Clicker Heroes 2 is the ill-fated follow up to the web idle game of the same name, attempting something quite daring - being a non free-to-play idle game on steam - so that got my interest when it was announced. Because of many factors, the development of the game didn’t go so well and the early access phase was as far as it went. I had still bought it, so I wanted to give it a look and see what was there. It was a bit of a mess for sure, some mechanics felt underbaked, others were quite interesting but underutilized, and overall there was nothing that grabbed me in the game.
The core concept of the game didn’t change much from the original Clicker Heroes; You have heroes fighting through wave of enemies, upgrading their gear and using special abilities in order to go past certain damage thresholds. This part still works even if the game doesn’t hitch any of its progress on these stages and gives you very little in lieu of excitement for future stuff, and it’s still fun to watch your hero fight slimes, tree stumps and birds.
Above that, the game has a big skill tree where you’ll unlock upgrades for various aspects of your character, new abilities and gain passive bonuses as you reset through the game. This was poorly done for multiple reasons; the tree is overwhelming and a bit confusing, while the individual upgrades don’t seem that interesting because they are either too similar or give minuscule rewards to things that you don’t understand yet. It seems like you would go into four branches of the tree, but the game doesn’t do anything to explain which one is best depending on what factors, or guide you through the beginning via tutorials or limited options.
One of the things I appreciated about the game was the automation system, you would set miniature “gambits” (to take a term from final fantasy twelve) and configure that every 4 second, you would perform an ability, or something of the sort. From what I’ve seen, the range of things you could automate was quite large, buying upgrades, leveling up items, and you would’ve been able to really setup your game to make it work with the way you play, unfortunately, all of these mechanics were hidden deep inside the skill tree, so even if it was really one of the best bits of the game, it’s not available enough.
Ultimately, Clicker Heroes 2 was an interesting idea that didn’t catch on like it needed to in order to grow into the game it wanted to be. A shame!
