A really fun lever-pulling game that goes in the same vein as Balatro, with the looks of a Mike Klubnika game. On its premise, the player being stuck in a never-ending loop of gambling addiction is, to be honest, so obvious I'm surprised it took this long for someone to take that theme and run with it.

And it works. Like most games of its kin, the beginning and learning curve can get a little rough, but once you acquire some knowledge you can really get the ball rolling and it's always a blast when you have a build that works, then losing all your coins to a 666 before gaining it all back again, really having those mind-breaking highs and lows of, well, gambling addiction. Without the gambling.

I'm writing this as of 1.2, which is rather controversial update. Personally i've managed to work with the challenge, and I think it was a good way to push people out of their comfort zone and really risk themselves into taking dangerous bets to clear a deadline. I've managed to clear all Memory Cards on hard mode (even Delusion of Grandeur), and I've had some fun and really learned a lot about the deeper strategies by doing it.

I do understand some people's frustration with it, but to me personally it's more a matter of QoL (some items have confusing descriptions, and being unable to trade an item on the table to one in the drawer is VERY annoying) than anything else.

Overall it's a very solid game I recommend to anyone who likes those types of game.

A great shmup that unfortunately betrays its own unique appeal right at the end.

The unique mechanic of ZeroRanger of turning your score into continues is, in my opinion, a great way to keep a player engaged and get better at scoring, while also forcing them to overcome the challenges they're struggling with (unlike arcade shmups where you can just pop a quarter and continue right where you left off, and basically brute-force your way through with coins). I think that's great! It both keeps you in the momentum while also pushing you to get better at the challenge you're struggling on. While the difficulty can be a bit imbalanced at times (the difficulty has a bit of a rollercoaster) it's overall challenging but fair.

Unfortunately, that gets all thrown out the window by the end of it as the final challenge of this game completely changes the way you're supposed to play (which is NOT communicated whatsoever) uses your continues as hit points and deletes your entire save file if you die. Meaning all those hours spent going through the game are completely thrown out the window, you're back to square 1, and have fun grinding for continues (which can take a fair amount of hours if you want to give yourself the best chances to finish the final challenge.)

Some may say that final challenge is "optional". I disagree; the game clearly, EXPLICTLY wants you to attempt this, as the entire point of the game and its driving motor is the story. It's why any player would want to keep playing. It gives you a choice by the strictest sense of the word, but that choice might as well be "do you want to finish the game or just press start and quit?" because that's basically all that "choice" is. That's no closure.

I hear those who say "the entire point of shmups is to aim for a high score and clear it all in 1cc", but I feel that's completely missing the point of why people can be drawn to ZeroRanger; it's BECAUSE it's different than most shmups, and did not rely on a grueling hardcore arcade experience to get your fun from.

It felt like it was aimed at a different kind of player, who do enjoy shmups, but do not find their motivation to lie in "high score gets bigger" but instead to experience a satisfying narrative. Is it the stated goal of the developer? I don't know. But by how the game has been constructed, what the game communicates to the player, that scoring was certainly not the end goal.

It sucks, because I got through this game thinking it was pretty good. While the color palette can be VERY confusing in some areas (that train segment and some boss patterns can be an absolute mess to read) the game looks gorgeous, and the entire OST slaps from start to finish.

It too bad that the game completely betrays the player's expectations and it's own uniqueness in favor of brutally punishing difficulty and reverting back to being yet another run-of-the-mill, arcade-style hardcore shmup where if you lose you start from level 1. leaving you with the option to tediously grind back all those continues just to get another attempt at learning a boss.
Whoever says this is a "great shmup for beginners" is a lunatic, because it absolutely is not... At least not if you expect a player to finish the game, which they should strive for.

It feels incredibly disrespectful toward the player and their time, no matter how "it makes sense thematically"; it'd be an outrageous amount of arrogance to think it warrants betraying the player like that. I think ZeroRanger has been a banger all the way until it's final challenge, where it really drops the ball and feels like a huge disappointment at the end of it all.

Pretty neat game where the goal is to make the biggest honeybee club possible.
All the other insects are posers. They don't know what they're doing.

Also there's a "Report a Bug" button that won't let me report Lyra for feeding the enemy team. I dunno, sounds like an oversight to me.

Don't get me wrong; Risk of Rain: Returns IS a good game. It's competently made, without a doubt, and most likely worth the price for whoever that appreciates this game. So why can't I recommend this?

Simple: Risk of Rain 2 exists.

For anyone who has spent a good amount of time on ROR2, do not go into this game expecting to find any form of familiarity. Yes, the goal of the game is the same, the characters are the same, but you'll feel like you're playing with an arm behind your back. The movement is extremely limited, no aiming (kiting and quickly changing targets can be an absolute chore on some characters, and don't even THINK about hitting airborne enemies), and your character has barely any momentum compared to ROR2 and feels a lot more sluggish... And it is this way by design.

Which is fine, in and of itself (after all, it's a remake of the FIRST game), but when you're used to a far more satisfying movement system, you're just constantly thinking "It felt better in ROR2." Taking so long to go from point A to B is torture when you're comparing the movement options available to most characters out of the box in Risk of Rain 2.

Speaking of which, the unlock system in ROR:R is different than in ROR2. This is done through the Trials; just a bunch of challenges with their own rules that unlock you new skills for your characters. Similar to the methods used in ROR2 but not quite, because those challenges can be an absurd rollercoaster of difficulty; either boringly easy or frustratingly hard. And if it's not one or the other, it's just annoying. I haven't found any challenge that felt really satisfying to complete, more like a chore you're forced to go through if you want to get anything... And the alternative unlock methods aren't any better, it's yet another bunch of "do X a lot" that trade the challenge aspect for a mindless, long grind.

Another issue I've found is readability when things get busy. Characters are so tiny, it's sometimes an absolute mess to tell what's going on, and what's near you. It makes it pretty hard to tell what's hitting you, too. Made even worse on Steam Deck.

TL;DR: if you liked the original Risk of Rain, there's no doubt this will be right up your alley. If you're more of a ROR2 veteran, I cannot recommend this to you, as most of your playthroughs will be spent thinking "I could be playing Risk of Rain 2 instead."

Nice and short little adventure with a morality system in a nice throwback to pre-SotN Castlevania. Nothing groundbreaking but still an enjoyable 8-or-so hours of bashing demons and facing the true danger in this game: pits.

Special mention to the "cheat codes" that help a bunch when you've already completed the game but just want to go achievement hunting.

While some may consider the length lackluster, I feel like the replayability of the different endings more than makes up for it as it strikes a great balance of not being completely tedious to replay, and probably short enough to beat in one sitting for the more dedicated.

Far too reliant on RNG, and most of the focus has been put on DLC pets to a near P2W status. Avoid unless you've got friends to play against, or you just like RNG a lot.

Fatal Error/20

Cerberus is still a ♥♥♥♥ since DMC3.