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The Wobbler wrote:
I had a good time in Rogue Legacy trying to finish the game with the fewest character incarnations possible, and if I failed once, no big deal. Sure, you can easily just grind up for hours and make the game much easier, but the same's true of anything with experience points. The argument about this cutting down on the tension is valid, but I personally don't feel any real tension in the rogue-likes I've played either way, for whatever reason. I either don't get into their atmosphere or world designs (I liked the game play of Binding of Isaac and detest everything else) or just don't like the way the game feels (I strongly, strongly dislike the physics in Spelunky.) Rogue Legacy controls so nicely that I'm able to overlook some of its issues, and honestly it didn't really need to have rogue-like elements at all and I'd still like it. Maybe I'd like it even more.
The best way I can describe it is that Rogue Legacy reminds me of games that reduce their difficulty each time you fail at something, which comes off as patronizing. Obviously you could get around it easily by deliberately not spending your gold, but it's also difficult to tell what the "intended" difficulty is. If you die in most RPGs they don't give you more experience, grinding is a very different action you have to do deliberately. Rogue Legacy blurs that line with the mechanic in a way that I was really uncomfortable with. I agree that it's a really well made sidescroller though, I'd have probably loved it if the meta mechanics didn't get in my head.
Also that's a good point against the high score metaphor (in fact the randomness is a big part of why I'd never want to play these things 'seriously'- when you understand how much luck is at play exactly it becomes less novelty and more frustration). I guess it's less the high score for me and more the novelty of seeing what random events transpire and new things, combined with the sense of danger (which is probably the real reason I go back to these things).
