Game Review: Rogue Legacy

PC / PS3 / PS4 / PS VITA / LINUX / MAC OS

Rogue Legacy is a rogue-lite game released in 2013.  Since then, this game has garnered a reasonably strong reputation.

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Premise:

Choosing your heir

In this rogue-lite game, death is part of success.  Use the gold from your death to purchase upgrades!  Also, every time your current warrior dies, a new heir in their bloodline will take their place.  The twist though is that every warrior has their weakness!  Some may have light bones, others might be color blind, and others still may be clinically insane!  Choose your heir carefully!

Battle through dungeons to defeat enemies and difficult bosses while following the path of the warrior prince who entered the castle before you.  What mysteries lay in the castle ahead?  Only time and many, many deaths will tell.

Visuals:

Visuals

Rogue Legacy goes retro with its sprite-based visuals.

The visuals are reasonably good.  Backgrounds are generally very bland and lifeless, but this is reasonable as it is portraying the inside of a dank dark castle.  At certain times the backgrounds will catch your attention though, such as the large moon outside the windows of the castle, and Santa Clause flying his sleigh and reindeer by in the distance in the forest section of the dungeon.  I know, it doesn't make much sense, but it is there!

Generally it is easy to spot enemies.  Enemies have large defined borders, and most of the time they have bright colors that make them pop from the darker backgrounds.

Menus/Interface:

Upgrade menu

I know this game is mainly for use with consoles, but I think some mouse support would have been convenient.  If you are playing this without a controller, the menu system is a little clunky until you get used to it.

The HUD is well laid out though  The HUD gives you all the information you need to succeed in combat in a clear and easy to understand manner.

I must also mention that I greatly enjoy the mini-map which constantly updates your location in real time.  Overall the map system is easy to access and very informative.

Controls:

Controls in this game are somewhat imprecise, which is okay for a game that doesn't require precise input.  Sadly for you, this game does require precise input at certain times.  The character has absolutely no acceleration time, so he reaches top speed once you hit the movement button.  This is an issue because a lot of this game is about dodging enemy attacks and survival, and this instant acceleration makes it somewhat difficult to make precise motions.

Also, it seems that the character will face the wrong way a lot of the time, and you will be left slicing at air, and your butt getting kicked.

Another note, if you are using this on a keyboard like I was, you will probably want to rearrange the preset controls to something else.  The defaults are not intuitive at all.  And you probably want to set the option "Quick drop" in the control menu to "yes."

Overall not the best controls ever, but the simplicity of it does have its merits.

Level Design:

At certain times the level design is a lot of fun, and at others it is downright painful.  Most rooms you will clear with a bit of a challenge, but it feels fair and fun.  Other rooms will throw all sorts of random junk at you, and it will expect you to somehow deal with the giant mess of things flying around you.  These rooms feel very unfair and tedious.

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Boss Design:

Where do I even start?  The boss design in this game is downright deplorable.  In fact, there is so much wrong with the boss design in this game, I will give you a nice little bullet list:

• Imprecise controls while requiring a lot of precision.
• Things flying around where you can't see them so you have no choice but to run into them when they get in your way.
• Unpredictable boss patterns.
• Un-dodgeable attacks.
• Unable to attack behind yourself effectively to attack approaching boss.
• Having the boss making minions do all the work instead of the boss actually being hard.
• Lots of other little annoying things.

So yes, this game has poorly designed bosses.

Gameplay:

I know I may have a lot of negative words about the control and design of the game, but I actually have been greatly enjoying it.

This warrior cannot see color

The fact that death isn't all that punishing in this game takes the edge off of what would be an otherwise frustrating death to something unfair.

Slowly getting more powerful after every death is actually a lot of fun.

This being said, the "Weaknesses" I mentioned earlier don't really change the game too much in most cases.  Certain traits though will actually give you buffs, and others will completely screw you over.  Choose your traits wisely.

Summary:

A flawed game, but with many good points.

Definitely worth a try if you are a fan of retro-style games or rogue-like games.


SCORE:  8/10

Do you agree?  Let me know what you think in the comment section below!

Other Rogue-lite game reviews:

Overture

Dungeon Souls

Zombie Party