Rogue Legacy Review
Rogue Legacy is a 2D platforming action game by Cellar Door Games, an independent Canadian studio. It’s categorized as a roguelike, which for the uninitiated, is a sub-genre that typically includes procedurally generated levels and permanent death (meaning once you die, you start over from the beginning). Rogue Legacy has both of those, but it adds in some RPG mechanics which make the imposing threat of death easier to swallow, while not altogether curbing the difficulty that fans of the genre have come to expect.
At the beginning of Rogue Legacy, you are a generic sword-wielding hero who is tasked to fight through a dungeon. There’s some reason for doing so, and there are diaries strewn about the world to help piece together exactly what’s going on, but for the most part the narrative is in the back seat throughout Rogue Legacy and that’s totally fine.
It’s hard to overstate just how much fun the minute to minute gameplay is in Rogue Legacy. Controls feel tight and the mechanics are all-around solid and enjoyable. Any fan of 2D platformers such as Spelunky will find themselves at home here. The dungeon is split into four separate areas, and while they are distinct in aesthetic and difficulty, they do tend to blend together after ten or twenty hours in the game.
The main distinguishing factor of Rogue Legacy is the way in which death, and subsequent life after death, occurs. Upon dying (which will happen -- a lot), you get to choose a new “heir” among three choices to attempt another run through the game. Each heir can have all sorts of randomly assigned genetic traits which affect how the game plays. Discovering the novelty of some of these traits is fun in and of itself, so I won’t ruin them here, but I will say the traits are pretty well balanced, creative, and occasionally good for a laugh.
The other unique aspect of death is that your character continually gets stronger in whatever way you choose. As you traipse throughout the dungeon, your character collects gold from chests and enemies. You can invest gold after dying in a huge amount of ways; you can boost stats such as strength and armor, unlock new classes, or buy new equipment. It’s almost impossible to beat the game during the early hours because of the upgrade system, and how weak your initial character is. Having to rely on more than sheer skill may be a problem for some, but the feeling of progression through boosting your inherent power is pretty satisfying (as in most RPGs) and makes the whole experience very addicting.
Toward the end of Legacy, when your character is strong enough to make it most of the way through the dungeon before dying, each run can take about 30 minutes or more, and I found it becomes a bit of a grind. Luckily the grind doesn’t last too long (at least it didn’t for me) before you become powerful enough to beat the final boss and finish the dungeon. There is a nicely done New Game+ option, and it’s a telling sign that I immediately dove back in upon completion my first time around.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Rogue Legacy. The RPG mechanics do an excellent (or evil, depending on how you look at it) job of cranking up the “Just one more run” factor that roguelikes are infamous for. Blending rewarding and difficult gameplay with a really smart way to make death a little less punishing goes a long way to make Rogue Legacy one of the best games in the genre.
