill the boss, pick up the green or yellow item(s). Well, or the boss might kill you (skill issue), in which case, you start a new run. Once the teleporter is fully charged, you can go to the next stage, or go through a different portal you find, and then you do it all over again until you find a Primordial Teleporter. This will always appear on Stage 5, Sky Meadows. Once you find it, you can change its alignment and go back to square one, but you keep all of your items and the game gets exponentially harder. Or if you’re cool (like me), go fight the final boss.

Soundtrack

It goes amazing with the gameplay. It goes too well with the game. The entire soundtrack is written and produced by one guy, Chris Christodoulou.

Commando

Your character has the simplest armament kit: two pistols with full auto mode and plasma rounds with piercing. Every eight seconds, you have the ability to rapid fire and stun every enemy you hit. He can also somersault like a four-year old. [Ed. Note—was unaware that four-year-olds were famous for their acrobatic skills.]

Characters

They can be unlocked via challenges, e.g., defeating a secret boss, or beating the third teleporter without dying. There are eleven survivors, and they are way more fun to figure out on your own, so I’d recommend that. But on the off chance you want to learn about all of the survivors, we can’t really stop you.

Game Modes

• 3 difficulty settings: Drizzle, Rainstorm, and Monsoon. You can probably guess which is which.
• Prismatic trials: two-stage run, changes every three days, has random modifiers. The goal is to break the time crystals and charge the teleporter.
• Eclipse: Monsoon with nightmarish modifiers, such as doubled/lethal fall damage on E1, -20% gold on E2, permanent damage on E3, and it gets worse with each successive level.

You know those things that just kill you whenever they can? Those are called enemies. In the logbook, you can collect every single item, or every single monster log, or every single boss log, etc. Maybe we should talk about the fighting in this game.

Combat

The combat in this game stays great for the first 40 minutes of every run. If you survive, it’s fun until you reach this deadline. Then you get killed in one hit, or you kill them in one hit.

Bosses! Oh my, what’s that red glow, and why is there a flying jellyfish that shoots lightning at me? That’s Wandering Vagrant, which flies and blows up and well . . . the usual. And that’s just one of the ten regional bosses. We have Beetle Queens, Stone Titans, Clay Dunestriders, Imp Overlords, Magma worms, Grovetenders, Solus Control Units, Grandparents and Overloading worms. Each boss has a special drop called yellow items.

Items you say? Each item is a unique upgrade or a frost relic (stinky bad item). You know how I mentioned “moving at the speed of sound with a shoulder mounted missile launcher and a ukulele with a meat hook that is alive?” Those are items.

Items

Every Single Run Is Based On Your Items.

Every item in the game has a rarity. White: Common, Green: Rare/Uncommon, Red: Legendary, Yellow: Boss Item, Orange: Equipment, and another rarity that I’m gonna hide, because I’m like that. White items are the most common, and while a few of the white items are really good, if you really want them to make an impact, you need to stack them. Green items are slightly “rarer” and represent about 80% of your run; the other 20% is based on stages and other item drops. Green items have the biggest impact on your run, because you can stack them pretty easily, and four of them are consistently among the best items in the game. The best items are completely relative. It all depends on your play style and your character. Red items are very rare, but they are almost guaranteed on one of the five stages. You’ll have to figure that one out on your own.

To earn items: kill stuff, earn gold, open chests with gold, profit. You can also do the teleporter thing to earn green items based on the number of Shrines and how many people you are playing with. Shrines?

Shrines

Almost every shrine is beneficial. They all do stuff—i.e., Shrine of the Woods spawns a healing circle, Shrine of Blood takes a percentage of your health and half of that is converted to money. Some shrines are better than others, like the Shrine of the Mountain, which doubles bosses and boss drops.

This game is absolutely amazing! This is the one of the most well-made games I’ve ever played. It’s fast, unique, something I can play for hours on end, and finally, it’s fun. Risk of Rain 2 rewards you for being curious, which I am a big fan of. I have tried random things and lost good runs and also unlocked new items/survivors. I can’t think of a better game to play over winter break.