Tried
Rock of Ages 2 since it was free this weekend on steam. I had mixed feelings on the original, I liked the concept since Super Monkey Ball is the best, I liked the cutscenes and humor, but it was super jank so I didn't love it. Was hesitant to spend money on the "much improved" sequel because of that. But hey, it's free now, so I tried it.
Pretty disappointing
On one hand, the budget this time around feels like 100x over the first game and the graphics and gameplay looks really nice and run really smooth and the cutscenes are full voice and even better. So this should be the definitive sequel. But then they decided to do turn it into a MP only game with a offline MP SP campaign instead of a stage based SMB platformer with each stage getting tougher. The original had a separate MP mode iirc which this seems based off.
First this means you have to do tower defense gameplay even if you don't like TD gameplay (I don't like TD gameplay), and the biggest offender is that you have to wait for your boulder to get rebuilt after each roll. So you do a turn and then in 10-15 seconds you set your new defenses for the opponents next turn and then...you sit and play on your phone for 20 seconds until the game actually lets you play again. I get why they did this for MP, so you have LOTS OF TIME to set all your defenses every round (again fuck TD genre), but it just makes the SP gameplay zzzzzzz.
Also for the record I played the original like 7 years ago, so it may have been exactly like this in the SP campaign as well, but for whatever reason I don't remember being bored and finished the campaign whereas in RoA2 I was falling asleep by the end of the second stage and uninstalled it. I remember rolling and smashing things and falling off platforms a lot, but I don't remember doing a lot of TD in the original, but I may have just blocked out the bad memories.
I keep waiting for ACE Team to make a game that I can really love. Zeno Clash was creative, but jank, Rock of Ages was creative but jank, Abyss Odyssey was a neat Guardian Heroes x Metroidvania 2.5d arpg idea, but was jank and pretty shallow because there's a ton of characters with like 2 moves each. Didn't play ZC2 yet, didn't play Deadly Tower of Monsters Yet, and RoA2 changed the SP formula for no good reason. :| Someday ACE Team will make a game that I can fully get behind. Until then, not paying $$ for their stuff. Will stick to free trails and PS+ offerings and humble bundles.