fun fun fun fun fun

While this game may have been well received in its time, I don't think it really holds up and warrents a revisit. Under the veneer of quirky humor are a lot of mechanics that that are just anti-fun and hold the game back tremendously.

The concept of working up a family tree of characters is interesting, but in practice having to start each run by choosing from three descendants means you're often stuck playing with classes, boons and downsides that you don't want. While it "technically" adds replayability and variation, it's not the good kind. In addition, meta-progression is painfully slow. Each run makes enough gold for one, maybe two upgrades. Generally you'll be stuck purchasing some basic stat upgrade, and since stats can have 50 to 75ish levels, you know beefing up your character is going to be a grind. To make things even slower, you lose most if not all of your gold when you start a new run. You can't opt to save for more expensive upgrades. I have no idea why this is a feature. It adds nothing.

As far as the platforming and combat goes: it's inconsistent. Some rooms definitely hit that tough-but-fair sweet spot, but others feel like a bunch of enemies slapped togather in a bullethell environment. Eyeballs shooting at you from offscreen. Rooms with puzzle chests that your character can't complete. The different zones don't do terribly much to shake this up, and as you progress through the game you'll encounter a lot of reskinned enemies that simply have more health, more damage and more projectiles. Overall it's just a little random and unpolished.

It's not a horrible game. It's just also not a particularly good game. With so many more polished roguelikes out there, I'd spend my time and money elsewhere.

Rogue Legacy 7/10 - A victim of being the first of the new wave of Roguelikes. It is the purest distillation of roguelite, with nothing extra up it's sleeve which is what really holds it back. I can see why when it came out it was hailed, but having played many of the games that improved upon the formula it feels very basic. I do look forward to playing the sequel, I think The first one absolutely nailed the fundamentals so just having the years to add new ideas could make something great.