If you’ve read our review of Hammerwatch II, you’re already aware that there are a few issues with the new sequel, but the first Hammerwatch is awesome. Just take a look at our original Switch review here if you don’t believe us. That being said, Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition runs on the same engine that Hammerwatch II does, so things are a bit dicey from a technical standpoint. Let’s dive into the new game and see what’s changed!
Gameplay in Hammerwatch Anniversary is essentially identical to the original game and our original review still stands in terms of design and interface. You’re still using lives (and running out of them), upgrading weapons as you work your way up the castle, and looking for keys while you fight enemies. The entire level design of the game has remained intact with no noticeable changes to the original game. This would seem like a win for fans of the original with an updated version of a fan favorite indie game available to all ten years after its inception.
However, there are a lot of caveats that come along with the Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition. If you haven’t read our review of Hammerwatch II linked above, you wouldn’t know that the new engine has some pretty glaring faults. Most noticeable among these is that when you walk your character doesn’t blur but the entirety of the background slightly blurs until you stop moving. This makes it hard to figure out exactly where you are at any given time and easy to lose track of what’s on screen. The original Hammerwatch does not have this issue and all visuals stay sharp and clear at all times during gameplay.
There are a bevy of little updates as well, such as being able to walk faster while attacking but these are balanced out by the enemies being noticeably faster than in the original version of the game, forcing you to backpedal more often and making relatively weak hordes far more dangerous. Unless you’ve modified the settings to make the game easier, things can get dicey pretty quick. But for a game that’s theoretically just updated, there are some other problems as well. As you work your way through levels, you’ll collect keys, open doors, and hit save points. While playing Hammerwatch Anniversary, there were also real life things to attend to, so the game was saved at a convenient save tile and shut down. Upon returning and reloading the game, the enemies in that area had returned and the unlocked doors around the save point had relocked, sealing our Paladin into a locked room with no way to escape! Our save was toast and it was time to start over!
Fatal errors like that simply shouldn’t happen in a properly remastered game. Resets weren’t part of the original Hammerwatch and with this new engine that has rapid enemies, respawns, and save glitches, the game becomes a lot more frustrating. Oh, and those crashes that were in Hammerwatch II? Don’t worry, they’re here too. The new Hammerwatch engine is far less table than the original game, leading to random crashes during gameplay for no apparent reason. While the initial load time isn’t quite as long as the original game and it certainly isn’t nearly as bad as Hammerwatch II, it’s still incredibly frustrating to be playing a game and then suddenly have it crash and force you to reload it and replay any lost progress. This level of instability shouldn’t be happening.
Now, it’s not that Hammerwatch is a bad game. It’s not. All the fun little things like adjustable difficulty tweaks and clever weapon upgrades are still here. You’ve got Shaftelocke Tower to explore too, which is basically a non-roguelike Heroes of Hammerwatch (why isn’t Heroes included again?) that will add some substantial hours to your playthrough. The new visuals are awesome too, aside from the really irritating motion blur. Instead this is the same excellent game it’s always been, now plagued by technical issues across the board. It’s a fascinating case study as to the difference between a good game and a bad game because this is essentially the exact same game which provides a very different experience, at least on the Switch.
As you might also have guessed if you’ve read our Hammerwatch II review, Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition is designed for the PC and ported to console. That means that the menu systems and other bits of the gameplay are less responsive than they should be on the Switch. The game itself plays fine but item usage and menus in particular can be a bit irritating and non-intuitive, though not nearly as bad as Hammerwatch II. It’s all a list of small errors that snowballs into a larger problem with this console release of the game. But that means that anyone that buys it for $20 might be more than a bit disappointed that a brand new game doesn’t entirely live up to the exact same game from a full decade ago, especially when the old one is half the price. That’s a pretty severe failing in this cutthroat industry and the rather tight economy.
Are you getting everything you should be with Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition? Yes and no. The core gameplay experience is there but the new engine just isn’t entirely up to snuff and leads to a variety of problems because it was clearly designed for Hammerwatch II and then just used on the first game. But Hammerwatch is still more fun than its sequel, issues aside. It’s definitely a game that’s still worth your time and a large chunk of additional content and some pretty visuals make it a solid experience, even if things aren’t always rosy and some of the spawning and save issues are downright problematic. If you catch this one on sale, it’ll still probably be worth your time and Crackshell will hopefully fix some of these issues in the future with a patch. As it stands now, it’s a pretty but flawed mirror of the original game that’s still interesting in its own right.
This review is based on a digital copy of Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played similarly in both. Hammerwatch Anniversary Edition is also available on PS5, Xbox, and PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.