Ziggurat 2

This is pretty much the best roguelite shooter out there, and one of the best roguelites, period. It also nails down progression in roguelites and in no way feels "grindy". But before that, the shooting and movement are ultra tight. This is pretty damn close to Quake levels of feeling, with very fine air control that is even encouraged by some perks with strafe jumps. Weapons all feel really good to use and work differently from one another - you'll be getting spellbooks that fire lethal homing butterflies to frozen arachnids on staves firing pissed off icicle darts. It's crazy, the art is outstanding. It's creative, interesting, consistently surprising and alongside the silky smooth framerate and gameplay, you're in for a treat. Contrary to one negative review I read, I think perks do feel very meaningful, especially when you start stacking them in creative ways based on the character you play. There's RNG involved in what perks appear for you, but you can make pretty much anything work and get some pretty wild DPS boosts. That and you can take some absurd risks - playing Jacob with HP reduction but mass damage boosts is super satisfying and the game really ends up being a skill issue rather than bad stats or perks. You can beat this without relying on them, as long as you're a damn good player. It is bringing back UT2k4 and Quake vibes for me constantly on Archmage. It's so damn good! Finally, what I think makes this game stand out most is how they've designed progression. One of my biggest peeves with many roguelites is when you play, you're slowly inching forward and acquiring permanent currency, which is then used to unlock new perks, weapons, abilities, and so on. It's OK at first, but it then escalates in requirements exponentially - a recent game, Curse of the Dead Gods, does exactly this. From 10 skulls needed, to 50, to 150, and so on. It turns me off badly. Dead Gods is good, but I dropped it because I hit that exponential curve where if I want more stuff or stats, I feel like I need to grind for it. You're playing for the coins, not for the fun. Ziggurat 2 solves this really well. You unlock weapons, perks and characters by just playing the game. You also get "mastery" points which can be used for stat boosts, but that's the only thing it does. Those stat boosts are really nice in campaign, but they aren't the core of what you're working for. I have a very good reason to keep going in Ziggurat because: A) The gameplay is fun. B) The...

If you liked the first one? You're gonna like this one. It improves on everything the first one offered. And that's A-O-K with me.