pedigree

Having heard quite a bit about Rogue Legacy since its release last Thursday, I downloaded the demo yesterday and promptly lost two hours to it. Returning to it again that evening and then once more today, I’ve effectively conquered everything the demo has to offer. The game represents a tight synthesis of elements that have worked well in past platforming and adventure titles. For me it’s a fresh trip through fields of nostalgia, calling to mind:

  • Castlevania: Dealing with tricky enemy/platforming combinations while exploring a sprawling castle environment would be enough to suggest this, but the player’s reliance on melee attacks and a limited number of secondary weapons is what seals it. I’ll grant, though, that this influence is a particularly obvious one; several of Castlevania’s signature items are faithfully recreated in Rogue Legacy.
  • Spelunky: Permadeath around every procedurally-generated corner. Having a good run? Hold onto it as tightly as you can because once it’s lost you’ll never get it back.
  • Mega Man X: The feeling of speed and mobility you can achieve with the right combination of upgrades takes me all the way back to the X series, with its air dashes and wall jumps and such. Additionally, there’s an element of bullet dodging in Rogue Legacy that reminds me of some of X’s trickier boss fights.
  • Dark Souls: Entering in to a hostile world ill-equipped to deal with its numerous threats forces a certain caution, initially, then demands a gradual building of confidence and skill until you can finally topple obstacles that at one point seemed utterly insurmountable.

But despite all these warm fuzzy feelings, I’m conflicted about one thing. Difficulty scaling. Repeated playthroughs progressively increase the player’s baseline strength and capabilities, and by the end of my demo play I was able to reliably clear out all available areas. Surely the full version has harder areas to explore, but what stops these from becoming trivialized at some point, too? Where Spelunky starts you from a zero point each time, tying your success or failure primarily to your skill, a system of progressive and persistent growth means that, with enough time, some threats will become utterly meaningless. As soon as there’s no question of being able to get through an area, doing so becomes a chore rather than an engaging challenge. And that’s where things might fall apart for me.

That being said, Rogue Legacy continues to burn its image into my head. I can’t spare the $15 for it right now, but there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be able to give you a complete assessment at some point down the road. It just scratches too many itches to be ignored. Even if the challenge does run out, would it not be worth it for the time that it lasted?

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