Now that I had the technical issue sorted out. I can play more game on STEAM and slowly chipping that backlog. So, I play Choose-your-heir em up game: Cellar Door Games’ Rogue Legacy (2013-2018). Credit to TheGameWanderer_ gave me this game 2 years ago.
That’s awesome title screen. Huge castle with evil figure on the top. I also like the huge broad sword on the logo. Look powerful but generic. But again, the game is all about generic fantasy. Hero goes to evil castle to vanquish evil lord. I’m not sure the detail, how I know about this game. Most likely from reading an HG101 article about it. Anyway, I start my legacy now!
My Duties are for my family…
But I am loyal only to myself
That’s what he said as the nameless hero walks. I like this tutorial section that acts as story in the past, judging by the septia tone. It’s also serves as prologue credit.
What’s relatively unique in this game is this switch platform that you need to hit with your downward thrust to make it become platform that you can step on. There’s bit bounce when you successfully hit something with the downward thrust so you can activate that platform safely.
Press X to attack, now? He looks like good king. Why? In previous section, there’s also tutorial button to attack but I use it to kill grey knight that looks evil and he attacked me first. But this time, I have to strike down your highness in the back. Are we the bad guy? But again, he says “But I am loyal only to myself” so it tracks.
Then I move on to other character. Judging by the normal color filter, we’re move on to present time. Right in first room, there’s conveniently placed prince’s journal. The first page says “Treason! An assassin has wounded my father, the king”. So, the bastard that I played on tutorial is bad guy. This won’t happen if there are more guard than just that one grey knight. Anyway, according to this journal. We’re on cursed castle that house and item that cure any ailment. The prince is tasked to retrieve because the king order all of his children to do so. I assume the king possibly bedridden because of the grave wound, needs the miracle healing item to cure the injury. Can’t he afford the best medical treatment in the kingdom? He’s king afterall!
Ok, buddy. That’s not how spear works. Spear doesn’t generate slash wave. Only sword in anime, does that.
I found chicken drumstick but it only heals 10 HP. So little. At a glance, you should notice that this game is parody of Castlevania. Chicken drumstick out of candles, living armor, and that skeleton that lobs bone. And the hero’s magic is just straight-out throwing knife from Castlevania’s sub-weapon! Instead using heart that kind of nonsense, it uses MP cost. Funny thing is: the tutorial doesn’t explain about this magic for some reason. It’s pretty useful on combat. Pressing “B” button will use the magic/sub-weapon.
Since, the game uses control configuration of XBOX controller. I have little bit of hard time to get used to it because I often use Playstation controller configuration. The game did warn me that the button symbol will not match with controller that I plug in, even though the controller works fine. Luckily, there’s light on my controller which illuminates XBOX controller’s symbols besides the usual Playstation controller’s symbol albeit, they’re significantly smaller. So, “B” button is circle button. “X” button (for sword slash) is square button. “A” button (for jump) is cross button. That’s just my personal technical issue.
Then I meet this elf. She isn’t hostile but offer me to gamble with my money. With fee of 25% of my current gold, I can pick one of 3 chests. The correct chest contains triple the fee amount which is 75% of my current gold but other 2 chests contain nothing. I like to earn gold honest way by killing evil denizens instead of gambling so no thanks.
Then I encounter zombie which is easily ignorable enemy because how weak and stupid he is and guardbox which is automatic cannon. The latter is significantly more dangerous than the former.
The unique enemy in this game is monster that disguises as painting. The fake painting will rattle a bit so you can tell whether a painting is real or monster. But I just slash any painting that I see.
I found another teleporter. Paired it with the one on entrance. I can go back to entrance…but what for? The entrance gate is locked, I can’t get out. There’s no healing source or shop in entrance area. So, what’s the point? On the bright side, I got chicken drumstick and MP potion from breaking these statues.
I arrive at the dungeon. I don’t think I’m not supposed to be here because I encounter skeleton level 55! Actually, the skeleton is not much of problem because he does what other stupid skeletons do: hop a bit and then throw slow bone. The real problem comes from the eyeball below that spraying me with blood within a box that I can’t go through. Anyway, I will chop you to pieces! To hell with you Mr. Bones from that Sega Saturn game!
I keep pushing my luck here. Theoretically, I’m fine as long as I can dodge their overleveled attack. The ninpo throw fast shuriken at me while the mage will conjure big stalagmite at the designated area.
Enemies sometime drop gold coin but the most reliable source of gold is definitely treasure chest! Heavy_mvm_collect_credits01.wav
Then our hero killed by wall turret on ceiling, makes me wish I can install arrow trap on ceiling in Kagero – Deception 2.
Here’s the main gimmick/feature of the game. Once your hero died, they will get replaced with their child with random traits. This gameplay aspect that lives up game’s title. The main element of the heirs are class and magic spell they have. Then the minor element is trait that range from useful, detrimental, or novelty. Some of the traits are: immune to knockback effect, increased knockback effect on attack, take extra knockback effect, large body size, small body size, far-sighted, or near-sighted. You have 3 heir choices and you can switch between them with up and down direction.
From the gold loot Sir Lee got, we can expand our manor which basically similar to technology tree. You can or rather you must unlock the 3 main NPC: smithy, architect, and enchantress. I will talk about what they can do later. Besides unlocking NPCs, you spent the coin to upgrade stats such as maximum health, sword attack power, and maximum mana. I prefer increasing attack power because I feel like increasing maximum health is not beneficial due to how scarce the healing item. The same problem that I got in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic where maximum health upgrade felt not significant benefit. I also upgrade knight into paladin who has ability to block with their shield.
Smithy is for making equipment. There are 5 pieces of equipment: sword, helmet, chest plate, limbs (or gauntlet and greave, to be more precise). And cape. The equipment’s price depends on the grade. Smithy will have more equipment to make if you can bring him equipment blueprint.
Enchantress is for enhancement on each equipment piece. She has enhancement for dash and double jump already! The latter clearly is a must-have in any platformer game. Enhancement’s price is the same on any kind. However, for every enhancement you bought, the price is getting more expensive. So, choose wisely! It’s inadvisable to buy enhancement that you think bad or you don’t like. Enchantress will have more enhancement if you can bring her runestone.
Lastly, the architect. He’s not that useful in my opinion. The nature of this evil castle is: it changes its layout for every run. However, you can tell architect to lock the layout from your previous run. But your gold income become 60% for the current run. Obviously, I want as many gold as I can get so I don’t like the architect that much.
But the biggest bastard among the NPC is probably Charon here. He will take any remaining gold you have as toll to enter the castle. Naturally, you want to maximize your expense around here before you enter the castle. It’s better than waste any gold that you can still spend for something useful to not-Grim Reaper here.
If you are lucky, you encounter a room with fairy chest. It won’t open until you finish the challenge. It’s ranged from something simple like kill all enemies, take no damage or no fighting at all until you’re near to the chest. One of the absurd challenges is: you must traverse through series platform above spike pit…without jumping! Clearly, you need dash for the challenge.
My reward for this challenge is: runestone for double jump on bracer equipment! I can gain access to triple jump right now! With price of course.
Sir Schroo here has scythe as his magic spell. The scythes fly diagonally. One flies in lower angle and the other flies in higher angle. Hang on a moment! Doesn’t this scythe magic work very similarly to bow weapon in Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts?
I got lost into the tower area dubbed as The Maya. Whatever that means. Then Sir Schroo instantly killed by bigger stronger guard box. Next hero, please!
I like that I can see enemy’s stats besides mine in pause menu. Heck! I can even see whether a painting is real or disguised monster with the pause menu. If you want to see more detailed information on your hero, press “X” button. If you want to see settings or exit the game, press “Y” button.
I got careless and killed by flamelock, the floating mage that shoot lots of fireball. It’s wordplay for Flame and Warlock, you see? Since Lady Evelynn has “Coprolalia” trait, she has sailor mouth. She swears with symbol and sometime with >:( emote whenever get hit. Her last words also swearing instead of usual tips, which is understandable. In my opinion Coprolalia trait is not that detrimental. Amusing even.
Next hero is Lady Evelyn II, direct child of late Lady Evelyn. Unlike her mother, she doesn’t have sailor mouth. She has ADHD instead, which increase her movement speed by 30%. You can test your movement and strength in this ground. There’s talking training dummy to test how big is your attack power. In this ground, casting spell doesn’t reduce your mana. You need to look out for exclamation mark on smithy or enchantress. It means they have new thing on their store because you bring back equipment blueprint and runestone previously.
Ouch! I hate these spike floors. I can’t stand still for too long on this kind of floor. I wish spike floor in Deception games as intuitive as in this game.
I arrive at the room where door to boss room placed. Should I go there? I don’t think I’m strong enough for the boss. In this room that connected to boss room, there are always 2 chests and 2 statues each contains a chicken drumstick and mana potion respectively. I just realize that chest with metal rim on it is rare chest and chest that entirely made with wood is common chest. Needless to say, that common chest has smaller reward than the rare chest.
Then Lady Evelyn II got stabbed by corrupt vanguard. I thought he was like corrupt knight that can only make slash projectile with spear but stronger. Quite often, enemy with higher level has something to catch you off guard compared to their lower-level counterpart. Bigger moveset. More number of projectiles fired. Or Bigger projectile.
Next hero to die is
Lady Bryne. Her class is knave which has reduced HP, MP, and strength. However,
the class has increased critical chance by 15% and critical damage bonus by
125%. Note that, by default all hero class except knave has 0% critical chance.
So, knave may not seem so bad. However, I don’t like that I have to rely on
critical attack chance when the game is already constructed with myriads of
randomness.
So, I meet with the miserable elf and I lose the gamble. Note to self: gamble is bad. Including Gacha, though I still play Azur Lane to this day.
Next hero later…
Here’s what I talked before about challenge that don’t allow you to jump, to pass this spike pits. I don’t have dash enhancement yet so I move to next room. Some fairy chest challenge will be canceled if you move on to other room though some are not.
What’s this unusual painting of pixel art. So suspicious. I’m going to hit it.
I knew it, you painting monster! This one can fire ghost fireball and he’s significantly bigger than the other. Some enemies can get knockback when you hit them so you can have some safe space thus does positive damage trade when you use sword slash. However, some enemies are immune to knockback like painting monsters. You can’t interrupt their flight path so be careful. Though quite tedious, I manage to defeat this foul beast and receive blueprint of blood chest plate from special chest that appears once the big git vanquished.
Next hero later (again)…
I have enough gold to upgrade mage to archmage so I do. Upgrading class is quite essential to the game, allow the hero to have active class ability by pressing “Y” button (which is triangle button in Playstation controller layout). For example: Paladin can block. The block itself doesn’t cost MP, only when you successfully block a projectile that costs you 25 MP. Archmage can cycle their magic spell and they can have 3 magic spells. Assassin (formerly knave) can turn partial invisible to avoid confrontation but drains MP over time upon use.
This is super odd. 1 block away from transition room is room with boss door. I haven’t defeated the first boss and my health is super low. I’m not stupid enough to push my luck now.
Next hero later (once again)…
So funny. How am I supposed to defeat all enemies when they’re located behind wall like this? I pass. Anyway, check out my blood (red) sword! It looks quite menacing. It grants me heal everytime I kill enemy but reduce my maximum HP by 30.
Demoman_sf13_influx_small04.wav. I found a room that contains magic spell. You can only replace your current spell one time here. It’s quite useful because my current spell is: blade wall which conjure a giant sword in front of me which is not so useful.
I have feeling that the game implements bullet hell as I slowly walk between these fireballs that fired from wall turrets.
Now I’m really convinced that this game implements bullet hell. I mean look at this danmaku! I think Blasphemous also has bullet hell but I have dodge slide. Whereas in this game there’s none of that. I don’t think I can dodge bullets with the dash. Looking at the minimap on top-right corner, I see question mark icon on room that I currently in. The icon marks special room like the one that house a magic spell, the gambling elf, or the painting miniboss. So, in this occasion I’m faced with 2 flying mage minibosses and they don’t pull punch. I mean magic whatever. Luckily, I can hide between these 3 alcoves to dodge their ice and fire projectiles. However, they can also conjure stalagmite at designated location so I have to keep moving around. By the way, if you feel like to have rematch with sub-bosses or boss or rechallenge the fairy chest, you can use the architect’s service. Just ignore the gold income cut and finish the unfinished challenge!
I couldn’t defeat them. I ran away with just a sliver of my health and later killed by spitting plant. What’s this? In option setting I can set directional down alone for dropping down platform and downthrust so I don’t need to press jump or attack too? Finally, a useful tip!
A couple of dead heroes later…
What in tarnation is this?
There’s hero named Chun Li? I don’t care about her trait is clumsy. I have to
take her on next question and later dies miserably too.
The parody joke doesn’t stop there. I upgrade barbarian class to be able to unleash shout which is clearly parody of Elder Scroll V: Skyrim. You know the “Fus Ro Dah!”. Jumbling some letters doesn’t fool me there, game.
Pressing the “select” button or whatever button that equivalent for XBOX controller, will bring full map. This rectangle map really reminiscence of non-classic Castlevania or people call it Metroidvania. I don’t think Konami can sue anyone with this map design because it looks generic so it’s might as well as in public domain.
Sorry, fans of Chun Li. I made her killed by evil eyeball. But to be fair the eyeball enemy is the worst type of enemy and I hate it. Yes, it’s one of fragile enemy with not big health but its blood tear projectiles can pass through terrain, catching me off guard. Unlike beholder in many Castlevania game which is very easy enemy to defeat. Hang on a moment. Blood tear? It refers to Castlevania OST “Bloody Tears”!
Demoman_sf13_influx_small04.wav. Now, the technology tree allows me to haggle the Charon’s toll so I don’t need to pay him with all the remaining gold. But I don’t think this upgrade is that useful if you just spent the gold you got to the fullest potential. Though, purchase this upgrade will unlock upgrade class for shinobi to become…Hokage? FRICKIN’ HOKAGE!
This challenge is actually simple and easy. I have to kill that skeleton with axe spell but the problem is I don’t have enough MP to kill him with the axe because I spam the barbarian shout to learn what’s this for. You just wait there, Mr. Skeleton! I’ll be back with enough MP to kill you.
But I decide to challenge the first boss instead which is on the next room. Everyone. Meet Khidr, the gatekeeper. Isn’t Khidr name of a prophet? Anyway, as you can see that the eyeball boss fills the screen with blood tears. Another example of bullet hell/danmaku in this game. However, I can defeat him quite easily. Without taking any damage, even! On my test run, I try fought him with sir Lee, the very first hero but failed. This time it goes very easily. Perhaps the key to defeat this first boss is to have both dash and double jump enhancement. You can’t be turtling on the corners because there’s spike floor on them. So, keep moving and slashing!
The boss drops a chest besides gold coins and diamonds. It contains permanent upgrade to my MP and HP! Heavy_mvm_get_upgrade03.wav
Oh, I see now. A symbol is lit on the great door on the entrance. So, I need to kill 3 more bosses and that door to demon lord will open.
Later on, an evil wolf killed Lady Dee. It can’t be helped. Either the wolf too fast or Lady Dee is too weak. Anyway, I like the body count now contains the first boss with accusatory look, staring directly at your soul.
Spy_autocappedcontrolpoint02.wav. Our manor grows big. This upgrade is interesting ones. It increases damage of downthrust attack for every consecutive hit. I think by default the downthrust attack has 50% power of normal slash so this upgrade may seem useful. However, I find it hard to land the downthrust because it comes out slow and the duration is short. Though the size of the sword definitely helps to land it.
I found this unique enhancement called grace rune. It lowers enemy’s level making them easier to defeat. There’s also the opposite of it called curse rune. It makes enemy’s level higher but claimed they will drop bigger reward. It begs question: what reward though? Bigger experience point? Defeated enemies don’t give me experience point because there’s none. Hero levels up with upgrade on manor with gold cost. I assume higher level enemies drop coins more in quantity and chance. That’s barely worth it. If you want more gold, put the gold gain up enhancement. It increases gold gained by 10%. It may seem trivial since a gold coin gives you 10 gold and with the enhancement you will get 11 gold. However, when you pick a money bag that worth 100 gold, you will gain 110 gold. That’s quite significant benefit, in my opinion.
I found another special room. This time, it contains the continuation of prince’s journal. Not so beneficial unless you’re curious about the lore. So, the reason why the prince takes on the quest is not for his love for his father the king. He wants his family and himself treated back to royal family when succeed on the quest. For some unknown reason, this eldest prince and his family are exiled from royal family and forced to move out of the capital city.
Eventually, Ian Fleming the hokage has fallen. :(
Haha! Marie Antoinette the queen of France is here. Her magic spell is axe, which kind of irony. Isn’t axe pretty close to guillotine in similarity? Anyway, axe is very dang similar to axe sub weapon in Castlevania.
Next (dead) hero later…
Eventually, I challenge the second boss: Alexander, the forgotten. Isn’t he reference to Alexander the great, the king of Macedonia? Anyway, he’s pretty easy to defeat thanks to how big the boss room is. Like his lesser counterpart called wrath, rage, or something, he can only shoot ghost fireball in 4 main directions, leaving me safe in his diagonal area. Sure, he spawns rage ghosts once in a while. However, that’s where vampirism property come to play. If I remember correctly, I have 2 pieces of equipment that gives me vampirism property: cape and sword. That means I heal 4 HP for every minion killed, which quite helpful in this boss fight. Don’t tell him my secret here, ok? Let him spawn more minion for me to heal. For defeating Alexander, I get permanent MP, HP, and magic damage upgrade. Sniper_mvm_loot_rare08.wav.
Sir Gray managed to defeat the second boss however he’s killed by lesser enemies. I think that’s the thing. Boss level is fairer and easier than the level itself what’s with tricky enemy and trap placement. I’m quite baffled with this conclusion. But I think it’s meant to be that way because there’s no in-battle healing like estus flask, healing potion, or whatnot. Without in-battle healing, the boss battle becomes frustratingly difficult like in YS 1. The only in-battle healing mean is the vampirism which is heal on killing. It only works against lesser enemies and not for boss battle.
Behold! The descendant of Chun Li: Chun Li the 2nd. Without doubt, I pick her immediately. Funny coincidence that both first and second Chun Li are barbarian queen. Another characteristic of barbarian class besides the not Fus Ro Dah shout is: they have higher max HP but lower MP and Strength. But why low strength? That’s not supposed to be barbarian’s characteristic. If anything, they should have low intelligence (magic power) instead. Maybe that’s how it is in early version and later developer change it for the sake of making the game more challenging. Don’t quote me on that one.
I have developed right wing of our manor. There’s upgrade to increase restorative effect of chicken drumstick and MP potion. Each level increases the effect by 1% and the maximum level is 5. So, the maximum extra restorative effect is 5%. So, the upgrade is barely worth it unless take 1 level to unlock other upgrades. What baffles me the most is chicken drumstick effect is relative to maximum HP. By default, it only replenishes health by 10% maximum HP! That’s barely adequate. The analogy of how minuscule the effect of healing item is mosquito in Battletoad arcade game. Some people say that healing is so small that it’s almost like insult more than anything else. But in this game, I need heal very badly because there’s no continue here. I mean there’s continue but as next hero which reset map progress. You can kind of save the progress if you use architect’s service but your income will be cut to 60% which I don’t like. Sorry to digress. My point is: chicken drumstick should restore health by constant number -for example- 30 HP or around that number and not just by 10% max health. Thus, the healing upgrade become more useful and interesting.
Several generations later…
What’s this? There’s clown NPC and he offers me to test my weapon skill for gold reward. So far, there’s 2 types of minigame: First, using 10 knives to destroy 8 moving targets with various range and move speed. Second, using 5 axe to destroy bunch of floating targets. If you fail, he mocks you. Damn Jester. When I first met him, there’s special music plays and I instinctively thinks “Isn’t this music from Pooyan?” and the clown’s name Booyan confirms it. Very young me like to play Pooyan on NES so no way I can’t identify the music here.
I played for 4 hours (within 2 days) and I have defeated 2 out of 4 bosses + final boss. I think we can end this here.
Ok, I lied. I was absorbed into the game for days until I finished the game and unlocked new game+. On new game+, enemy’s level become significantly higher and turn into their highest tier counterpart. However, the gold income is doubled and you get the chance to obtain blueprint of higher tier equipment so it’s worth it! If you are eager with the ending and don’t mind about spoiler, you can scroll further below the summary. Anyway, let’s go to summary first.
Cellar Door Games’ Rogue Legacy (2013-2018) is amazing platformer roguelite game. But let’s talk about the bad things on the game first. The biggest problem of this game to me is: how bad the healing mean in this game. As I have mentioned before that the chicken drumstick has rather poor healing effect which only heal for 10% max HP. Not to mention, finding this meat is so hard. Very low chance to obtain it from destroyed decorations or enemies. Either increase the chance or increase the healing effect. Thus, I’m forced to rely on Vampirism ability. If you are very damn lucky, you may find a fountain that restore HP and MP by 30% maximum HP and MP. But still, that’s not enough. I wish the fountain is on entrance so you can refill your HP and MP when you’re really low on them. First time is free. Second time and so forth, it costs 2,000 gold or something. I don’t mind spending gold to heal as long as I can keep my map progress. Or maybe how about portable healing potions? Kind of like estus flask in Dark Soul. Of course, the upgrade for this potion should be expensive. There’s a new idea on the technology tree’s branch. Probably something like, the amount of potion you can carry and the healing effect. This potion’s effect can be relative to maximum HP or MP. Curse of The Dead Gods works quite well with more generous healing source, why not work for this game? The second biggest problem of this game is how unreliable the downthrust attack. The duration should be doubled so I can trigger the switch platform more reliably or pogo jump on enemy’s head better. I encounter some bug/glitch. The most often I met is I immediately drop down to room below because the teleporter is on droppable platform. Then there’s one time that I use teleporter and I’m stuck on ceiling until I restart the game which respawn me at the entrance. Speaking of teleporter, quite often I have hard time select the one that I want to get into. The teleporter select on the map is not as smooth as any Castlevania game. I also don’t like the small reward for killing lesser enemies except for a chance for gold coin/chicken drumstick/MP potion and security because they will permanently die for that run if you kill them. They should drop something else like temporary invincibility or boost stats for a certain period. Not permanent upgrade stats like in Dragon Valor though because that will make the game too easy. There’s permanent stats upgrade item from sub-boss chest though. The thing that they should add is bonus gold when the kill count fills an entire line. Making the kill count not only for decoration alone.
As for the good things: there are a lot. I really love this game. I like the joke and parody elements on it. Personally, I prefer the combat gameplay in Curse of The Dead Gods but there’s nothing wrong with the simplistic gameplay in this game. The sword attack has useful 90o arc on it like in Ghosts ‘n Goblins although with unnecessary long duration which makes me lock on one direction for seconds which mess up my aim sometime but I still can move around freely while in sword slashing animation. I don’t think there’s hard dead end on the gameplay as long as you don’t give Charon all of your gold before spending anything that you can first. I feel like sword attack upgrade is the most important to level up. It’s simple yet essential upgrade. I prioritize it. Thus, if I pick spellcaster hero, they will have limited potential because they don’t rely on sword attack. But sometime they have to conserve their MP for tougher battle and MP potion doesn’t come out frequently thus they have to use their sword. So, in the end sword attack upgrade is needed for everyone and you can’t never go wrong with it. Besides, to increase spellcaster’s potential, I need to upgrade more things: increase MP capacity, Increase Magic power, and Decrease MP cost for spell. That means if I want to focus on magic potential, I have to spend the gold in divergence way as the opposite on focus on sword attack upgrade alone for physical attack power. Critical chance and critical bonus damage upgrade are easily ignorable. Health and armor (defense power) upgrade also important but I suggest the latter though the former is unlocked in very early technology tree development. The reason is: armor (defense power) is stats that doesn’t get negative (but also positive) modifier on every class. I think the stats that often get modifier are HP, MP, and Strength. Intelligence (magic power) only get positive modifier from archmage and lich king/queen class. On to equipment pieces, generally: sword increases sword attack power, helmet increases maximum HP and MP, chest plate increases armor (defense power), lastly gauntlet and greave increase magic power. As for cape, it’s close to accessory. It doesn’t add any stats in general. It adds unique property depends on the type. For example: squire cape increases critical chance by 6%, guardian cape increases armor (like other equipment piece with name “guardian”), or sky cape increase extra jump by 2. Then there’s trait on heirs. Some are funny and some other are bad. The worst trait is Alzheimer which makes your hero can’t see or remember map though you can still read the minimap. Or trait that claim the hero feels no pain. Sounds badblood and great but it’s curse in disguise. The trait makes you can’t see Hero’s HP which is super stupid. I feel like the traits on heir are pretty balanced. Maybe there’s one time that all of 3 heirs are pretty bad. There’s heir reroll on technology tree but it’s very late to have and it only for once for a generation. Although not affect the gameplay, I like the randomized name of the heirs. There’s Lady Sonia which I believe is Sonia Belmont, the mother of all Belmont though Konami removes her in timeline canon. Such a shame. The name of Lady Chun Li, makes me wish there’s Sir Zangief or Sir Haggar name. There’s the very rare spiritual shrine which can grant you artefact such as: Hyperion ring that grants you auto resurrection once or Charon’s obol that negate the Charon’s toll for once.
As for the classes, they’re well varied. Some I favor over the other. One day, I have to make tierlist of them for further information. For now, I can say this: My personal favorites are both Hokage and Spellsword. The former has high strength but has 0% critical chance which is ignorable flaw. I think Barbarian should be the one with 0% critical chance. Hokage should like has bit reduced strength but double attack speed. Come to think of it, there’s no attack speed modifier. Hokage’s class ability is kawarimi no jutsu. You know. The ninja’s move where they are replaced with log to avoid danger. As for spellsword, they have ability to restore MP with sword attack and class ability is empowered spell which I stronger version of magic spell but with double MP cost. The game says that spellsword is for expert which I don’t agree. I feel like spellsword is easy to play as because they have consistent way to replenish MP making them more reliable spellcaster than archmage.
The game simply consists of 4 levels: castle, forest, tower, and dungeon. Each with boss that you need to defeat to unlock the final boss gate. You probably wonder which level that I need to tackle first. Unlike Blasphemous with vague guide on the levels, Rogue Legacy has solid guide on that. If you look at the overall map on entrance between the final boss gate and prince’s first journal, you can see there’s number of blocks besides the name of the level. Those blocks represent number level. If you don’t want to scroll way up there, don’t worry! I will summarize it for you. So, the castle is basically first level and also the center hub of the levels. The forest is second level which generally located on far-right castle level. The tower is third level which generally located above castle level. The dungeon is fourth/final level which generally located below castle level. The presentation is remarkable. The sound effect is pretty good. The music is superb. My personal favorite is the one in castle with title: trilobite.
The music perfectly captured the dreaded feeling of entering evil castle but also feels energetic thus encouraging you to move forward dauntlessly. I find it unusual with the water creature as the OST name like aforementioned trilobite, pistol shrimp, lamprey and narwhal. Strangely the music for the dungeon is not scary as it should be. It’s pixelated soothing music. It’s more like music in cavern area on Terraria. The title of the OST is: Broadside of the broadsword. I like to point out the thumbnail for the OST video is Sir Lee passionately play the piano which is very something to me because I don’t usually focus on thumbnail picture.
I finished Rogue Legacy (2013-2018) so needless to say I love it and deserves AA-grade recommendation even with flaw here and there. The gameplay feels cruel but on the other side feels forgiving with the bosses that you can learn their pattern or whatnot pretty easily. Maybe the flaws or bad things that I mentioned are fixed in the sequel. I look forward to the second game, then! By the way, I really like the hero’s walking animation.
Sir Lee and his descendants look jovial yet determined to charge forward with sword at hand. Compared to Arthur from Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, he’s more like clueless dolt but more serious looking. I can make comparison with Arthur in Ghosts ‘n Goblin Resurrection with how close the released date between that game and Rogue Legacy. But that be unfair because GnG Resurrection use RE engine and not pixel. Just imagine that Arthur on screenshot looks 2.5D-ish and angry. Anyway, the game is charming and fun. If you haven’t played it go play it now! Though keep in mind that, you have to be really patience to play the game and make progress.
So, about the conclusion of the game…
…you sure? You want to proceed and not afraid of important spoiler ahead? Fine…
Tower’s boss is Ponce De Leon whose name based on a Spanish explorer and conquistador. This living fireball is a huge bastard. He keeps making track of fireball along the way. On top of that bouncing morning star assist him on the boss fight. I suggest pick Barbarian King/Queen and use the shout to remove the fireballs when necessary.
Dungeon’s boss is far from scary. It’s just boss version of slime which has ability to spawn lesser of itself along with flying mage that conjure stalagmite whenever its HP reaches 0. There are like 4 phases of splitting in total, I think. Meaning you have to defeat 31 slimes and 15 flying mages in total. I do believe the mages are added on later version to make the boss fight more challenging. Once again, vampirism works wonderfully here. By the way, Herodotus is the name of Greek historian and geographer. So, I defeat all of 4 bosses and unlock the final boss gate. As I enter the gate…
Isn’t this tutorial section? I very remember this part that introduces me with the unique switch platform.
Surprise. Surprise! The final boss is the knight on tutorial section, the king murderer. This is predictable to me. What I can’t predict is the king murderer turns out to be the prince that left the journals around the castle part! You would think anyone who left diary, memo, or journal in video game is already dead in the event of the game because that’s how the tradition is. There are lots of example of dead people left note in video game: Resident Evil, Bioshock 2, Elder Scroll V – Skyrim, so on and so forth. As for assassination on entry #1 in the journal, that happens way before the tutorial takes place. The king faked the assassination so the prince become motivated to search the evil castle. Another plot twist is: Johannes here is Lee’s father which mean he’s our great great great great great grandfather. I mean you can predict that because he shares our funny heroic walking animation. The last plot twist is there’s no demon lord in the castle despite the symbol on the gate. Johannes also thought that there will be demon lord that stands between him and the miracle heal item. Turns out there’s none. The miracle heal item that turns out to be fountain of youth left unguarded, except for that single grey knight. What also surprise Johannes the prince, is: he found the king is well and he’s about to drink from the fountain of youth. He fears that if the king gains the effect of eternal youth and become immortal, he will never inherit the kingdom as king. So, he instinctively strikes down the king on the spot.
Johannes accuses us to take revenge for king’s death but what I have in mind is: conquer the evil castle and defeat the demon lord like idealistic hero I am. Negative intrusive mind gets the best of him. I can only assume that he becomes demon lord himself after drinking from the fountain of youth and driven by the negative feeling and emotion. No wonder Charon guards the front gate because the ultimate reward in this castle is eternal life.
Anyway, we fight. His moveset is altered version of the hero’s. He can summon blade wall while back dash. Jumping while throwing many axes. Or throw a barrage of knife. Don’t forget that he can also do the same sword slash as your hero, so you can’t simply hack him without expecting him does the same thing to you.
Of course, Johannes has second phase. Luckily, he dropped 4 chicken drumsticks and 3 MP potions when you defeat him in first phase. I spare you the detail of the 2nd phase of final boss. You have to search it or play the game yourself. All I can say is: he becomes larger and he put up a tougher battle but not felt unfair. Once I defeat him, he’s dead so the promise of immortal life is quite lie. He did live for 10,000 years but that doesn’t mean he can’t die. There’s the silly touch of irony as he died and put into game over screen like our heroes, completed with kill count of only the king himself.
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