Rogue Legacy is actually good.

I was wrong. I don't like most rogue-likes. I loved Risk of Rain, but that was sort of an exception and even then I don't frequently play it. Its kind of a game I binge on for a day or two and then leave alone for a month (So where's that vita port that'll influence me to play it more?). I enjoyed teleglitch for a bit, but couldn't totally find a compelling reason to keep going back. Rogue Legacy is one of the last games I'd expect to change my mind on this whole concept. Hard 2D platforming, cheap projectiles, and a luck gimmick themed around your character with some light RPG elements loosely slapped in. Nah, certainly not another risk of rain. WRONG! Now to be fair I do still hate that this was one of those poster child indie games that got its name thrown out there triple as much as a good indie game. Kind of like Limbo it was one of those that was exposed plenty, but took up the time that could have been used to talk about how great Gravity Ghost or Chivalry is. Still I'm getting side tracked on a small tangent here. The game still manages to impress me greatly. I would have made this a "Now playing" article but I don't know for sure if I'll stick with this. I haven't been very consistent or sure where I want to be right now with my gaming to be honest.

Back to the game though! The controls on the platforming are tight and smooth, the random traits are kind of funny and work real good, and the enemies are usually fair as a challenge. However the big thing I hate with a rouge-lite/like/whatever is that they are so bent on loss and repetition, and not at all on the fulfillment of an actual adventure or story, so you're going nowhere and basically wasting time in a deadly loop. Well it doesn't entirely fill the gap, but its close enough. Its level randomization is interesting enough to feel unique and keep me learning new tricks and challenges. One moment I might be fighting a bunch of many enemy types, then the next I'll dodge some mild traps and screw up, then the next one kicks off where I'm running across an entire floor of slightly delayed trigger spikes. Its just always doing something to grab my attention and plan just a little, and unless I'm really stuck doing this for a while I guess I wont get tired of this loop yet. Oh and its pretty awesome that this game actually gives you the chance to save your level progress any time for a price. You just need to unlock the right guy and accept a 40% money loss, which brings me around to the progress bit. In addition there is a flash-like upgrade system. Everything can be upgraded, and there's always something more to unlock up to where some abilities can be raised 75 times. The catch is that you lose any money you don't spend, and the upgrades get costly, so you've still got to get better or get stuck. I guess that's where I may potentially draw the line, but I bet I can still go further than my current place.

Now as cliche as it is to say, I do sense a sort of strange alternate Dark Souls vibe. Every enemy has an attack style, every trap has a trick to it, and most organized looking death traps have a way to time it and get it right. Its all a matter of caution and exploitation, kind of like learning Dark Souls. Of course that doesn't mean its truly like dark souls, but the difficulty learning curve feels slightly comparable, even if still a bit shallow. If you combine this great set of rules, the well tuned (though random) difficulty, a neat character gimmick, and a really solid 2D art style, and I guess I can understand why so many rogue-like fans enjoyed the game. If I put it on my Vita I may be potentially playing this for a good while longer. Thanks for making this a PS+ game sony, I would have never known what I was missing otherwise.