Hammerwatch 2 Switch Review
I fell in love with Dungeons and Dragons in 2018. One of my closest friends was invited to a session and I was the tag along. He ended up bailing and despite myself, I decided to go and ended up making a bunch of friends that still play to this day. When I saw Hammerwatch 2 was coming out, I was so excited about it. What’s not to get excited about? A top-down, old-school D&D-inspired adventure where people can create their own adventures with 4 player co-op. What’s it Like? Grab your sword, shield, and staff, as we review Hammerwatch 2 for the Nintendo Switch.
Hammerwatch 2 is a top-down Dungeon Crawler set in an open world, departing from the more linear structure of its predecessor. It works much like a twin-stick shooter, but with spells, the left stick moves your character, and the right sets your direction or aim. On Paper, this sounds like a great concept, as you play as a hero from the first Hammerwatch game, escaping the castle after defeating the boss Dragon. The second you leave the castle, no one cares that you saved the world, and you are tasked with menial jobs like clearing bugs from cellars, gathering herbs for potions, or collecting wolf pelts. Even when returning to your base of operations, people don’t care about your achievements. It dampens your investment in the world, by dismissing a huge part of the story.
Combat is challenging and can be fun when you find the right class for you, which will come down to trial en error. There are 5 classes in total ranging from Wizards, Rogues, Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks, all bringing something different to the table.
The good news is that the game is deceptively large, and you can spend 3-4 hours just in the starter area completing everything, but it also falls upon its own sword with convoluted dungeons, boring side quests, and a lack of direction for the player. The game doesn’t do much to invest you into the world, and I forced myself to play the game for the purpose of this review.
On one quest, I repeatedly went back to a cave on the starter island, desperately trying to find some signs to mark because the quest giver “Couldn’t be bothered” to complete the quest. But the constant backtracking, and frustratingly hiding of the objectives in 2-3 caves that you have to find in the overworld, one that’s roughly 5 pixels on the screen, only further dampened my enthusiasm to dive further into the game. About 3 saves and 15 hours later, I simply gave up. I kept asking myself, “Am I missing something?”
There’s no way to be able to adjust difficulty once you start the game, meaning experimentation and finding your class means restarting the game from the very beginning. I started my first save as a spell caster on normal difficulty but found myself constantly dying in combat, I then started a Rogue on easy, and hit a similar difficulty wall on the first Pirate boss. then restarted my save as a Paladin, doing my best to learn from my mistakes, and I still hit a wall further on once I got to the open world. You can use modifiers that help you deal increased damage, or have better regen, but ultimately this didn’t save my experience. Dying also incurs a 20% cut of your gold, and doesn’t replenish your items, so if you get stuck on a boss, you either have to spend time scrounging for money to be able to buy better gear and replenish supplies, or just try your luck to defeat them as you are. It’s such a shame because these boss fights are well thought out and have some interesting mechanics.
Graphically, the visuals get in the way of themselves. On one hand, there’s a wonderfully rendered old-school world to explore, on the other hand, there are collapsed rocks on paths you can see, hidden cliffs halting your movement, and mission objectives that are nigh on impossible to see. Your vision is also hampered by aggressive weather effects, blanketing the screen in a purple haze or whiting it out to make navigation almost impossible. The main issue is that all of these things are hard to discern and ultimately frustrate the player to no end. Some objectives are so hard to differentiate, that I have to clear out the enemies and then use my overlay map to see if I could find them. This is even worse in handheld, and I found myself playing on TV just to be able to get further into the game. I can’t even imagine how it would look on a Switch Lite. For my vision-impaired heroes, there are some basic contrast options you can adjust, but I found things so hard to tell apart during my time, that I recommend you do your own research to find it Hammerwatch 2 might suit you.
The game does feature the option for multiple campaigns, but there’s only 1 available at the moment, and multiplayer is now online only. Characters are saved to the host world, so you won’t be able to play them without the host in your own worlds. As mentioned before, there are some modifiers you can select when creating a world as well which may be expanded on. I did enjoy the card mini-game you can play during your time in Hammerwatch 2, which focuses on building a castle while trying to destroy your opponent. This was also difficult, and locking certain mission aspects behind it meant you had to play until you won which relied completely on chance. There’s a little bit of slowdown, most of it is easily ignored, but what’s harder to ignore are the constant loading screens when entering a cave or dungeon consisting of multiple levels. Each time you are greeted with a huge “Loading” prompt on the screen. Despite its faults, the game is reasonably priced for those who want to try it for themselves, sitting at around $30 AUD.
I have tried my best to love Hammerwatch 2, When that didn’t work I then tried my best to like it. I even spent 5 hours restarting the game to see if another class was what I was missing. Unfortunately, for me anyway, Hammerwatch 2 was full of frustrations, lacked direction, and wasn’t enjoyable. Just because the game wasn’t for me, it still might suit you. Have you played Hammerwatch 2? Let me know your take on it or even any advice you can give me to revisit it. I have seen that the PC version has a lot of amazing mods that fix the core experience of the game, but alas, we don’t have that option on Switch.
So, What’s it Like?
An 8-bit Diablo crossed with a D&D campaign.
I award it a 58/100. It’s an Okay game. Might be one for the fans, or perhaps the sum of its parts just doesn’t quite mesh. Worth picking up on sale.
