Rogue Legacy Review

Not your father's platformer. 

I ran forward through the castle complex, but no matter how hard I squinted, the world outside the small bubble of clarity around me remained blurry and out of focus. “Damn this short-sightedness,” I muttered before hacking at a beast in my path. Nothing. The damn blade passed right through it. Oh great, I’m seeing things again. Dementia’s a bitch.

Welcome to Rogue Legacy, a game quite unlike anything else I’ve come across. Looking for all the world like a 2D action-platformer, behind the charming pixel art presentation is a consistently surprising experience, packing a dizzying array of variables.

It’s all anchored by robust Roguelike game design, which means a procedurally generated world and perma-death. Each time you enter the castle, its layout and the challenge ahead will be

different, and if you die, well, that’s the end of that hero - it’s time to send one of his heirs in to try and finish the job. Thankfully, the meta-game lets you spend any gold earned during the last run on your family’s fort, which means unlocking new classes and perks, and upping your stats for the next attempt.

The core sword and spell action-platforming is tightly designed.

And boy, there’s going to be a lot of attempts. When you first start playing Rogue Legacy you might last a minute or two before succumbing to one of the ghouls, undead, or other nasties that lurk inside the castle complex. It’s a classic 30-second gameplay loop – hacking, slashing, running, jumping, dashing, evading, and spellcasting, repeated until you die. This core gameplay is compelling in and of itself - Rogue Legacy is wonderful to control provided you have a good gamepad - but to make true progress you’ll need to boost your stats, get better equipment and activate perks. Gradually your runs will get longer and longer. Then you’ll wander into a higher-level area and die almost instantly.

The cycle of life, eh?

It’s an excellent way to structure the challenge, and really puts the fear of god into you. You may be kicking ass in what amounts to Rogue Legacy’s foyer, but boy, you’re not ready for the forest yet, or – god forbid – the dank dungeons underneath the castle. This is a game where your best option is to turn and run away if you enter an area you’re not ready for. This is a game where it may be several hours before you beat the first boss – despite being able to reach it in a matter of minutes - and many more before you’re ready for the next. Good thing the bosses stay dead after you die, otherwise beating Rogue Legacy would be an even more distant prospect.

The bosses can be next to impossible with the wrong character, but as you'd expect, learning their attack patterns is key.

Now, levelling up is all well and good, but Rogue Legacy has one very unique trick up its sleeve in addition to this. I’ve already mentioned that you send an heir in to continue the fight after each death, but you actually get a choice of three, and each has a random class, random spell, and random traits. Traits? Yup, and they’re glorious, surprising and bewildering. Ever played as a hero suffering from vertigo and OCD? How about a colour blind protagonist who also has Alzheimer’s? ADHD and dementia anyone? Tunnel vision and irritable bowel syndrome? The list goes on and on.

The really clever part of this system is that many of these traits have significant gameplay ramifications: ADHD means you move faster, far-sightedness and near-sightedness leave areas of the screen blurry, and characters with dementia will hear things and see enemies that aren’t there. Dwarves, meanwhile, are so light and small they don’t activate spiked floor panels and can access areas no other characters can.

Of course, some traits really have been included just for fun. Dyslexia, for instance, means any in-game text is garbled, while a character with coprolalia (Tourette’s syndrome) will swear any time he or she gets hit. Heroes with hypochondria, on the other hand, will have much larger numbers pop up any time they take damage, while you’ll probably avoid vertigo at all costs – unless you’re a masochist – because who wants their world to be upside down? Getting your head around the traits system is all about working out what comes with meaningful changes to the world and how that factors into your play style.

The world near long-sighted heroes is out of focus.

Cool, right? And that’s really just a taste – there’s plenty more for you to discover when you play it yourself... which you absolutely should. The traits are just one facet, too. Once you factor in the nine classes and all the spells characters can have, the list of potential combinations is incredibly long.

It really is pot luck, and no matter how far through the meta-game you are, you will never know exactly what to expect. Of course, the further in you are, the more you’ve honed your skills and come to know how best to use each class, trait, and spell, and – crucially – how to select the random character that you can best utilise.

The learning curve is right on the money, and almost every run has something to teach you, whether it’s an epic boss-killing mission with a heaven-sent character that’s able to survive a wide-roaming journey through the castle, or an abject, miserable failure with the best of a bad bunch. Mind you, the random nature of Rogue Legacy won’t be to everyone’s tastes - getting a series of dud characters can definitely feel punitive at times, as opposed to a learning experience.

Every class differs in core stats and special ability, while equipment and enchantments are class agnostic.

Thankfully, the mix of enemies is quite compelling. Each area introduces new enemies - ninjas in Hannya masks, headless horses that charge the player - as well as fresh variants on old designs. Juggling a set of monsters with their own disparate attack patterns is a big part of the challenge. The five bosses represent a good mix of bullet hell and precision platforming too, whether you’re facing a huge flaming skull or a gigantic gelatinous blob.

The castle holds more surprises than just rooms full of enemies. Special rooms abound, including carnival games, shrines, mini-boss battles, and plenty more. Perhaps the most interesting, however, are the fairy chest rooms. Each has a very specific challenge for you to beat. Kill everything! Get to the chest without jumping! Don’t fight! Don’t take damage! You get the idea.

Unlocking a fairy chest will net you a rune that can be equipped for specific perks, like air-jumping, dashes, limited flight, extra gold, reflecting damage taken back onto enemies, gaining health/mana from kills, and so on. Best of all, these runes stack. So if you want to, you can spec your character with highly customised ability sets. Multiple air-jumps? Don’t mind if I do!

While some of the fairy chest rooms can be conquered by almost any character, others require particular traits or sets of runes. Thankfully, you can use the Architect - one of three characters unlocked via your fort (alongside the Smithy and Enchantress) - to lock down the layout of the castle for successive attempts. He’s a great inclusion, and indicative of Rogue Legacy’s ability to balance random elements with tight, fair game design.

In fact, if that balance was wrong, this game wouldn’t be anywhere near as compelling. It’s a testament to Cellar Door Games that the team was able to juggle so many elements and make it work.

It’s one hell of a meaty undertaking too. The most adept players will be able to beat it in about 15 hours, whereas I sunk in considerably more time than that. It’s a lot of gaming for only $15, and once you’ve finished your first play-through, New Game + awaits, which lets you keep all your stats, weapons and runes, but gives you a much harder variant of the castle to beat.