Pros:
- Fan-service abound--Elements of Metroid, Naruto, Skyrim, Megaman, Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, etc., etc. The game walks the line between homage and copyright infringement, and we thank them for it. In addition, all the nuances like the soundtrack, art style, and classic video game archetypes bring back warm fuzzies of nostalgia.
- Platforming at its finest--The learning curve of the jumping mechanics is intuitive, so it takes "only" about 20 deaths (sounds like a lot, but you will die a thousand more times, literally) before you become a timing ninja. The mechanics are set so that jumping and dashing react precisely as you'd expect, and powers like teleportation and flight just add to the fun.
- Risk/Reward Tactics--Do I equip my Lich King with HP absorbing armor and bank on staying alive through vampirism, or do I stack my tough-as-nails barbarian with haste runes and hack my way through the underworld? Or the more scathing question: to lock the dungeon or not to lock the dungeon? Once you begin saying things like, "Man, if I just had Peripheral Artery Disease, I could run across those spikes and get that chest,"...you're hooked. It is these questions that give weight to every purchasing decision, which makes the "same old" practice of finding gold and acquiring loot more relevant.
- Random Dungeons--Sometimes you'll enter the next room and it will be a single tempting chest with nothing but breakable chandeliers in your path. You will approach apprehensively, as too many random zombies have crawled from nowhere, or too many hanging pictures have suddenly leaped from the wall scared the crap out of you. Then nothing will happen, because the too-easy-to-be-true chest was simply a gift from fate. Other times the next room will be a swirling wave of death and fire, or a screen-sized skeleton bent on your destruction. This is the magic of random dungeons that are truly random. You must always adapt, never getting comfortable with patterns or secret rooms in the same places (unless the dungeon is locked), so survival is exponentially more gratifying.
- The Legacy--The fact that one of your offspring can go on an epic run that nets a couple runes, kill a boss or two, and die valiantly with a few thousand gold, means that each foray into the castle has the potential to alter your lineage forever. As you scroll back through the list of your ancestors, you will have fond memories of Lord Taco II, who survived with single-digit hit points against a boss. You will remember Lord Taco II because he gave your family the ability to fly from then on. You will patiently await the arrival of Lord Taco III, only to find that he or she is born a dwarf with color-blindness who casts spells backwards.
Cons:
- Lack of Story?--As a gamer who loves a deep yarn, I cannot objectively review this game and ignore the fact that it has no story outside of "your descendants all went into the castle and either earned their place in the hall of glory or got killed by the very first enemy." But does RL need a story other than the aforementioned? I should think not, as the game does not try to be anything more than it is, which is an excuse to go back in one more time...the rest is up to the imagination.
In Conclusion:
Rogue Legacy is one of those games that contains a depth far beneath what can be seen from a screenshot or a passionate description of its merits. It is a masterpiece, even among the gathering of brilliant games emerging from indie developers in recent years. Anyone who has tried to explain the appeal of this game to another person quickly realizes that no description will do it justice. You simply have to play it, experience the joy of failure and triumph for yourself, and then try in vain to make sense of why it's so fun to someone else.