“Hammerwatch” Review

Hammerwatch is a modern take on Gauntlet that incorporates RPG elements, challenging boss fights, and dungeon crawling elements into 12 floors of enemies packed with secrets and passages to uncover.  The game is listed @ $9.99 on Steam, and this title is worth the price if you like enjoy this genre of game at all…I played through the game in single player mode in about 12 hours, but don’t forget this game is meant to be re-played, and/or played with friends…

Value: 7

I’ve read some negative reviews from those who refer to some elements of the game-play as a “grind”.  I have to disagree with this assessment. Once the player acclimates to a one of the four classes (I played through the game as a Ranger) chaining combos and defeating hundreds of enemies at once becomes second nature and you move much more freely through the levels.  I found that I wanted to play through the game on easy with a class that worked for me on my initial run-through.  I fully expect to play through the game again on the tougher difficulty setting, in fact I expect this will enhance the game quite a bit.  It matters how one utilizes the character classes and chooses to enhance their abilities in terms of how the game-play flows…There are also a set of collectibles throughout the game that impacts the overall completion and ending.

Gameplay: 7

The overall presentation of the game is certainly up to standards.  There is a great music soundtrack, and the levels are well designed with many traps and secrets. The boss battles are unique and memorable and the game includes mini-bosses too! Local and on-line multi-player for up to four players and controller support are included. For a $10 game, the developers went out of their way to make this feel like a modern and enhanced version of Gauntlet for today’s PC.

Overall Presentation: 8

Total: 22 (any score 22 points or higher is recommended)

(click on the image(s) for slideshow; watch the YouTube video below!)