Heroes of Hammerwatch: Ultimate Edition is a game that works best with friends, and does a great job with how it balances gameplay and grind. This indie game is something you should add to your list of ‘must-haves’.
Here we are still in a pandemic, and trying to find ways to entertain ourselves each day. Sure you could do those dishes that you have been meaning to get to or rake up that pile of leaves out front in the yard, but what if we game instead? Not just game, why not go on an adventure that requires a four-player team to truly enjoy? I’m down. So much better than leaves and dishes.
Welcome to Heroes of Hammerwatch: Ultimate Edition.
Let’s go on an adventure…over and over again…but enjoy it
Heroes of Hammerwatch is a unique action RPG that has various modes of play, and randomly generates levels to make each experience new. The gameplay is a straight-up grind in its construction, requiring players to go into dungeons to gather coin, ore, and other goodies to build up a Scrooge McDuck-like stash. You go into a randomly generated dungeon full of enemies, take out as many as you can, gather up the treasures, dump them into an elevator (that taxes you), and then go as long as you can and start again. You do this over and over and over until you’re ready to move on. The repetition can be assumed boring, but honestly, it’s a fun grind thanks to a few things.
First, the randomly generated levels and enemies help to break up the monotony, thus resetting your expectations of how a level goes each time. While the enemies tier the same way (meaning you get weaker on the first level, downright pain-in-the-asses in later levels), the construct of levels changes every time it loads. For example, you might have an elevator on the first level during the initial go around in the game, then it might change with the second go around. You may not see that elevator for a few tries or you might see it every time. You never can tell what you’re going to get with each level. It’s a nice surprise sometimes and other times it can be incredibly challenging. Regardless, the randomness helps to break up the potential boring repetition that grinding may deliver.
Second to the random levels is what you get by grinding. The motivation to go back into the same dungeon over and over again is driven by your ability to upgrade a broken village and benefit from upgraded blacksmiths and shops. You also benefit from upgrading training facilities and learning new attacks, thus making your character stronger. The more you grind, the more you gather, and the more you upgrade the town and, more importantly, your character. This is the biggest motivation to grind and the reason you keep playing this game over and over. Both the level generation and the upgrading work hand-in-hand, which makes this game fun as hell.
Lastly, the game features a lot of pieces in the level that will take you to cool, sometimes extremely difficult places. You have moments where you have the option to give up a blood sacrifice, which might give you a buff to help you venture through a difficult dungeon. You might have randomly generated black monoliths pop up here and there that will take you to glow-y cubes that have waves and waves of enemies, which lead to huge treasures. There are a lot of places and pieces that show up that make this game less predictable and more engaging and enthralling. The mix and match of content help to push other content and create a fun and balanced experience that shouldn’t be so engrossing for an $11.99 PSN game — but it is.
Beyond villages and dungeons, the game also features challenges which include traversing a desert land that has an arena you can fight tons of enemies in. The arena is something cool and fun, as you basically run around a large open arena and try your best to survive. This arena is also randomly generated, though the crowd helping you out is the only consistent part of the experience. The crowd can throw you potions, can kill enemies, and can sometimes accidentally kill you (watch out for the flames). You also have random environments that can help as much as they can hinder. For example, the first time around in the arena, there were giant spiked cubes that would slam down into the ground and crush anyone who was under them. I understood, after a few deaths, that if I led groups of enemies underneath these that the cubes would do the killing for me. Of course, the same cubes also killed me twice. They’re an equal opportunity murdering device. Regardless, the arena helps to break up the game a bit more and adds another layer of fun.
As for the above-mentioned upgrading, each character can improve how they perform. The game gives you a choice of different characters to choose from in true RPG fashion. For me, I chose to be a rogue, which meant sword-swinging action and sword charging. By upgrading weapons, it allowed me to do considerable damage in the game. Upgrading techniques through training also helped me to be more effective. Upgrading weapons, techniques, and health/stamina (the latter being incredibly important) allowed me to have a complicated backend system to enjoy. Seeing results onscreen encouraged me to keep grinding, which allowed me to continually explore and discover, and kept the game constantly fresh. Again, this is a very balanced game. I like how you have this circle of grind and enjoyment that keeps the game going and going.
Overall, the gameplay is fast, furious, sometimes demanding, but nonetheless fun. When a grinding game doesn’t feel like work, then you have something special.
Playing with friends…or strangers
The game’s biggest flaw is how it corners you into playing with other gamers to get the most out of the experience. Don’t get me wrong, Heroes of Hammerwtch allows for single-player action, but the game slows down considerably when you go solo. You can play solo if you want, but honestly, it’s simply not as fun. Dying over and over again while only gaining a small amount of progress is irritating. The option is there for those who are of the Demon Souls persuasion, but for easily miserable people like myself, going solo doesn’t give much of a fun experience. It feels like work, and I play games to get away from work.
Now, I found that playing the game with friends (up to four) makes it far more productive and successful. Over the last few weeks, my four-player party has been trucking along in the dungeon, challenging each other and helping when needed. We have taken down bosses helped to amass a large amount of treasure, and have upgraded the village much more easily. When your friends collect money and loot, you collect what they collect. It’s truly a group effort that feels far more fun and definitely more entertaining as a team. Maybe that’s the point of the game is to play in groups and not solo. I’m not sure I laughed so hard with my group during other games as I did with Hammerwatch. It’s stupidly fun and feels designed for friends.
And it’s a pandemic, so playing games with friends and laughing is more fun anyway during 2020.
Anyway, let’s wrap this puppy up.
Conclusion
Heroes of Hammerwatch: Ultimate Edition is a game that works best with friends, and does a great job with how it balances gameplay and grind. This indie game is something you should add to your list of ‘must-haves’.
