Every so often a sequel to a game comes out that makes the first game obsolete. While it doesn’t happen very often, developers sometimes improve upon what made the original title great while making other improvements to create an overall better experience. I’m happy to announce that Rogue Legacy 2 is one of those titles. This is a sequel to Cellar Door Games 2013 hit title Rogue Legacy. My brother and I have spent numerous hours with the original because its addicting roguelike gameplay kept on making us come back for more. Even as the years passed we would still boot it up. So I was excited to get my hands on Rogue Legacy 2 and see what improvements were made to it. The moment I got my hands on it I knew that I had something really special. To put it bluntly it has been the most fun I’ve had with a roguelike in a long time.
Rogue Legacy 2‘s story follows the same path that the original had: your family must discover what lies in this procedurally generated castle. You’ll end up dying a lot. What makes Rogue Legacy 2 so special is that the next character that you play is the next generation of your family. Once you select a new character, they have a certain class and attributes that make them different than your previous character. One of your playthroughs could be done as a knight that uses a short sword and shield while the next one could be as a valkyrie who is color blind. I know color blindness is a pretty weird debuff to give somebody in a game, but many others like it affect your run in the castle. Being color blind myself, it is interesting to see it represented.
Outside of your run in the castle, there is a little hub area where you can upgrade your equipment as well as your stats to help you during your run. Another thing that I appreciated about Rogue Legacy 2 is that I never felt like the game was unfair at any point. Even though I ended up dying a lot, I felt like it was my fault that I died and wasn’t cheated out of the run. This caused me not to get frustrated because I know what I could have done better next time.
How does Rogue Legacy 2 compare to the first Rogue Legacy in terms of style? Both games have their unique style in the sense of Rogue Legacy being more pixel art based and Rogue Legacy 2 having smoother hand-drawn sprites. I think it’s a welcome addition and a lot of the bosses in this game have their unique designs. Unlike some of the other bosses in the first Rogue Legacy where they were just blown up sprites of normal monsters. While I enjoyed this style, they didn’t look the best due to the sprites being blown up. This time around everything is wonderfully handcrafted to avoid any of that.
Rogue Legacy 2 takes everything that was stylized about the first entry and just upgrades it to the point where it’s a real treat on the eyes. I wanted to see what came next and what the new area and monsters looked like. This kept me going as I went through the castle. The only real problem that I have with Rogue Legacy 2 is that I feel like some of the classes are not properly balanced, but you can just not pick those classes so it’s not a big deal.
Overall I don’t have many problems with Rogue Legacy 2. It is a perfect example of a developer learning from their past mistakes with their games and improving on them every conceivable way. I believe this sequel is near perfect and will have players exploring the castle for many hours. If Cellar Door Games keeps up with the quality that is shown in Rogue Legacy 2Â then I look forward to their other titles. If you are a fan of roguelikes or Metroidvania I highly highly recommend Rogue Legacy 2 as it will quickly become a staple of anybody’s collection. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple more runs to complete.
