I suspect that the desire to be remembered in some fashion is a deep-seated part of human nature. Though our names will surely fade over time after we’re gone, something tells me that most people would like to prevent that for as long as possible. A rather common way of fulfilling that desire for a time is to have heirs who carry on one’s namesake and/or legacy, in the hopes that one’s descendants will have heirs of their own, and so on.

The idea of having an heir tasked with carrying on their ancestors’ legacy is one of the central concepts present in Cellar Door Games’ 2013 title Rogue Legacy. In the context of the game, your ultimate objective is to cleanse the apparently cursed area surrounding Castle Hamson by defeating numerous enemies and bosses within the castle and the areas around it.

That may sound straightforward, but there’s a rather significant catch. You see, the castle and its surrounding areas are randomly-generated; you will, therefore, face different challenges every time you attempt your quest. There is an exception to that rule, however, which I’ll cover shortly.

Upon starting the game with your first character, you begin slaying the aforementioned enemies and searching the castle for both gold and the boss enemies I mentioned a moment ago. However, due to the game’s randomly-generated nature, I would go so far as to say that Rogue Legacy expects you to die somewhat frequently. I honestly suspect there’s no way even the most skilled players could finish the game without dying at least a small handful of times.

In light of that, I would argue that dying while pursuing your ultimate objective saddles you with a secondary goal, which is thankfully somewhat easier to achieve in most cases. By that, I mean your secondary objective is to gather as much gold as possible; upon your death, any gold you gather will be inherited by one of your heirs. The heir you choose to control on your next run can then use it for various purposes to aid them in succeeding where their ancestors could not.

Before you begin each new attempt at tackling the castle’s evils, you’ll be able to visit what the game refers to as the Manor. Here, you can spend the gold you inherited from your last run on such things as permanently increasing your characters’ maximum health and magic points, upgrading certain character classes which classify your heirs, and unlocking access to new services such as the Smithy and the Architect.

The Smithy can provide upgrades to each heir’s weapons and armor in exchange for gold; but the smith who runs the forge initially can’t make very many things until you find and return some portion of his library of blueprints while on your quest. The Architect constitutes the exception to the random-generation rule I mentioned earlier; he can lock down the castle so that you can attempt your last run again with no changes.

While the Architect doesn’t charge any fees up front, he does lay claim to 40% of the gold you collect on any run during which you enlist his services. Thus, you’ll have to balance your need for gold with your confidence in being able to succeed in your most recent castle if you were to be granted another shot at it.

I highly advise spending as much of your gold at the Manor and the Smithy as you can before you begin each run. That’s not only because you’ll benefit from any upgrades you’re able to purchase, but also because you won’t be able to enter a new castle until you’ve given a friendly-looking NPC named Charon the entirety of your gold; assuming you haven’t spent all of it.

Of course, before you can do anything I’ve just described, you’ll have to choose which heir you’ll control on a given attempt to complete your quest. In my experience, the majority of the time, you’ll be able to choose one of three descendants to control on your next attempt.

Each heir you can choose from will likely have different attributes and classes which dictate some portion of what it will be like to play them. This is where one of Rogue Legacy’s more unique mechanics comes into play. You see, playable heirs can have certain physical and mental traits outside of their character class that could potentially affect their gameplay.

These traits can be beneficial, neutral, or negative depending on the trait in question. For example, a beneficial trait is a condition which makes it impossible for your character to trigger certain types of traps due to abnormal blood circulation in their legs and feet. Alternatively, an example of a negative trait would be a condition which makes your character get knocked back a greater distance after being hit by an enemy.

Neutral traits are basically exactly as their name implies, though some of them exist to provide comedic effect. Such traits are technically useful in my experience simply because they could be worse. After all, I’d rather my character have a harmless condition such as male-pattern baldness as opposed to one of the aforementioned negative traits that might hinder my gameplay.

Overall, I quite enjoy Rogue Legacy despite what I perceived to be its heightened difficulty curve right out of the gate. I’ve never exactly been skilled at this particular game or some similar titles I’ve played, but Rogue Legacy is a title to which I keep coming back periodically despite my lack of expertise.

I’ve said in various reviews that games like Rogue Legacy instill a Civilization-like “just one more run” mentality within me, and that concept is definitely true in this context. I’ve long since stopped caring how many runs it may take me to actually finish my ultimate quest because I’ve had considerable amounts of fun along the way.

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Rogue Legacy

0.00

8.3

Score

8.3/10

Pros

• Unique Gameplay Mechanics Ensure Different Gameplay
• Gameplay is Often Forgiving Despite Difficulty

Cons

• Potentially Frustrating Difficulty Curve
• Random Generation Can Hinder Gameplay