Review: Rogue Legacy (PS3/PS4)

Prepare to Die…and Laugh!

Rogue Legacy is an old-school indie platformer that doesn’t make life easy for you. After a brief tutorial it lets you get right to playing…and dying. Keep in mind that I am notoriously known for numerous deaths in video games, but this one is hard. This could be a turn off for strictly “new-school” gamers (the category I tend to fall into), but Rogue Legacy…kills you while humoring you and makes dying, often, much more bearable.

You play as a knight and explore a deadly castle in hopes of defeating all four bosses in one life. However, when your character dies, you come back as the “heir” to the previous knight. Every descendant has a list of random, many times comical, traits. Your knight might be colorblind and can see only in black and white, or ADHD with the ability to move faster, have dwarfism, ADHD,  or Irritable Bowel Syndrome – the list goes on. These traits do a great job of mixing up the gameplay by having you adapt to your new knight. If that’s not enough, the castle itself is randomly generated so that no two play-throughs are the same. As you slay the demons throughout the castle, you will collect gold which can be used to upgrade your knight or castle. None of the purchases are a guaranteed tickets to win, instead they serve as a nice goal to strive for. Perhaps you want to save up to unlock a new class or gain more health – there is plenty of content to keep you addicted for extraordinary lengths of time.

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Prepare for your inevitable death(s)

The art style of Rogue Legacy is classic yet modern, it definitely has a Castlevania feel to it, but somehow has more charm. Accompanied by a great soundtrack, this game will definitely get your nostalgia going.  The randomness and difficulty are what keep this game alive. I’ve played around 12 hours or so of the game and my main goal is to see if I can get further than I did in my previous play-through, pretty much just chasing the proverbial carrot dangling in front of me.

This review is shorter than most, but I came to this conclusion very quickly: you should buy Rogue Legacy.  It is definitely worth the price ($16.99 US), and it will keep you coming back for more!

4 out 5 – Good

Rogue Legacy is a charming, old-school, difficult game not for the easily-agitated; but if you’re up for the challenge, it’s definitely worth playing.

 

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