So. Rogue Legacy is a fairly new game from indie outfit Cellar Door Games. They've had several misses, a few hits, but I think Rogue Legacy is the first game they've made that's really gotten people talking. It's best described as Rogue meets Castlevania or Rogue meets Ghosts and Goblins; there is permadeath, the game is heavily randomized, and the actual gameplay is very much like Ghosts and Goblins or a faster-paced Castlevania (the real Castlevanias, not offshoots like Castlevania II.) The game's available at Rogue Legacy.com for $14.99 in a DRM-free version, which also includes a Steam key. It's pretty much designed to be played with a gamepad, and so is a really awesome candidate for Big Picture playing.



So, onto the reasons Rogue Legacy is a game everyone should buy and play:

As with all Roguelikes, the game is heavily randomized, and death is permanent; while this results in a difficult game, it also means enormous replayability, and unlike some of the more hardcore Roguelikes, the game is never unwinnable.

On the other hand, the reason it's not unwinnable is due to unique mechanics Cellar Door Games created. See, although character death is permanent, the game operates on a goofy "heir" system - every time your character dies, next time you play you select from one of three randomly-generated children to play: each kid has a random class, random traits, and a random magic spell they can cast, and later on you can purchase the option to reroll all three kids once, giving you two sets of three to pick a character from.



This dovetails into the other major mechanic that lends the game a sense of persistence: gold.

See, as you work your way through the play areas (castle, forest, tower, and dungeon; all are randomly generated every time, of course), monsters, random debris, treasure chests, and bosses will all drop gold. Gold is useless while you're inside the castle, but once you die, all of the gold you gathered can be spent on new equipment (all but the most basic pieces must be found in the form of blueprints from chests scattered about the play area), runes (which, again, must be discovered inside of "fairy chests" throughout the play area), and a talent-tree like system of stat boosts, unique effects, class upgrades, and even new classes at your manor. Any gold not spent is lost upon re-entering the play area. So, the basic gameplay consists of: kill monsters to get gold, open chests to get gold, kill bosses to get gold, die, spend gold, repeat. Every time you beat the game, you can begin a New Game +, which gives you a substantial bonus to gold gain, dramatically increases difficulty, and starts the game over; this supposedly can repeat endlessly (so you move on to New Game ++, then New Game +++, etc.)



But back to the character generation system! As mentioned, every character is randomly generated, being assigned a random class, random magic spell, and up to two random traits (or none at all!) The available classes include:

Knight - The Mario of the classes, that's good at everything but master of nothing. Good health, good mana, good attack damage, good magic damage. Can be upgraded to a Paladin by buying the upgrade, which gives the class the ability to hunker down behind their shield, blocking all damage at the cost of mana.

Barbarian - The tanky class; enormous health, but less damage than the Knight, and with a pitiful mana pool and magic damage. Can be upgraded to a Barbarian King by buying the upgrade, which gives the class a Fus Ro Dah style skill which shoves all enemies away and destroys all projectiles in the air at the cost of mana.

Knave - The rogue class; relatively low health, and less damage than the Knight, but given a substantial bonus to chance to crit as well as crit damage. Can be upgraded to an Assassin by buying the upgrade, which gives the class the ability to transform into mist, avoiding all non-trap damage for a constant mana cost as long as mist form is retained.

Shinobi - The ninja class, which can be unlocked by buying it at the manor; a straight-up parody of Naruto, right down to the class' appearance. Somewhat squishy, and incapable of getting crits, but given a very substantial boost to attack damage and a boost to movement speed. Can be upgraded to a Hokage by buying the upgrade, which gives the class the ability to teleport a short distance in the direction they're facing for a small mana cost.

Mage - Well, it's a Mage; very squishy, with a huge mana pool and excellent magic damage stats, and gains mana after every kill. Upgradeable to the Archmage by buying the right option, which allows the class to cycle through three randomly generated spells, giving the Archmage the most versatility of the game's wizard-like classes.

Miner - The "I want to be rich" class, which can be unlocked by buying it at the manor; with a penalty to all stats, but a substantial bonus to gold earned, this class is about avoiding fights and zipping to and from treasure chests. Can be upgraded to a Spelunker at the manor, allowing the class to see the locations of all chests, fairy chests, and special rooms, making it easier to plan your route through the castle to maximize the amount of chests you can gather gold from.

Spellthief - The fighter/mage class, which can be unlocked by purchasing it at the manor; not as tanky as the Knight, the Spellthief still possesses respectable attack damage and good magic damage, and while their mana pool is a bit anemic, they recover mana every time they whack something with their sword, making the class very much designed around using both their spell and their sword constantly. Can be upgraded to the Spellsword at the manor, which enables the class to cast an empowered version of their spell, which deals double damage, is twice the size of the normal spell, and which costs twice as much mana.

Lich - It's a Mage of a different flavor, unlocked by buying it at the manor; while the Lich has decent attack damage, they start with pretty lousy health and mana pools, but gain maximum HP every time they kill something, and are nearly always given expensive, room-clearing spells. The class really comes into its own once you buy the Lich King upgrade, which gives it the ability to turn 50% of the class's maximum HP into maximum MP; while both MP and HP have a cap (exactly double their normal, Knight values), eventually the Lich will possess a huge health pool and huge mana pool, allowing to cast their spell many times, and be exceptionally hard to bring down - but first you need to murder lots and lots of things.

Additionally, there's a ninth "hidden" class you can purchase at the manor. It's a pretty awesome class, though it certainly has its own mix of strengths and weaknesses, as with all the other classes.


Spells include daggers (a cheap, strong spell that simply tosses a dagger in a straight line), axes (strong axes thrown in a high arc, exactly like the Castlevania axe), chakrams (a slow, strong disc that boomerangs back in the direction it came from, much like Castlevania's cross), flame shields, bouncy spiky balls of death, and even a spell torn right out of Alfred Hitchcock's nightmares. The Archmage is the only class which has access to more than one spell; they have three spells to choose from, though only one spell at a time can be used.


Lastly, traits: traits are randomly assigned to each character when they're generated, they're goofy as hell, and they can have a wide variety of effects on how the character plays. Some traits, I.B.S., are purely cosmetic and comedic. On the other hand, a trait like Dextrocardia reverses your health and mana pools, resulting in a character that plays quite a bit differently from the way it would normally play. You can be a giant, being easier to hit but also having a much larger reach, or a dwarf, harder to hit and able to fit into secret spaces, but having a much smaller reach. You can be impossible to knock back, or very easy to knock back; you can be color blind or near-sighted, and you can even have vertigo, flipping the entire world upside down and reversing your left/right directions.

Essentially, in addition to each class offering a somewhat unique gameplay experience (split into the "fighter" types, "wizard" types, and then your oddballs like miner and the "secret" class), traits can further customize the way the class plays - an Archmage is typically very squishy, but if you end up with dextrocardia, instead you end up with a Mage that's extremely tanky, but with a fairly small mana pool, making use of expensive spells like Flame Shield or Time Stop difficult.



At any rate, Rogue Legacy is a game that anyone that's a fan of the original Castlevania or Ghosts and Goblins should pick up, especially since it's available DRM-free! Support indie developers, and support DRM-free! Today!