Another look back

Two games again although one I have played for a long time already and the second one I majorly played years ago. So let’s take a look back:

• Heroes of Hammerwatch
  

  308 hours playtime

  81 of 81 achievements

• Toki Tori 2+
  

  24 hours playtime

  38 of 38 achievements

Heroes of Hammerwatch: HoH is a top-down gauntlet like game. If you played Hammerwatch you probably now some things already. Playable classes are the same, abilities and gameplay are similar. However, there are significant differences. The first one being the game being randomized in its levels although after several runs you will have seen everything more or less. The second one is the progression system. While in Hammerwatch you always started at 1, in HoH you can progress between runs. For this several mechanics have been implemented like trainers (use skill points earned by levelling up) or shop upgrades (use gold). The trainer and shops again can be upgraded by the use of ore. Items later on can be upgraded as well and so on.
Story-wise you arrive at an old outpost below the Forsaken Tower and by spending gold and ore you can upgrade it step-by-step by clearing the Tower. If you have killed everything in the Tower you can progress to NG+ with healthier, stronger enemies giving more gold and experience so you can further upgrade the town and yourself to clear the Tower once again so you get NG+2. And so this goes on and on. Even at NG+15 I still have not activated everything the game gives me for getting stronger so you can spent a lot of time here and you have 8 different classes. Clearing the Tower with one class also gives a permanent bonus to every class you play so it is wise to change from time to time and to play all.
Achievement-wise a lot of grind is necessary and with the DLC it probably takes up to 200 hours. The most time consuming is for sure getting every character to Level 60 which equals NG+8 I think. Other than the grind the achievements are not terribly difficult. I have set the game to Complete for now but may have to revise it if another DLC drops.
Overall if you don’t mind doing the same over and over again (with slight deviations) and enjoy yourself getting stronger step-by-step than you should give the game a try. But beware, in contrast to Hammerwatch this one has NO local co-op.

Toki Tori 2+: Some time last year I think I finally got around a replayed Toki Tori (a puzzle platformer) and completed it. At least since then but before already I also wanted to complete Toki Tori 2+. So I finally did it. Toki Tori 2+ is another puzzle platformer but fundamentally different from Toki Tori 1 and most other puzzle platformers. The developers described the game once as a Metroidvania where progress is limited by knowledge. And I agree with this statement which was shown once again by replaying the game. You play as a yellow chicken trying to save your breathen by finding the five ancient frogs. While you have several puzzle segments the game is presented as one large world. As mechanics you only have two functions - stomping and whistling. But there are several animal-like creatures in the world and each of them has specific reactions to those actions sometimes also dependent from your position. The game is very clever in teaching you these reactions step-by-step. On the way you have several ways you can go aslong as you know how. So by returnig later to places you will notice how you can reach certain points which havent consider before because you missed some knowledge. As such you have a giant world you can explore, searching for the small yellow wings, pictures of stuff and of course the Ancient Frogs.
Toki Tori 2+ has aged very well and to this day still makes a lot of fun. It presents you with very fair puzzles all the time and it saddens me a bit that the game didnt get the recognization back then as it should.
Achievements are varied, some tied to story progression while others are for getting all fotos/wings or finding hidden stuff. Some achievements need some special action to be performed. For the longest time i didnt complete the game because I didnt find the ghost needed for one achievement and I only used a guide very reluctantly years after. The last missing achievement though was replaying the game and finding all frogs before entering the city (which is unlikely to happend on your first try). While this is not difficult it means to delete your one and only save game. And so I know have done the Detour achievement but have an “uncompleted” save game. While it was fun I resist the urge to get everything done again (although a part of me really wants to so better uninstall fast).
If you have it in your library you should give the game a try because you will findly a puzzle platformer with a clever overall world design where revisiting past places makes you notice new stuff.

And now back to what gaming next. More HoH, more Vermintide 2 of course. But else? Probably will take another look on past games. Other than that I have Streets of Red or Borderlands Enhanced which I got by owning the originals. Not sure if I want to replay them because the original has either broken achievements or the game is overall very time-consuming with MP requirements for achievements -_- Always so difficult to decide.