Rogue Legacy 2 review – more of the brilliant same in this impressive sequel

The observant among you may have deduced that Rogue Legacy 2 is the sequel to Rogue Legacy, a rather spiffing roguelite platform-me-do from 2013. The game’s big twist on the old procedural generation and permadeath combo was that each new character was the heir of the previous one, inheriting their predecessor’s estate. In practice, that meant spending the gold acquired on each run on permanent upgrades to improve your chances on further expeditions. With all but the most unsuccessful runs yielding enough gold for at least one upgrade, the frustration of failure is ameliorated, leaving you raring to go once more.

Rogue Legacy 2 reviewPublisher: Cellar Door GamesDeveloper: Cellar Door GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 28th April on PC and Xbox

To aid you in your exploration, you enlist the Architect, a clever old codger who can fix the layout of the castle between runs, leaving you able to build on successful exploration instead of dealing with a completely rearranged map. You pay for this privilege with a hefty chunk of gold, but it’s still a handy tool, especially when you’re close to taking out a boss and don’t want to have to find the bugger again each time.

Rogue Legacy 2 takes the traditional sequel route and gives you more of what made the first game great. There are 15 classes, up from nine, which have even more variety than before. Same goes with traits, spells and equipment. More excitingly, it adds hefty metroidvania-style traversal upgrades. There’s nothing especially new or unusual here, I’m sure I’m not spoiling anyone’s fun by mentioning that a double jump is involved at some point, but the extra manoeuvrability makes for some fantastic aerial acrobatics. The aforementioned double jump can be combined with dashes, the ability to spin kick off of enemies and projectiles, and all kinds of other tricks that allow you to fly through the levels. Quite literally, in some cases.

All this bouncin’ and pouncin’ synergises with many of the class abilities and artefacts you can discover. The bard, for example, gains a stacking damage buff every time they spin kick off an object, which resets when they touch the floor. Combine that with, say, an artefact that replaces the regular spin kick with a much more damaging alternative and the clownanthropy trait, which takes a chunk of your health in exchange for the ability to spin kick from most surfaces, and you have a springy whirlwind of destruction.