For the past few weeks I’ve put in a lot of time within Rogue Legacy for Xbox One, which releases on May 27th. As many of you reading this may know, Rogue Legacy has been out quite some time on PC and PlayStation. Finally the game is seeing the light of day on Xbox Live, which excited me when the news was announced. I played this game quite a bit on PC, so I was sure to spend more time on the console version.
Now I know you’re here wondering if the game is worth getting on Xbox One, and I’m here to answer that question with my review. To put it plain and simple, Rogue Legacy is a one-of-a-kind game in which you play a knight, but not just any knight–one of several knights who has any number of traits and issues which may help or hinder your progress in the game. What do I mean? Well let’s say your starting character is normal and you die within the randomly generated castle. Your knight will be replaced with an heir, who may be a Knight, an Assassin, a Miner or another class. The other classes of characters are unlocked by purchasing them with the gold you collect. Anyway, your heir to the throne will take over your place, but will have some kind of “problem”. Here are just a few examples of what a future heir could be: the Assassin you selected has OCD, likes to break things, and hates chickens; your Miner is very weak, is colorblind, and flips your screen upside down. While some of these “issues” are fun, others are just crazy in the terms of making the game harder and more interesting.
There is no continuous plot from the beginning to the end of the game, just battling bosses to get to the last one. This is done simply by exploring the four environments of the randomly generated dungeon. Once you complete the game, additional play-throughs will give you more difficult enemies to face, and a different dungeon to explore. Theoretically, the enemies will become infinitely more difficult with an infinite number of play-throughs, giving the game endless replay value.
The controls of the game are fluid and responsive. They are intuitive to the type of game, with the standard left-stick to move, A to jump, right trigger to attack, etc. There is a crash course for the controls at the beginning of the game, then it’s up to you to pick things up. Characters are automatically able to jump and attack with their sword. Secondary skills like new magic actions may be purchased, which add to the controls that have a function (i.e., Y to use a shield).
The graphics of the game look good with the retro style and color scheme. While I know some people may think retro simply means 8-bit and 16-bit, I see retro as keeping with classic style of game play such as 2-D side scrolling and bosses that don’t think twice about kicking your butt in no time at all. As for the audio and music within the game, I can’t really make a huge comment other than that the game audio doesn’t take from the game and the music matches the themes of the many areas you’ll visit. I wish I could say more, but to me it’s more about the combination of how the game, game play, and music work together.
Overall, Rogue Legacy on Xbox One is quite amazing and addicting. If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind Roguelike game for Xbox One this is the game to buy. You can expect me to be playing this more and more since I’ve worked ever so hard to beat all the bosses, get to the highest level and unlock all features within the game. With the potential replay value, it is well worth $14.99. As a bonus, it will be 20% off May 27th to June 1st–a can’t-miss deal! Cellar Door Games definitely has a hit in expanding Rogue Legacy to the Xbox One.
