Rogue Legacy Review

Rogue Legacy Review.

Earlier this year, a game called Rogue Legacy by developer Cellar Door Games (who you may or may not know as the developers of the game Don’t Shit Your Pants. No, really.), was generating a fair amount of buzz among the gaming community. What Cellar Door was offering was a 2D side-scrolling rogue-like with randomized castle layouts, challenging gameplay and a purely old school feel to it. Unsurprisingly, it was a hit and Let’s Plays of it sprang up on YouTube almost as soon as it was released. While Rogue Legacy has been available on Windows since June, the Mac release was only in October, hence the somewhat late review on it.

The story is simple; defeat four bosses in unique environments and gain access to the final boss, all the while collecting gold to improve your armour/magic/strength or purchase new pieces of equipment to further enhance your character. There are some features that make Rogue Legacy very different from other games; randomization is a major part of the gameplay, as mentioned earlier the castle will change every time you enter it. It’s not only the castle that changes though, every time you die (and you will die a lot) you play as the heir to the character who just perished. However you won’t carry over the abilities of the previous adventurer, these will change with each character. For example, one character may have A.D.H.D, which allows them to move faster, whereas their heir may be colour-blind, in which case the entire world will be displayed in black and white.

These abilities are really one of the key points of the game, as they can change your play-style dramatically. Classes also play an important part in the game and combined with certain abilities can make a formidable hero. A good example of this is a Barbarian with Gigantism and Hypergonadism (which knocks enemies back further when hit). Another good example is a Ninja with A.D.H.D. and P.A.D. (which prevents your character from having a foot pulse, and therefore spike traps won’t trigger). Classes have to be unlocked with gold you get from the castle, so the ninja won’t be available straight away and you’ll have to upgrade your manor in order to unlock the class.

The way equipment works is you have to find blueprints in the castle which are then available to purchase from the blacksmith when you start a new character. Equipment can have various bonuses attached to them, like vampirism or increased critical hit chance. The same applies to another set of items called runes. Runes also grant abilities, but not like increased critical hit chance, rather these abilities give you powers like HP and MP gain for every kill, or the power to double jump. Runes can be equipped in every piece of armour and multiple runes of the same effect stack, so it is entirely possible that your character will be able to jump 4 times in the air. The only way to acquire runes is by unlocked fairy chests; these are found in challenge rooms that require you to complete a certain objective like defeating all the enemies or not taking any damage in a room filled with spikes.

The last major game component is gold and how it is used; its primary use is to upgrade your manor and unlock new classes and increase stats, or buy new equipment/runes to further enhance your hero. It is always good to spend as much gold as possible, even if you don’t plan on using the thing you’ve bought right away, since the only way to enter the castle is to pay the gatekeeper all of your gold, so it just makes sense to spend as much as possible.

The games graphical style is slightly reminiscent of old 16-bit consoles, which suits the sense of humour and self-awareness that the game is going for. The soundtrack has some memorable tunes; especially the theme for Castle Hamson, since you’ll die so often it’ll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Once you beat the game a new game plus mode will be unlocked, this keeps all of your stat increases and unlocks intact, but makes all the enemies considerably tougher. For example, on your first playthrough enemies in the first area will range from levels 1-30; in new game plus the lowest level I encountered in the starting area was level 83.

To summarise, Rogue Legacy is a challenging game that rewards determination and graft. Sure you’ll die a lot but you’ll just come back again, stronger and better than before.

Rogue Legacy is available on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux for £11.99/$14.99. Also available on the developer website roguelegacy.com for $14.99

Also, I’d recommend playing Don’t Shit Your Pants. It’s a game unlike anything else.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/rete/dont-shit-your-pants