Rogue Legacy

 PC
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 43 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 42 out of 43
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 43
  3. Negative: 0 out of 43
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  1. CD-Action
    Aug 2, 2013
    70
    I just couldn’t get away from this simple platformer – it gave me a clinical just-one-more-attempt syndrome. [CD-Action 09/2013, p.69]
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Awards & Rankings

25
#25 Best PC Game of 2013
54
#54 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013

User Reviews

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User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 703 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 496 out of 703
  2. Mixed: 147 out of 703
  3. Negative: 60 out of 703
  1. Kluge
    Jun 29, 2013
    10
    Expect to win the game about as frequently as in vanilla Nethack. RL offers a challenging, fun, casual (hardcore-casual, though!) experience.Expect to win the game about as frequently as in vanilla Nethack. RL offers a challenging, fun, casual (hardcore-casual, though!) experience. You can pick the game up, head off and die a few times, then set it down and go do something else the dying actually serves the game very well to break the overall game up into bite-size chunks.

    In RL, you're effectively grinding the game to get gear, stats, and abilities for the "over-game" which is the point in which you actually have a shot in Hell of getting through to the final area. There are a few glitches here and there, usually which'll kill you by, for example, having a character apparently undecided if he's on or off a ledge, so he can't jump but dying is fun.

    RL adds quite a bit of fun easter egg type content throughout the castles to ensure things are always fresh, and that you always want to explore. The best part about this content is that it's very rare. You can die 50 times and never see more than a small handful of the "fun" rooms, so the freshness of these unique rooms doesn't wear off quickly like if you were seeing repeats so often, they become "normal."

    I would say, if you like games similar to Binding of Isaac or Nethack, you'll appreciate the intentional imbalance in this game.    … Full Review »
  2. Bunkerfox
    Jun 29, 2013
    4
    I came into this game expecting an enjoyable side scrolling Castlevania style game. Full of challenge, exploration and just overall fun. But,I came into this game expecting an enjoyable side scrolling Castlevania style game. Full of challenge, exploration and just overall fun. But, with added replayability thanks to the random designs. I was very disappointed.

    What I found instead was a very poorly deigned fighting game with atrocious platforming. The jump controls are awful, and it all feels so floaty and poorly done.

    The combat. Well, you have a few spells that are either not that useful or just taken straight from Castlevania. The actual sword combat is crap too. Only a few characters can block, and that takes up MP, so that makes it mostly useless. Enemy attacks are very hard to avoid thanks to the floaty jumps and the fact that you often have several coming at you at once, making them unavoidable. Thankfully the stunlock has a good invincibility length, so that somewhat lowers the frustration. A major problem seems to be fighting anyone or anything that is slightly above or below you. jump attacks are dodgy, at best, and more often than not just result in you getting hit. The combat never fells like you are actually physically hitting things, and this, what should have been the main thing in a fighting game, just feels very amateur.

    The difficulty just feels too artificial as well. It's not a game made hard by good design to make it challenging but not frustrating. It's just hard because they throw loads of enemies at you and give you crap ways to fight them

    Now, we have the major selling point of the game. The hero legacy, where when your character dies and his or her heirs take up the fight, but with new and improved bonuses that your previous generations have unlocked. An epic time line of heroes fighting to overcome the evil castle, getting stronger and stronger. Shame it's crap as well. there is ZERO sense of connection to the previous characters. This in no way feels like a line of heroes fighting, just some random characters kicked out of some random number generator. It is, in essence, a very crap levelling system. You go in with a terribly underpowered character, get some gold, and when you die (Which will be soon) you spend some money on upgrades so you can repeat this seemingly endless progress. There is no sense of progress, it's just grinding done poorly. Even upgrading the manor is taken from a cool idea into a levelling up menu.
    Even the randomness of the castle doesn't help the grinding feel of the game. It changes a lot each time, but seeing as you do pretty much the exact same thing and each room in an area looks exactly the same regardless of shape, it never feels like I am exploring a whole new level each time. Just one where they've muddled stuff around so it doesn't flow together well.

    The end result is a game that just isn't all that fun and has a very poor feel to it. Bad controls, bad combat, bad levelling system disguised as another feature it isn't.
    The graphics are nice, the sounds are good and I give it a bonus point for it's portrayal of homosexuality. In fact, I may say it's one of the best I've seen in a game. I take that point back again after it uses disability's as a joke for it's traits. "We wanted to show anyone can be a hero" You don't do that by making fun of serious conditions for a few laughs
    Overall, a title with great promise let down by very sloppy execution    … Full Review »
  3. Kattsylt
    Jun 28, 2013
    6
    A castlevania-ish platformer with an interesting twist.
    You dont play a single character, you play a branch in your family tree. You will    A castlevania-ish platformer with an interesting twist.
    You dont play a single character, you play a branch in your family tree. You will begin with an almost useless character and quickly find out that evil castles can be deadly. But hopefully you got the chance to gather some gold for your dear descendants, because they will continue the quest.

    And thats basically the game. You gather gold, upgrade your family castle in order to improve your fighters and crafting items, die, die again, die some more, gather gold and die.

    The game itself feels fresh, interesting and is initially very addictive, but it actually gets old pretty quickly. The lack of story that makes it me wonder why im still entering evil castles generation after generation.    … Full Review »
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