Rogue Legacy 2 doesn’t make the biggest initial splash. In fact, at first glance, you’ll find it hard to tell what’s changed from 2013’s Rogue Legacy to the Cellar Door Games sequel. Despite switching from 2D sprites to a 3D rendered world, it closely resembles the previous game’s aesthetic. While this lack of departure from the original’s template proves to be a theme in Rogue Legacy 2, there are many changes that result in a bigger, better version of the original in almost every way.
It may all be rendered in 3D this time, but Rogue Legacy 2 retains its 2D platforming roots. Heir to a long and somewhat tragic bloodline, you run, jump, and attack with the weapon appropriate to that character’s class. To add more tools to the combat repertoire, each heir has a special class ability and a random spell tied to separate face buttons. There’s also a nifty spin kick used to bounce off enemies or dangerous objects, which is crucial to master in order to make it deep into the sticky dungeons. The controls are tight and precise – jumping and attacking are curseless affairs. The game is easy to learn and get used to, and more importantly, easy to pick up again after some time.
At the start of a run, you choose an heir to your bloodline with certain hereditary traits that make that character’s generation their own, for better or for worse. I love all the different variations of warriors that produce these traits and that you are rewarded for choosing someone with “bad” genetics. It adds a lot of depth to the rogue-lite concept. A fighter might have the traits of a giant, towering over his fellows. Another may be color blind and shift the presentation to grayscale. Someone with unfortunate vertigo turns the world upside down for this run. Any traits that make the game more difficult result in a significant modifier that allows more gold to be accumulated during this life. These modifiers provide more than enough wealth to offset the extra effort.
With this gold you can build the bloodline castle and the port city below. Skills can be purchased after each run, giving each character you play as permanent stat boosts; Strength, Intelligence, Health and more can be increased along with unlocking more classes to play with. In town, you can craft new gear – which also offers stat bonuses and more with a full suit of armor – before forfeiting the rest of your money and embarking on a new adventure. I’m glad the permanent upgrades are back, but I’m having some issues with the system overall. As more ranks of an upgrade are purchased, the price of the next level increases for the same flat stat increase, resulting in diminishing returns from character enhancements as the cost of upgrades skyrockets. There are also far too many repeating upgrade nodes with the same stat boosts as others, giving you an even greater amount of gold back. Towards the end of the game, the castle building menu is littered with redundant slots and ends up being a far messier system than it needs to be.
However, class identities are simpler and have been greatly expanded by Rogue Legacy. This time, each heir’s class determines what type of weapon they use and what additional ability they have at their disposal. Knights are equipped with a large sword and can deflect attacks with a shield, while mages can hurl fireballs from their wand at a distance and use two spells instead of one. Rangers can aim and fire a bow and create leafy canopy platforms to shoot from the air. The pirate can fly around in an airship and fire cannonballs at enemies in his sight. I adore each class identity, although I found about half of the selection barely usable for my playstyle. I’m leaning toward a select few like the katana-wielding Ronin and the Boxer, who builds up nimble combos and misses the target with a devastating Haymaker. Classes like the Bard, who creates musical notes that you detonate with a spin kick, or the Gunslinger, who fires a salvo of shots from his pistols, require a bit too much finesse for my liking.
Like Rogue’s visual style, Cellar Door Games decided that the gameplay looping wouldn’t lead anywhere, which is great because I didn’t want it any other way. The Heir platforms through ever-changing, increasingly challenging areas to destroy six estuaries, with big bosses guarding each biome. During these fights you will often die, upgrade your castle and equipment and repeat the process. Each trek into the citadel is a chance to progress, collect gold and treasure, and dig high and low for skill-enhancing relics to improve your chances of survival. The layout of the world changes every time you die, making each life in Rogue Legacy 2 mostly unique until you understand how the world populates.
Each area has a unique aesthetic and feel. You start in the stone structure of the Citadel Agartha and move into the surrounding areas, like the linear and water-saturated axis Mundi to the east and the cold tundra of the Kerguelen Plateau at the other end of it. There’s a tall tower to climb into the stormy skies offering fun and challenging platforms to reach the estuary at the top, and beneath the citadel lies a deadly and dangerous area that I hated going into but I love the difficulty it offers near the end of the game. Exploring each area will reward you with armor blueprints that you can craft around town and key mobility powers that unlock access to subsequent biomes. These include different types of dashs, double jumps, and abilities that interact with mysterious objects in the world that will block your way forward. I found it incredibly satisfying to have a form of progression driven by exploration rather than just tied to the power gained through keep upgrades. Not to mention these moves make getting around a lot easier and fun, so I was always thrilled to stumble across one. These little nuggets of joy only happen a few times during an entire playthrough, but what keeps an Heir’s life interesting are permanent items for that run that affect attacks, abilities, or stats called Relics.
Like the various weapons that are part of each class, Relics are another addition to the Rogue Legacy formula that the original didn’t have, making every run more enjoyable. Each major area has special rooms that offer a relic. Some are minor changes like increasing attack critical hit chance or granting a max health increase at the cost of some HP, while others distort the way you play.
Items like the Marble Statue, which creates a small shockwave that cancels out the projectile when your feet hit the ground, are a blast to find and plan for. I’m also a fan of the poison and fire effects, which deal damage over time to give each attack a little extra oomph. However, collecting relics has a downside and it will cost you your HP. Relics feed on a stat called Resolve, which is tied to a specific heir’s vitality. If you have enough relics in your possession, your maximum health will decrease relative to the magic item’s dissolving cost. It’s a risk/reward system, which I understand would be too powerful if relics were disabled in any way, but I’ve lamented that the game doesn’t let you go wild with every tweak you find, eh other rogue-lites do.
Even after spending tens of hours combing through Rogue Legacy 2’s dungeons, there’s plenty to do and find aside from defeating the estuaries and the final challenges that come after. Story Rooms contain journal entries with backstories about the estuaries and the territory they rule, which is fascinating, though not essential, to enjoy the game. Your seaport port city also features enemy gauntlets, enhanced boss encounters, and class challenges to test your skills beyond what’s available in the core explorable regions. I know I’ll be going back to uncover more and try to clarify these more difficult scenarios.
Despite my nitpicks, each new discovery discovered, ability gained, and boss defeated wipes away any heartache and replaces it with deep contentment. There’s a lot to clean up with the core progression systems to make the ramp escalate more evenly from start to finish, but I’ve enjoyed most of my hours slogging through countless generations of my goofy little bloodline. I’m overjoyed that the entertaining legacy of this series remains firmly intact.
