Rogue Legacy (PC) review "Curious traits."

You charge through the castle halls, defeat a minion, mount some retracting platforms and then slay a king! Your quest to save the assassin will be the pursuit of every progenitor from that point on. Such is your introduction to Rogue Legacy, a game in which you will die. A lot.

In fact, the premise of this rogue-lite is that you will choose the deceased's successor each time. You choose from four, each with distinctive traits ranging from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Exaggeration, Near-Sightedness and even ADHD, which substantially enhances your movement speed. Each trait has drawbacks and bonuses, adding to Rogue Legacy's mechanical variety.

Some traits are amusing, like Nostalgia, which casts the graphics in a sepia hue, or Dyslexia, which partially scrambles text. Others have practical applications, like PAD, which can prevent floor spikes from triggering. As you acquire gold, it is passed on to the next generation. Then you can purchase armour upgrades, ability imbuing runes, or sections of the castle that give permanent stat upgrades, buffs and new classes.

At its core, this is a platformer consisting of randomly arranged preset rooms with variable contents. The castle changes each time you move on to a new character unless you pay a percentage of your future haul to lock down the configuration. The gatekeeper will also demand any gold unspent, so getting the best out of your on-hand treasure becomes an important skill.

Rogue Legacy is punishing at first, with scant options, just a couple of runes to start, and a little bit of magic. Every generation has at their disposal at least one spell, which can be thrown daggers, a giant hovering blade, axes that arc when thrown, and more. Magic classes can also provide enhancements and variations to this formula, but magic mechanics are only explored briefly.

At first, I was terrible at Rogue Legacy, but then my routine of practice afforded me knowledge of enemy "tells," effective dodging patterns, and reflexive combat techniques. Given enough time and purchased bonuses, I suspect anyone could reasonably spend a lot of time exploring the four sections of the castle.

About the time you begin to get any good at it, the story peters out, and you're left with surmounting the castle's four bosses. Traversing the castle to get to them can be challenging, especially with the available options to lock down their locations if known. The developers, Cellar Door, seem aware of the sparse content and give you a few distractions:

Three, count 'em, three mini-games will task your aim and chest-choosing skills. You'll also encounter developer diaries that talk about previous titles and the lessons learned from them. Faerie chests give you an objective, like "Reach me in time" or "Take no damage." And finally, mini-bosses reward you with permanent stat bonuses. Mildly ironic when there are so many upgrades and character options on tap.

Rogue Legacy has a distinctive pixel art style that aids in pattern recognition, and there are moments when you'll be in a flow of dodge-and-strike combat that might be described as effortless. It behooves you to pause long enough to decide on your approach for each enemy and enemy group. With practice, this will take just a split second, and you'll be clearing rooms and amassing small fortunes.

Rogue Legacy's music is reasonable, having a personality that suits the game's almost clunky art style. Each of the four areas has a vaguely haunting theme that will keep you on your toes and aware of being at a knife's edge. You can and will die when you least expect it.
Controls are sometimes clumsy, and the character I choose rarely moves with the precision I expect. Sprites are large, though you can select smaller and larger on occasion. Dwarvish characters grant access to a treasure that is otherwise inaccessible. Even with the most agile, the Ninja, I found airborne attacks needed more consistency.

Rogue has its own ... feel, as most platformers do ... and it seems right to expect that a knight will be at least somewhat clumsy in full plate armour. However, class changes restrict you always to a sword, magic and sometimes a shield. Even Mages and Ninjas use the sword. I would like to have seen some variety here, perhaps other types of swords.
Are there more? Probably, but even beating half the bosses unlocked for me less than half of the available armour sets and even less of the swords. Bonuses like augmented critical rate and gold drops can significantly change your play. Still, it all comes down to how much you repeatedly enjoy permadeath and circumnavigating the same rooms.

Rogue Legacy is light on hardware and will run on modest setups except for some possibly demanding shader effects. For the price, you're getting a lot of potential fun, and playing for brief or extended sessions at your leisure is easy.
Rogue Legacy tickles the progression fancy of any upgrade-focused player and features rock-solid performance and excellent thought and reflex testing platforming. Grab a keyboard or your Xbox 360 controller for effortless play. Your character controls like a heavily armoured knight. Go figure.

The paper-thin story dries up long before you reach mid-game, and it is interesting enough to see to a conclusion; it may need to be more interesting to see through to completion. Music can become repetitive, and achievements only sometimes work correctly. Your character controls like a heavily armoured knight. This is worth the full price of admission for anyone interested in platformers and rogue-lites. You're getting quite a bit of bang for your buck here. If you are interested and spot it on sale, don't hesitate!

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Community review by hastypixels (October 09, 2016) Wisdom comes from effort and mistakes.