Wednesday, January 8, 2014

And these children shall always be three!

Rogue Legacy is a combat platformer with light elements of RPG style progression set in a castle made of randomly pieced together preset rooms.
The gameplay is punishingly difficult, reminiscent of when arcade games were super challenging for all the extra monies, but continued play is rewarded with an understanding of patterns and style allowing you to make progression with your characters and in the levels.
When you die (and you will indeed die. And die again. And again. And then die some more when you think no dying could be left to do) you are punted back to the start screen. But each time you begin play you select a new toon who is the descendant of the guy or gal you just died with. As such, you inherit the family castle and the coin your dead former self had in their pockets.
This money can be spent in the castle to change things like hitpoints, chance to crit or new classes. Or you can spend coin at the blacksmith for new armour and weapons.
Then you sally forth into the castle to reap riches! And die some more. For the children.
Thusly, unless you run into the first room and straight into a spike pit without thinking there is always some move forward.

Three choices will always greet you at the new character screen, with a random name, a random (from those available) class, a spell, and some traits. This is the first taste of the games' style of humour. These traits run from those which do not affect gameplay such as "the one" making everything look a bit matrix-y, to vertigo which will invert your view and controls which certainly takes some getting used to. Until you die.

Personally I think this game is tops. It's a great blend of traditional skill testing and current tastes in the roguelike roguelite rogue-esque (whatever) genres being thrown around the place. If.. When I die I rarely feel cheated, more either that i wasn't playing attention or that i made a stupid decision, rather than loose controls of a system that is unfair. No. It is actually completely unfair, but it doesn't cheat, which is a horribly important distinction.

I like the cartoony vibe to the artwork, and it really remind me of ghosts and goblins in both visual and game-y reference.

 I was gifted Rogue Legacy by my best mate, so it cost me naught (except years of listening to his crap) but I would 90% recommend this at full price which is $14.99 on Steam as of this writing. A cool tenner would be the perfect buy.

It's actually really easy to pick up and put down, but you won't actually want to put it down. This is both because the gameplay is engaging, and because the rewards of having just failed don't come to you until you try again. This is a powerful motivator.

Unless you died with 20 gold in your pockets. Idiot.

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