Risk of Rain

I've felt conflicted in my attempts to try to get into Risk of Rain over the years. It has a really beautiful soundtrack and the sort of visuals that would be right up my alley, however these were not enough to carry otherwise lackluster gameplay. The main way of fighting enemies is to run away from them constantly, only turning around to fire at them when an ability recharges, then either continuing to run or dodge through them to run the other way instead. There is also an in-game timer that makes enemies spawn more frequently and with more HP as time goes on, which makes it so going fast is encouraged. If too much time is taken the game then becomes a Sisyphean task of having to run away, turn to shoot, repeat as enemies take actual ages to kill. I feel the timer was added in part because if it wasn't there, the optimal strategy would be to just whittle enemies health down while running away for as long as possible. This gets to the main point of my issue, in which I can't help but feel difficulty is artificially inflated as a cover for how unengaging the combat actually is. Every few years I would try Risk of Rain again and drop it after a run or two as I never felt challenged in the right way. While I was open to the idea of playing the whole game through to properly judge it in its entirety rather than just the early game, upon trying to launch Risk of Rain in 2026 I was informed I had to accept a EULA for a game I've already owned for nearly a decade already, with a lot of clauses that are unfriendly to the consumer, thus killing any incentive left I had to trying this series again.