Rogue Legacy 2: Genetic Boogaloo

[MCBanjoMike]

At long last, Rogue Legacy 2 is out of early access and ready for the embrace of the gaming public. For anyone who missed the first game, it was one of the earliest examples of roguelike-likes: games that took the randomization and permadeath of Rogue-style games and sprinkled in some permanent character progression to ease the difficulty curve. I wasn't the biggest fan of the original game (aside from its S-tier soundtrack), in that it was pretty repetitive and grindy, but I gave the sequel a try and I'm glad I did!

Rogue Legacy 2 is the Mega Man 2 of Rogue Legacy games. It's fundamentally the same as the original, but with major improvements across the board that really help realize the idea's potential. The original game had some extremely tight, zippy controls, and these are brought over pretty much whole cloth. But the sequel does a much better job of diversifying the movesets of the different hero classes, and that goes a long way toward keeping the experience fresh. Some of the classes play so differently that you'll probably need a few runs with them to get a hang of their abilities. There are bound to be a few that don't click with you, but there are 15 to choose from and you can stick to your favorites for the most part without any major penalty.

The other obvious change in RL2 is the graphics, which IMO are a huge improvement over the first game. Some people will miss the pixel art of the original, but I honestly didn't think it was particularly good as that style goes. The new game has beautifully painted 2D backgrounds and 3D character models that animate superbly without clashing with the art style. Transitions and interstitial animations are super slick, too. And keeping with tradition, the soundtrack by Tettix and A Shell in the Pit is superb - although weirdly low in the mix by default. I actually had to go in and turn the other game sounds down to 50% in order to get a mix that did the music justice. In fact, it was only after listening to the soundtrack on its own that I realized what I was missing!

None of this changes the fundamental structure of the game, which is that you jump into a 2D castle, fight some bad guys, grab some loot and die in an embarrassing manner. Usually pretty quickly, in my case. But the game has numerous optional challenges and secrets hidden throughout the castle, and these do a good job of breaking up the monotony of endless rooms filled with enemies. The puzzles, in particular, are well done: you'll find clues in various text logs that will hint at actions you can take in specific places, then it's up to you to identify these spots and unlock the secrets within.

I'd be lying if I said the game wasn't still kind of grindy. There are about a billion different upgrades, items and runes to buy, and you have to pay to unlock most of the character classes too. I've played about 14 hours and beaten three of the six bosses that unlock the golden door that you see every time you enter the castle. I probably have 3 or 4 character classes left to unlock and dozens upon dozens of smaller upgrades and items left to buy too. You probably don't need all that stuff to finish the game, though, and between the boss fights, fairy chest challenges and the new scar challenges, there's plenty of different stuff to do.

Anyone else playing this right now? If so, tell me about your favorite class and why it's the chef!

 

[Mogri]

I just had an incredible Chef (soul-upgraded to start with Bag o' Spoons instead of frying pan, which is a huge improvement) who cleared out the last two castle bosses and made a good attempt at the endgame. He had +30% gold from traits, and he racked up an amazing 72k before clocking out.

This was my second attempt at the boss of the tower biome, where most runs died before seeing the boss chamber, and of course it was my first real foray into the final biome, so to do it all in one go -- well, let's just say that didn't even come close to happening for any of the others.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

72k in a single run is pretty incredible, my best to date is only around 6k! I expect that will go up as I get later in the game, but I don't know if I'll ever match that much scratch in one go. ALSO I feel like it's important to mention that I'm pretty bad at this game? Like, I constantly take stupid hits and a it's not that rare for a run to end within a couple of rooms. It's possible that I'm too quick to push into new areas and maybe need to spend a bit more time grinding stats, but where the fun in that?

My best runs to date usually involve chefs, since they can self-heal and deflect projectiles, so they tend to last a lot longer than other classes. But I've also been known to abuse characters with the Hero Complex trait, which doubles your HP but prevents any kind of healing, for cheesing bosses. I did have one character who managed to beat the 3rd boss and then make major progress into the Study biome, even nabbing the movement upgrade in that area on the same life. But nothing approaching 2 boss clears in a single life!

 

[Kalir]

Chef is a very good class, but honestly the fact that every class has a unique weapon, not just a talent, is a game changer. Sometimes you see a class you haven't played in a while and go "actually yeah let's run a pirate again why not".

 

[Mogri]

But I've also been known to abuse characters with the Hero Complex trait, which doubles your HP but prevents any kind of healing, for cheesing bosses.

I made an attempt at that prior to my Chef run; that character didn't make it to the boss.

On the Chef run (and on most runs I'm seriously invested in), I grab as many of the "take damage, max HP up" fruits as possible. My Chef had over 500 max HP -- which is a bit meaningless in a vacuum, since that number will really depend on how much you've put into Vitality, but it's at least a benchmark for "it's semi-reasonable to beat those bosses with this much health."

But only semi-reasonable, because that character was out of control. My first attempt at the boss of the fifth biome had me wondering how in the world you're supposed to dodge all of the garbage on the screen; my Chef, on the other hand, just won the damage race.

The Chef had the fire barrier spell, which I had previously thought was middling at best, but I was getting back 15 MP per attack, which was enough to sustain the magic constantly throughout the battle, and because fire barrier skill crits after 5 seconds, it does way more damage when sustained like that. (I used mostly the same strategy for biome 6 boss, but because I spent more time moving, I ran out of MP at one point.)

 

[MCBanjoMike]

When I say I cheese bosses with Hero Complex, I mean that I lock the castle and teleport straight to the boss room with 800HP. As for chef builds, I can definitely see the appeal of buffing max HP for that class, but I also like to look for things that improve their damage over time ability. Something that adds a second status effect to each hit, or the rune that increases the duration.

I love the fire barrier spell! Pretty sure that's what won me the fight against Lamech. And speaking of Lamech, holy crap is the Double Lamech fight in the Two Masters scar difficult. I need to try it again now that I've earned a few bonuses for that challenge, because so far every attempt has ended in failure.

 

[YangusKhan]

I'm mildly interested in this game, probably mostly due to FOMO as I never played the first one. I don't have a lot of comparison points for side-scrolling action roguelikes... but I am intrigued that you specifically called out the controls as feeling good. Is this a fast-paced action game?

 

[MrBlarney]

I put about 90 hours into the game over its last year in Early Access, and have put about 50 hours into it after its 1.0 release. There's something about the loop of killing enemies, gathering gold, and upgrading stats and equipment to see all those numbers go up that really gets me goin', you know? I'm well into the New Game+ loops now, and those numbers are getting pretty high, mostly in my favor. The amount of 'lives' it is taking to complete each thread / loop is steadily decreasing. I'm actually fairly close to the end of the content, which might require me to deliberately retire more heroes than make full completions.

In short, there is a bit of an early grind as you are weak and need to build up your character stats as well as learn enemy and boss patterns. But after a couple of New Game+ threads, the equipment and capabilities you have will start to snowball and those loops will get faster and faster. The main limitation is how thoroughly you enjoy clearing out the world on each life, which can mean about a two-hour commitment per run. (You can quit during a run, and it'll just move you back to the world entrance, so it doesn't have to be a continuous session.)

One small tip about one of the metaprogression features in the Drift House for early loops.

Spoiler

You'll probably only want one rank in the Soul Shop's Embroidered Investments (equipment stacking) and Runic Horizons (rune stacking) perks in your first loop. Since equipment is limited by environment level, you won't even see all of the equipment on your first loop, though you will still be able to get some +1 equipment. Runes are also limited by loop, about one stack per loop. So it'll be unlikely for you to even get a second rune of a certain type in your first loop.

So as an overall rule of thumb, you only really need one level of each perk on your first run, two levels on NG+1, and so on. That said, the costs do start to stack up on higher levels, so if you don't think you have the control to save up enough Soul Stones for higher equipment and rune stacking later on, feel free to put in more levels a little earlier.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I'm mildly interested in this game, probably mostly due to FOMO as I never played the first one. I don't have a lot of comparison points for side-scrolling action roguelikes... but I am intrigued that you specifically called out the controls as feeling good. Is this a fast-paced action game?

Yes, the movement is extremely quick and responsive. Characters can unlock a lot of movement skills like a dash, an air dash, a double jump and even use abilities later on to stack multiple copies of those moves. The movement feels really good, although your character has no momentum to speak of and turns on a dime. The game isn't a constant adrenaline rush, but every once if a while you'll be asked to do some very tight platforming or you'll run into a room full of enemies that quickly puts things into bullet hell territory. It's a very challenging game, IMO, but it's also designed to gradually make things easier for you as you improve your character stats. Even a bad run will usually yield enough gold for one or two upgrades.

 

[Mogri]

I rolled credits today. The last boss seemed impossible on first attempt, but the right build got me there in a handful of tries. I highly recommend Astromancer with 8-Ball .

Spoiler: Strategy

8-Ball is one of the strongest spells in the game provided you can hit a wall first, and that's extremely easy to do here: just face the other way. On the off chance the boss jumps the ball, it'll hit on the rebound anyway.

Comet Form is invaluable here for the many, many hard-to-dodge attacks, but it won't refresh often enough to dodge everything. I recommend using it against the magic missiles and walls of balls and learning to dodge the rest. Both of those appear in phase 1, although he also uses magic missiles upon phase transition. Ultimately, you just need to practice and learn which attacks you're comfortable handling without Comet Form.

Despite the class's low health, this is a very consistent strategy, and 8-Ball piles on damage quickly. I did not bother running the castle on my boss attempts; you don't need relics or health boosts to pull this off, and castle runs mean more time between practice runs anyway. In order to fuel your magic, you have to keep up your attacks, but that's not hard; he gives you plenty of space between attacks.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I have no idea how my play time compares to other peoples', but I'm around 25 hours in at this point and I'm working on the dry lake biome. I feel like I've improved a lot in the last 5 hours or so, although I still have the occasional run that faceplants within seconds of leaving the docks. My favorite classes are chef, ronin and duelist, although there are 4-5 others that I also like well enough. The only ones I tend to avoid are jesters, archers and pirates, for various reasons, and I bet I could come around on most of those if I gave them a shot. Fact is, there differences between classes are so huge that it's a bit of an investment to learn a new one! I've unlocked the permanent contrarian option, though, which might help me to dip my toes into weapon and skill types that I'm not as familiar with. For example, I've just learned that the enkindled boxing gloves are the fastest way to get myself killed - that's useful knowledge! But the chef is still dearest to my heart, for their combination of longevity, damage over time and ability to deal with the projectile spam the game loves to throw at you.

Bosses have been a bit mixed, but a couple of them I've found to be quite challenging. That might be because I don't grind enough gold - as soon as a boss is available, I tend to mainline it until I've beaten it so I can move on to the next region. Lamech was pretty tough, but surprisingly it was Enoch who really gave me the most trouble. I thought the fight was actually pretty easy at first, getting a victory against the first form in only a few attempts, but for some reason the second form kept tripping me up. Pretty sure that's another battle that I wound up winning thanks to a Hero Complex character. Irad was also a fairly intense fight, at least in the second phase, but I managed to nail that one a little faster. The void beasts and Naamah were comparatively easy, so at least I have that going for me. One issue that I have is I never seem to find the hidden rooms that give you damage bonuses until after I beat the bosses, but that's life, I guess.

 

[Mogri]

Ranger and Pirate are indeed a bit on the butts side -- Ranger is slow, and aiming is difficult, while Pirate straddles the line between Ranger and Knight but with a generally less-useful talent -- but you should give Bard another try. The key to Bard is that your damage comes from spin-kicking your notes. If you get a note near a ceiling, you can deal enormous damage by continuously spin-kicking it.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

My feeling is that a pro player could probably bend the game over their knee with a ranger using precise analog aiming. But I'm playing this game mostly with the d-pad, and having to switch over to the stick for aiming breaks the flow in a way that I don't enjoy. Also, the effect of gravity on the arrows makes it hard to aim. The gunslinger is a little easier to use for me, since you can jump into position and then just float midair while unleashing your weapon, and your shots travel in a straight line.

I'll try the jester again at some point - I had a really bad run or two with them, but I don't dislike their skillset. I'm just very bad at using it!

 

[MrBlarney]

Bards are another class that really benefits from analog controls. I wasn't a fan of them until their recent rework, which increased their damage scaling for spin kicking and staying airborne, and which reduced the flight distance for their notes. The last part was most key for me, as it made it much easier to get into a rhythm of spin-kicking a note, laying out a new note, and then kicking that one to keep the damage boost up while maintaining mobility. You lose a lot of angles without analog control, which would make them more difficult to use effectively.

Bards also benefit pretty well from the castle upgrade that adds INT scaling to spin kicks, but that effect doesn't really start to hit until other core stats get high enough.

 

[Mogri]

The other fun thing about Bard is that it can fly, which means it can sequence-break. I got the library heirloom before the snow heirloom thanks to an adventurous Bard. (Now, the snow heirloom is, of the two, way more useful, but that's not the point.)

It's not the only class that can fly, but it's the only one that can fly indefinitely.

 

[Kalir]

Pirate's talent gets a lot more useful when you learn you can hop off the ship at any time, and you're completely able to launch the ship no matter whether you're on it or not.

Plus, it plays a jaunty little tune while it's active, automatically putting it in the higher tier of abilities.

 

[YangusKhan]

I started playing this game last night, just one attempt. I died against the first zone's boss (almost had it, just felt like I didn't really do enough damage), but made enough money to get to level 15 and unlock a bunch of classes and facilities. I'm sure I could answer this question by playing more but: is there a purpose for defeating a zone boss, beyond unlocking what I presume to be the final boss/zone? I found 3 different zone connections from the first area, and was surprised you could just go to them without needing to beat a boss.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I don't think you really need to beat the bosses until the end? I tended to do it right away, because I was impatient to move to the next region, but what really limits your ability to explore is how many of the movement abilities you have unlocked.

As for me, I've opened the golden door! I haven't beaten Jonah yet, but I get a definite "second-last boss of the game" vibe from him. I'm a little bummed, because nobody at the docks has anything left to say to me, which makes it feel like I took too long getting to this point.

 

[YangusKhan]

Woo boy, I seem to be terrible at this game. After my relatively successful 1st run, I've now had like 5 or 6 failed attempts where I couldn't even fully clear the starting area. One was especially hilarious because it was a Barbarian with the 1-Hit Wonder trait and I didn't know what that did. Well: you die in 1 hit, and the Barbarian ability cooldown only resets when you get hit. I've been sticking with Barbarian but only because the game keeps trying to give me Mage and Archer, which I'm not interested in yet, despite me having unlocked some other classes I actually want to play like Valkyrie.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

If it makes you feel any better, "wow I'm really bad at this" is how I felt for like the first 20 hours that I played. I feel like I've improved since then, but some runs still faceplant spectacularly and bosses typically take a whole bunch of attempts to clear.

 

[Mogri]

I finished NG+1 last week. I'm not the hugest fan of how the advanced versions of the bosses (and therefore most of the scars) are locked behind higher NG+ levels, but I guess I wouldn't have bothered with NG+2 otherwise, so... mission accomplished, game.

NG+1 is a much larger difficulty increase than NG+2, so there's that, at least, but also, NG+1 is a much larger gold increase, too.

 

[YangusKhan]

I don't know that I'm a fan of Relics having unknown effects until you pick them once. I'd attribute a good half of my deaths or so to Relics that have a deadly drawback and I wouldn't have picked them otherwise.

 

[YangusKhan]

Well I made some significant progress already. Beat the first 2 bosses. First one was with a Valkyrie, other was with a Chef. That Chef was also my most lucrative run yet. I can't deny how good they are at living, but I do not really enjoy playing as one that much. I'd say my favorites so far are Boxer, Assassin, and Valkyrie.

 

[YangusKhan]

I'm definitely getting better. Beat the 3rd boss and made it to the 4th as well. That 4th zone demands a lot more attention than anything before it, so it's easy for me to get clipped by traps or a painting or a mimic if I'm not paying enough attention.

Anyway I had a pretty sweet Ronin run with the relic that heals you on crit kills. I'm definitely a fan of the classes that have longer range and multi-directional weapons. At this point the only classes I still haven't tried are Pirate, Bard, and Gunslinger. On another run I also discovered an exploit with the Vampirism trait, where you can enter and exit a room without killing an enemy but instead hit them once for the lifesteal and get to full HP.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I'm at the last boss! Or I really, sincerely hope it's the last boss, because this is a hell of a fight. I'm slowly getting better, and every once in a while I'll take a break to run the castle and grind a bit of money. But so far, I've only made it past the halfway point once and I'm pretty sure that was with another Hero Complex character. Not too discouraged right now, but the grind is real.

 

[Mogri]

I'm at the last boss! Or I really, sincerely hope it's the last boss, because this is a hell of a fight. I'm slowly getting better, and every once in a while I'll take a break to run the castle and grind a bit of money. But so far, I've only made it past the halfway point once and I'm pretty sure that was with another Hero Complex character. Not too discouraged right now, but the grind is real.

If you're not certain whether you're on the last boss, here are some clues. This won't spoil any boss identities.

If you haven't entered the golden door, it's not the last boss.

If you have entered the golden door, there's a memory there that indicates what will happen next.

One of the characters at the docks will offer to take you directly to the last boss if you died on the last boss.

I made a post earlier discussing last boss strategy. Worked great for me on NG and NG+1.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I finished this last night!

Spoiler: Boss fight and endgame stuff

I mostly stuck to using the duelist for the Cain fight, because they have great DPS and the dodge roll is very handy for avoiding some of the trickier attacks or just getting out of the corner when you get trapped there. I did start using the 8-ball, which I will admit made for a nice, easy boost in my damage output. It apparently took me 38 tries to win the fight, although I doubt that works out to more than an hour of actual play time, because some of them were very short. Almost got a win earlier when I rolled a mage with the 8-ball and the HP-regeneration trait, but I died when the boss had about 10% of its health left. In the end, it was duelist with (of course) Hero Complex that won the day. What an absurdly overpowered trait that is for boss fights.

The little escape sequence was cute, but they give you about 5x more time than you need to pull it off. Can you use that new heirloom ability in NG+ runs? Anyway, I selected "higher rank enemies appear" and "ascended Lamech" as my challenge points and fired up a new thread, just to see what it would be like. It seems like the enemies are either stronger or else my character is weaker than before? I wasn't able to blaze through the Citadel with impunity the way I could at the end of my last run, but I didn't select any of the HP or damage buffs from the heat menu. Also, is there any way to go back to the surface and fiddle with your challenge parameters? I didn't realize I was locking myself in to a full run of this stuff (although I don't think I would actually pick anything different if I could).

I don't know if I'm really going to go through with any NG+ clears. I liked this game a lot, but it is pretty repetitive and after the 30 hours it took to get my first clear, I might be ready for a break. Overall, I'm really impressed with everything they added to the formula and how polished the experience was, but I think RL2 falls a little short of become an all-time favorite roguelike-like for me.

 

[Mogri]

You keep all heirlooms for NG+ runs, which saves you the trouble of doing the heirloom trials but also allows you to do the whole game in any order. Each successive run tends to be much shorter than the last, at least before you start ratcheting the difficulty way up.

RL2 takes a lot of cues from Hades -- most notably, the dialogue at the docks progresses over time, and you're working through character plot beats in the process -- but more pertinent to this discussion is the Pact of Punishment-style difficulty selection. The unfortunate difference here is that many of the RL2 difficulty settings are locked behind higher NG+ levels.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I would love some more docks dialogue, feels like I haven't had any in like 5 hours. It didn't seem like anyone was eager to chat after I started my NG+ run, either.

 

[Yaara]

Fascinated by the different strats used here for the last boss! I just beat the game today, here's what I did:

Spoiler: last boss for real

So, for Jonah, I feel he's possibly the easiest fight in the game, and the reason is... that he has no contact damage XD He plays fair so you can just hit him and dodge, repeat.

As for Cain, I very quickly locked Chef and Wind Wall from the soul shop, at which point I just win. You can always get 100 MP between attacks, all the dangerous attacks lose to wind wall. Only thing I had to do is float over him with spin kicks for the ground attack. It's a cute fight! Can't wait to see the super hard version in like NG+90

EDIT: as for NG+, my entire first playthrough was reliant on Astro and Chef, so "hit once, wait till they die" gameplay. I think for NG+ I want to focus on Ronin, for fast paced offense; Another playstyle I want to try out is Valkyrie and Knight, for Blocking Everything.