![]() ![]() It's the kind of touch that could have broken a lesser game, but here is the final flourish on a structure of awesome complexity. In offering what is in effect a retry button, Rogue Legacy steps well outside the comfort zone of the games it so loves – after all, if fate can't kick you in the teeth then whither the challenge? But it works because the challenge scales so well and, even though you can practice, it still takes a special effort to beat even one boss. In giving you the option to try again, infinite times if you want to, Rogue Legacy offers a chance to put things right. A key quality of Rogue-alikes is the cruel twist of fate that always brings your greatest heroes down. You lose a hefty cut of the treasure by taking him up on the offer, but what it does is let you have another shot at a boss, or another attempt at that fairy chest challenge. This is the architect that turns up fairly early, and lets you choose to retain the previous heir's castle layout – rather than playing a newly randomised one. One touch ties all of this together, and after a few hours convinced me that Rogue Legacy is a keeper. So as you get better, and your characters become more powerful, the game not only sustains its difficulty but tightens the screw. The incremental stat boosts, fancy equipment and runes that grant new abilities (like a double-jump, or vampirism) are amazing, but soon the enemies are tougher in more challenging room layouts. But Rogue Legacy makes it work so well by scaling its difficulty to adapt to your increasingly buff knights. This will be anathema to many Rogue purists, who see the punishing difficulty and chance of losing everything as the core of the genre's appeal. The abilities straddle the funny and practical – coprophilia's always a laugh So the game keeps on changing, but your big achievements (and even the little ones) stay permanent. These seem contradictory approaches, but Rogue Legacy's solution is to make each run at the castle feed into an overarching hoard of family goodies – that is, all the gold and kit and upgrades stay in place, and pass on from parent to child. In Metroidvania games, persistent progression is key. The appeal of Rogue-like games is in learning how to play – so that each fresh attempt at the dungeon sees you get a few inches further. There is no shortage of games that randomly smoosh together niche genres in the hope they're somehow onto a hit, but in Rogue Legacy's case the blend is brilliant. But equally I love picking the spelunker for a change of pace, plumbing the deepest depths to snuffle out as much gold as possible and avoiding fights altogether. The idea of controlling heirs could have been a cosmetic way of giving the player infinite lives, but the importance of classes and abilities soon become crucial – a damage-dealing hokage with dwarfism and no sensation in his or her feet (so spikes don't hurt) is my personal dream ticket. That's not the only thing that changes: each of your character's children will be of different classes (archmage? miner? shinobi?) and with different attributes (dwarfism, OCD, colour-blindness). When your character dies you're given a choice of three heirs with which to start over, in a newly randomised castle. ![]() Enemies include a toothy mimic disguised as a treasure chestĭeath is not the end in Rogue Legacy it's a new and better beginning. Rogue Legacy: another major influence is the peerless Dark Souls.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |