Rogue Legacy is dangerous.
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In what seemed like a short time after starting up the game I sifted through the trophies for the Vita version and noticed that I had achieved one for playing for twenty hours. Impossible, I thought- I hadn’t played that much. But I had… and I had gotten the trophy a few days earlier.
Addicitive doesn’t quite cut it. Rogue Legacy is perhaps most easily described as Castlevania mashed up with Spelunky, offering the combat and thematic style of the first and the feeling of the latter to constantly return to it. You'll enter a castle and fight all sorts of skeletons and armored knight and ghouls, collecting gold and exploring, until you die.
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It’s not a question of whether you will die or not, dying is part of the game. Once you die your character's child will take up this family quest, and you’ll play through again as the heir. Each time you start anew you get to choose from three different children, all of which have their own unique abilities and quirks. They’ll offer a variety of classes that have different unlockable special moves, from Paladins that can block with a shield to Lich Kings/Queens that can increase their health and mana pools by killing enemies.
That’s not all they’ll have. Each new character has their own issues, possible due to their parent leaving them to die alone in a castle full of the undead instead of, y’know, parenting. They’ll come loaded with a variety of traits. whether it’s a physical one (gigantism, dwarfism) or a mental one (insanity- which makes you see and hear things that aren’t there, or colorblindness, which renders the world in black and white). Sometimes the traits will actually help you like OCD, which makes you faster, and some can make the game nearly impossible to play, like Vertigo, which makes you play the game upside down. Flatulence will just make you giggle.
It’s this genius system that makes Rogue Legacy so infinitely replayable. It would have been bad enough since it’s a roguelike and the castle is procedurally generated, but allowing you to play as a completely different character each and every time makes you form a new strategy and try out new things. Perhaps you just want to go on a treasure run, and should use a Miner, who gets a bonus to collecting gold- or maybe you're a Lich, and should spend time in the easier part of the castle killing low-level enemies to increase your health.
While the castle is random (although you will be able to lock it in place later on in the game) there are a few steady areas to the castle that appear in the same general direction each time. For instance there’s The Forest, which is to the right of the main castle, or The Darkness, which always lurks below. There are four main areas, each of which contain a boss to fight, as well as a final boss that you can only challenge after taking on the rest. Throughout the castle you’ll find numerous challenges, obstacles, mini-bosses and games. Every time you play through it’s different, and just exploring the castle is fun enough- never mind all the upgrades and goodies you can find.
Besides purchasing upgrades for your next protagonist after your death to increase his or her health, magic, and unlock new classes, you can find and equip all manner of new armor and magic runes that will offer you bonuses and new moves. Some runes let you double jump, dash, or just take less damage. You can swap them to play as you see fit- taking a hit on armor that provides defense in order to get equipment that offers you more gold, for instance. Want to quadruple jump? Go for it. Prefer to life as a vampire and get back tons of health with each swipe? It’s all yours.
It makes for an incredible amount of content, and this PSN version really is the ultimate one. It plays perfectly on the Vita, and the cross-save and cross-buy functions means that not only do you get versions for PS3, PS4 and Vita, but you can continue your legacy among them all, even on the run. There are new traits unique to this version and even a ton of trophies to earn. The toughest of them all, by far, requires you to beat the game in under 15 lives. Only the hardest of the hardcore will come close to getting that one.
There’s really nothing I could do to recommend this game more. This is the definitive version of Rogue Legacy, a must-buy for anyone who loves games and has a hundred hours to spare. Just be warned- once you start entire generations will die at your hand. This is your legacy.
