My first entry in my Lost Odyssey analyses is taking a bit longer than I anticipated (those Thousand Years of Dreams stories are denser than I anticipated and I want to do this right) so I thought I would point out one of the cooler little design decisions I have seen recently for my post this week. I am talking about the most selfless and noble of the Rogue Legacy classes, the Miner.

The central conceit of Rogue Legacy is that a family of heroes is attempting to slay an ancient evil contained in a cursed, ever-shifting castle. The castle’s is so ancient and powerful that generation after generation the nameless, heroic family sends one warrior into the castle to attempt to slay the evil within. Every generation three heirs are produced, but only one heir is chosen to enter the castle. Now there are many warrior types that can be chosen, from ninjas to knights to barbarians to mages. Almost all of the potential heirs are trained warriors with some skill or expertise that makes them uniquely suited to conquer the evils of the castle. Each of them has some reasonable expectation that they can return home alive. Almost all of the classes in Rogue Legacy have a tangible combat advantage that allows them to traverse deeper into the castle than their parents before them… all except the miner.

The miner in Rogue Legacy is the only class in the game whose tactical advantage has no personal benefit. Miners in Rogue Legacy are born with lower health and strength than most other classes and they are born with average speed. The one advantage a miner possesses is that they receive bonus gold whenever they find gold in the castle. However, gold gathered in the castle can only be spent outside of the castle, before a castle attempt. This means that the miner’s only advantage over other classes, gold acquisition, can only ever benefit the next generation of hero, never the actual miner who is risking his/her life.

Now from a gameplay perspective it makes perfect sense to have a class who specializes in resource acquisition; but, if you think of the characters in Rogue Legacy as actual people trying to conquer a cursed castle, then miners are either the most selfless or greediest characters in the entire game. Either they are so noble that they are ok with sacrificing their lives so that their children might be better equipped for their own treks through the castle, or they are so greedy they can’t think of anything but money. Imagine what being brought up as a miner would mean! While your brothers and sisters are learning how to spit magic and stop bullets with their voice you are learning how to find more coins in the couch. All of the years of couch training eventually culminating in a trip to the castle that killed your parent, and will almost certainly kill you too. But hey, at least your son or daughter will have a new gym to use in your manor and a shiny god helmet to wear. Not to mention how the spelunker, the advanced version of the miner, only gains a head lamp and some treasure chest markers on their mini-map when they upgrade. Other classes gain the ability to swap spells or hp and mp, but the spelunker just gets a road map to a greater inheritance for their kids.

Let us not take for granted the sacrifices of the miners and the spelunkers. They give their lives so that their children’s children might one day conquer the evil of the castle. They are given so little, but give so much.