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Rogue Legacy 2 is a rogue-li#e title (I honestly don't care about your roguelite/roguelike war, Internet, solve it yourselves!) and a successor to a critically acclaimed Rogue Legacy (duh). You pick one of a few characters generated randomly from classes and traits available on your current level of progression and work your way through six content-bloated biomes to dealing with lethal enemies, get your hands on relics, runes and item blueprints and hoard as much gold as possible to make it easier for your heirs to reach the ultimate goal in case of your untimely demise. Rinse and repeat until you finally beat that pesky last boss. And then go again, because the game provides an infinite loop of playability.
THE GOOD
No major flaws are present in the game's mechanics. Fittingly for the genre it provides challenge that may or may not, depending on your gaming background and capabilities, push the limits of your keyboard/pad mastery. You'll eventually reach the point of having to learn to use some unorthodox movement or combat manoeuvres, but there's never a huge bump in the road that may halt your progress for long enough to turn enjoyment into frustration. The mechanics are as far from unfair as possible, and with each failure you'll know exactly what went wrong. What's also important is that the tutorial is more than enough to grant players all mandatory knowledge of what's to come until they gradually start discovering new techniques through natural progression.
Rejoice, you who belong to the most querulous kin, for the variety brought by Rogue Legacy 2 can rekindle the flame of joy in your cold heart. It takes dozens of hours to go through all available options of building your character and the number of possible combinations of classes, talents, spells, pieces of equipment and traits is big enough to experience freshness for a very long time. Each class plays differently and grants unique passive bonuses, whilst weapons, talents (cooldown-based abilities) and spells (mana-based abilities) require specific timing and make use of distinct mechanics. Relics you find throughout your journey serve as double-edged swords, enhancing your abilities significantly at a cost of potentially making you more prone to the grasp of death. Special shout-out to the trait system which furthers the uniqueness of each run by adding a bunch of modifiers (e.g. making you larger, enhancing your range at the cost of having a bigger hitbox) or handicaps (e.g. making you take damage instead of healing when eating food) for increased gold gain.
And speaking of gold (and other resources), the upgrade system keeps the game fresh and interesting long after you’ve already beaten it. In early game, you gain gold, ore, aether and soul orbs to primarily unlock new classes, buy and upgrade gear and runes granting you extra stat bonuses or enhancing your abilities, the typical stuff. What Rogue Legacy 2 does better than many of its counterparts is that grinding resources doesn’t feel tedious or meaningless. For hundreds of hours, and it’s not an exaggeration, you’ll find yourself getting new and more powerful upgrades that contribute significantly enough to your overall performance to avoid being a necessary evil.
Multiplicity of gameplay settings allow you to freely choose your own style and adjust the difficulty to your current needs. Don’t worry if you’re new to the genre or get stuck at some point, you can turn off or tune down some of the more demanding hitches. And in case the game gets too easy for you, New Game Plus options allow you to willingly turn your experience into a nightmare. If you’re interested in Rogue Legacy 2, but at the same time uncertain of its difficulty and complexity, the answer is go for it 99% of the time.
Boss fights may properly test your skills, but in no point are cheesy. Like in most cases as it comes to the genre (and beyond) you’ll need to find proper movement and attack patterns, but the game is never unforgiving in terms of how much is required from you to memorise. Likewise, other challenges present in the game (e.g. dealing with all enemies without taking damage to gain a new rune) may seem tough at first, but they’re well balanced in terms of difficulty and reward, without being unnecessarily frustrating too.
Graphics are very well crafted, combining oldschool vibes with modern style. Obviously, such a mix is always subject to wide array of opinions, but with how greatly detailed and colourful the visual world of Rogue Legacy 2 is, how diverse its areas and inhabitants are and how smooth the animations look, there’s little place for anything but praise.
If you’re a sucker for a good story, you’ll see your expectations met on the journey through six main areas of the game and some extra subdivisions. Even if within the genre lore most often serves a role of a filler, it never stopped the development team of Rogue Legacy 2 from turning it into a substantial part of the game. Lore points scattered throughout the game and unveiled with each defeated boss and unearthed secret come together at some point, blending into a tale of courage, love, thirst for power and betrayal that serves as a prologue to the first instalment in the series.
A well-crafted soundtrack fits well into the themes of corresponding areas and battles.
THE SO-SO
While I highly praise the game for originality and high variety in pretty much all of its important elements, there’s two areas that get more tedious in consecutive runs than the others. Axis Mundi and Sun Tower, that is biome number two and five respectively, become stale more quickly than the other four because of their layouts and area-specific challenges – former because of its full linearity and latter because of its heavy reliance on a quite uninteresting mechanic of spin kicks and lots and lots of vertical mobility (and long ways down in case you fail). Curiously, the developers seem to have noticed that as well, granting players bonus gold gained in these two areas.
THE BAD
Usually variety, which I’ve already mentioned more times than necessary, also brings at least a couple of black sheep to the roster. Rogue Legacy 2 is no different. There’s stuff in the wide array of classes, items or perks that are, in most cases, too hard to pull off anything of value to justify using them. There’s no universally loved or hated class, but I find Bard particularly boring to play with its necessity to fully commit to spin kicks, a mechanic that is almost unnecessary overall. The so-called fabled weapons that are supposedly rarest and most powerful, in most cases are extremely situational, like Enkindled Gloves which will hurt you in addition to enemies way too often. The Pacifist trait may sound fun on paper (you get way less HP and can’t attack at all, but gain much more gold), but if you’re unlucky and can’t find yourself a weapon in your run, you can’t even finish the game.
OVERALL
The game mixes all necessary rogue-li#e ingredients to create a perfect gameplay blend suitable for beginners and advanced players alike. At the same time, no element is more or less important than the others. Platforming, combat, puzzles, upgrading and sorting out your inventory and skills are spread evenly throughout an incredibly accessible learning curve. Plethora of options allows players to craft their own experience to fit into their preferred tempo. Visuals and sound effects showcase extraordinary polish and deep care for details. Rogue Legacy 2 is truly a standout title that will remain staple within its genre for a long time.