You know it’s actually been quite awhile since I did a full review for a roguelike. The last I recall doing a full coverage for would be Brutal Orchestra earlier last year, and ever since then I have been mentioning ones I beat in my Brief Looks. What happened? I remember roguelikes being one of my favorite video game genres once. The concept of every playthrough feeling entirely unique, and failure being a design intention was intriguing. Maybe it’s because at the time I was starting out a lot has changed since then. I’ve exposed myself to more titles in the genre and now I am starting to see the good and the bad. Despite how highly replayable these games are there’s just too many of them. Go to the genre tag on Steam and tell me when the list stops. It’ll probably take awhile to reach the end, which is an exact sign of how bloated the roguelike genre has become. It’s only the golden ones that stand out. The ones that do enough to set themselves apart. Whether it be art direction, gameplay ideas, design choices, etc. I think there’s a reason why the two highest rated roguelikes of all time, at least on the Steam store page, are Hades and The Binding of Isaac.
One of them is an all time fave as it uses the concept of dying over and over to tell the tale of a boy trying to escape both literal hell and the personal hell he is trapped in. It also added reason as to why you should keep going. As a colorful cast of characters based on Greek mythology and the new things they had to say each run prevented repetition. As for the second I haven’t played it, but I see why Isaac stands out. For its disturbing themes focusing around religion, corruption, and trauma. That and it’s still updated to this day. It takes guts for a roguelike to succeed in my humble opinion. Brutal Orchestra, Slay The Spire, Into The Breach, Griftlands, Inscryption, Curse of The Dead Gods, and the aforementioned Hades. I have been struggling to find a new one to thoroughly enjoy, but this list is about to receive a new addition. Rogue Legacy 2, the well anticipated follow-up to what is considered by many to be one of the best in the genre. It was developed by Cellar Door Games, was put into early access in 2020, and it wasn’t until mid 2022 that it received a full release. The original is considered a turning point for roguelikes. It had a progression system, something all these games kind of lacked. Most roguelikes take everything away from you once you die, but Rogue Legacy showed the player there was something to gain from loss. Character upgrades that would make you stronger with time and all future runs easier.
It was addicting, satisfying to progress through, and managed to avoid repetition due to this little feature. Ever since then we’ve seen a lot of roguelikes incorporate a progression system of some sorts. The Mirror of Night in Hades, Risk of Rain 2 allowing you to unlock all sorts of survivors and relics to use, or Slay The Spire giving you new cards. Rogue Legacy made a lot of these sort of games more manageable to play and for that I respect it. However, there was room to improve and so almost a decade later the developers decided to make a more refined version of it. Having a bigger budget than before and learning from recent roguelikes they crafted what was in simple terms a better Rogue Legacy. Your heirs now have different classes and quirks, which added tons more variety to runs. The game was 2D animated now and the art style was now more distinct. There were metroidvania upgrades which allowed for exploration and movement to be diverse. There’s a lot to list, but I'm gonna save that up for the review. Rogue Legacy 2 in many ways is a perfect sequel and it quickly rose to being one of the best. I’ve been meaning to check this game out for quite awhile, but I don’t know what kept me from playing it. Probably roguelike fatigue. I mean there’s no other explanation or work around that I can think of. Whatever, for the last few days I’ve been sinking time into Rogue Legacy 2, and the night prior to writing this is when I beat the final boss. Rogue Legacy 2 is a great game. I have a small handful of problems, but for all the frustrations I had playing I can safely say this is a confidently designed experience that dozens of players will get hours of arcadic fun from. Today we are gonna be talking about why I quite liked Rogue Legacy 2 and why it deserves your attention. Let’s carve a path into the future. One written in gold and glory.
Story
I’m gonna try to piece together as much of the lore as possible without giving away all too many spoilers, so expect my knowledge of the story to be kind of iffy. The game follows you, a lonely adventurer, journeying into an abandoned kingdom known as Genesis. A once prosperous city led by a great ruler, but has become overrun by powerful monsters. The citizens transformed due to a mysterious disease, and once great beings dubbed Estuaries mutated into greater monsters. The kingdom became malformed and the structure of it began shifting. Time is distorted and the sea which dozens sailed upon had now become deadly. You journey into this kingdom hoping to vanquish the evil lying within. You fight and fight and fight some more, until you are killed by the powerful foes that lie within. Your body is abandoned within those halls, but this isn’t the end of your legacy. Weeks after your death a new heir is chosen. One strength and willpower such as yourself. They too venture into the kingdom hoping to do what you couldn’t achieve, and when they are slain another heir is chosen. Your legacy and theirs will soon build upon a fortress. A place where new heirs and heroes alike can train and attempt to conquer the madness. The path forward is paid in death, and one day the cycle shall be broken. The kingdom shall be cleansed and the hell it brought shalt be ridden. Good luck dear adventurer. Let’s see how far you get.
Gameplay
I’ve seen Rogue Legacy try to sell itself as an action platformer, but if anything this game is more of an action RPG now with metroidvania elements. Every time you start a new run you are given three heirs to choose from. Each heiress has their own stats and quirks, and these quirks can come in the form of benefits or tradeoffs. You may have an heir who can jump higher or recover health more easily, or an heir who is extremely tiny or loses max health every time they get hit. What makes things more interesting is that heirs with massive trade offs usually pick up more gold during a run. So it may encourage players to take risks if they want to reap more rewards during an attempt. Another thing that makes Rogue Legacy 2 unique is the class system. Unlike the original where all your heirs were knights you can now wield different classes. Each one has their own unique stats, weapons, and of course playstyles. You have valkyries who can attack in all directions, move around easily, and pogo off of enemies if they attack downward. Archers who don’t have a lot of health, but deal critical damage from afar. Dragon lancers who are slow, but deal massive damage and can tank more blows than most classes. Some classes may even prove to be better during certain sections of the game. Now here’s how a run of Rogue Legacy 2 works. You hop into the castle, try to get to where you need to go, die, and respawn back at base. You lose any of the relics you obtained during runs, but you keep heirlooms and gold. Heirlooms are basically the metroidvania upgrades of Rogue Legacy 2. They are carried over between heirs, and are very much needed to access new areas and every single major boss fight.
These upgrades include a dash, a double jump, improved spin kick, and much more. Oh yeah, the spin kick is your signature move as it allows you to pogo off of lanterns, enemies, and hazards as long as you time it correctly. Gold of course is your spending. You carry it back to base and you can spend it to afford major upgrades. These include equipment, charms, new classes, and stat increases. Permanent upgrades to your health, armor, damage, weight capacity for equipment, so on. Try to spend as much money as you can before entering a new run, because a riverman by the name of Charon will take all your gold before you set out. This progression system is where the game’s RPG aspects come into play. You get stronger each run and enemies that are threatening will become more manageable. Sometimes it’s best to spend runs collecting as much as you can, because the boss you are up against has just too much health. You explore, find upgrades, collect gold, and eventually face off against an area boss. These are the real challenges of Rogue Legacy. They have a multitude of skills, high health, hit hard, and will take multiple attempts to beat. It can be tough at times, but once you nail down their attack pattern and know what to do they will stay down. Their boss door becomes sealed and on future runs you won’t have to deal with them again. The ultimate goal is to defeat six bosses around the world and unseal a golden door near the beginning. Only then you can face off against the final boss of this game. Besides that I don’t think there’s all too much else to bring up. Hopefully you can slay the nightmares of the castle, and rid this world of the madness that plagues it.
Thoughts
Rogue Legacy 2 is a fantastic game where everything has benefits and downsides. I’m amazed by everything this lighthearted game has managed to accomplish and for that I heavily respect it, but there always seemed to be some sort of quirk to the equation. Like I bet at some point this game had a ten out of ten overall score on Steam. The game starts off with a good impression and from there it expands. Most people probably based their opinion off the first five hours or successful run, which is fine. However, Rogue Legacy 2 sits with a nine right now. That’s still a really good score and I think it absolutely deserves it. One hundred percent the most fair score I’ve seen for a video game. Yet, there was probably a reason why that overall score dropped with time. The first thing I’d like to address is the progression system. My most favorite aspect with Rogue Legacy 2 as it’s what kept me going. Losing is not the worst thing in the world in Rogue Legacy 2, and the gold you gain can be spent on upgrades to make future runs easier. The progression system also allows you to unlock more classes. The aspect that helps add variety to future runs. These classes are a lot of fun and there’s two or so I really hated. I love this aspect, but at the same time it also opens up some problems. It’s fun knowing you;ll be unlocking new upgrades each run, but it is not fun when you have to grind for a while because the enemies in the next area are fifthteen to twenty levels higher than you. It is not fun when the boss you are facing is a giant sponge and you can only last for four minutes. Now part of this could be me having to get good, but it does feel like some bosses were given too much health.
Thankfully there are difficulty and accessibility sliders which is another thing I appreciate about this game. Despite how difficulty can curve a lot it does allow players of all skill levels to access it easily. You can create your own custom difficulty. Maybe have enemies deal less damage but contain more health, or less health but more damage. There’s an option to slow down time while aiming which makes playing a ranged character much easier. The class and quirk systems are great and there is a ton of variety per run, but it can also be infuriating at times. You get three heirs per run and their classes are completely randomized. Sometimes you get one or two choices that are terrible, or sometimes you just wish you had the choice to choose a class that best fits the playstyle you like or scenario you are facing. One thing I don’t like about the quirk system is how you don’t know what a quirk does until you use the character during a run. I know it leads to player discovery, but instead it leads to moments where once you do figure it out it most likely screwed you over. Again, it’s me not knowing how to get good, but one time I had a quirk that seemed like it did nothing and once I got hit it turned me small. The quirk is that you really like mushrooms. Nice nod to Super Mario Bros, but how was I supposed to know it was going to do that beforehand? Another time I had a barbarian wielding a peace sign. This peace sign does no damage, and it made me wonder why the heck would you give this to me?
Now I will say the movement is buttery smooth and that I love the metroidvania upgrades. These along with stat increases help further increase the satisfaction of the progression system. Areas feel mostly well designed despite them being randomly generated, and some give the player clear goals. Like the harbor level has you mainly moving right, or the sky level has you mainly going upward. However, you have moments where you just do not know where to go. I can get over this though because later on you unlock two unique mechanics. One is a pizza girl who can allow you to warp to the start of each area every run so long as you pay her enough money to do so. The other is a mechanic who can lock the world. This allows you to continue with the progress you made in exchange for receiving less gold, which is nice. The 2D animation is nice as well and I like how cheery the game looks. The lore is dark and we’ll touch upon it in a few moments, but the art style is splendid. You can instantly tell what something is once it pops up on screen. What I don’t like very much is how zoomed in the screen is. You aren’t given a very good idea of what’s coming up or floating in the distance. It has the Salt and Sanctuary problem where you dash into a room and are greeted with a spike pit below you immediately. That and the game just loves to clutter you especially near the end. Throwing dozens of enemies at you within a small space, or having a boss fight who spews projectiles everywhere. It doesn’t make the game challenging, but like it’s trying to throw every cheap trick that it can.
Last thing I want to address is the story. I was originally going to write it off, because honestly I did not pay attention half the time. All of it’s done through journals and some of these are pretty hard to piece together or find. However, if you can piece it together you discover a tale about the consequences of immortality. Taking things for granted and trying to see yourself as a higher up compared to others. There’s some cool characters especially near the end of the game, and I like the plot twist. It helps explain why things are the way they are. Now I don't think that I hate this game or that I believe it’s overrated. Certainly not. Rogue Legacy 2 is a tremendous game and it is much better than a lot of other games in the genre. It is miles ahead of the original, and for the price of twenty five dollars you are getting a game that can be played endlessly. Once you beat the game you unlock the ability to replay it except with difficulty amplifiers. It is much like Heat in Hades, and that further adds replay value. Rogue Legacy 2 gets a thorough recommendation in my book. A charming little adventure that is worth sticking around for albeit a bit grindy after the halfway point. In the end I am going to give Rogue Legacy 2 an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
This critique was written by the single man at Review on. Stay tuned for more content and feel free to check more reviews out over at my site!