izigame.me

I'm torn on this game.
I love Rogue Legacy 1 to bits and this game offers more than just being a simple sequel: more enemies and traits, actual items to collect and build with, larger dungeon to explore, more classes than ever and a pretty interesting story working alongside its NG+.
Unfortunately, every single part of that comes with caveats that are difficult to endure while playing.
Enemies are actually the better part of it: they come with traits that can be fun and challenging, but some others can be really bothersome, like defender or vengeful.
Classes are extremely varied and unique, but every weapon/playstyle other than the basic knight feels kneecapped to no end, and some weapons feel next to unusable without the proper relic combo/traits, no matter how your stats are. For example, the dragon gauntlet's hurtbox extends so far in its own hitbox that 90% of the time, you'll end up trading a hit with the monster you were safely hitting! Or some being downright detrimental with no actual benefits like the exploding gloves, which will hurt you and have the same amount of firepower as a basic sword, with REALLY hard to use skill crits in normal exploration.
And a LOT of the other weapons have a stupidly long, uncancellable recovery time other than with a Dash (which will propulse you into danger most of the time), or sometimes absolutely uncancellable!
Speaking of quirks, there are plenty of traits in there, but a lot of them feel like a downgrade from the first game. Either you will never use them even for coin gain (Pacifist/Perfectionist), some of them don't give a coin gain when they should (+100%HP but never any heals / Health Regen, but you lose max Health on hit), and some of them have disappeared or been toned down (Vertigo gone, Diva is easier, but I don't dislike those changes for these two in particular).
As a result, you very much find yourself dealing with much less variety than the first game (whether you choose to avoid the "bad weapons" or just through less "playable traits"), which results in the game feeling extremely repetitive.
And that's even with the relic system taken into account, because boy oh boy, the relics also have their issues, like giving out completely useless relics (recover HP from health drops on challenges that have none for example), or relics that will downright kill a run (quite literally with one of them)
Which is a shame because it has so much to offer, the NG+ system is great as well and very reminiscent of Hades. But where Hades pulls it off with absolute brilliance... Rogue Legacy 2 is... Hm. Middling.
The early game feels challenging, but tuned towards the wrong points, the mid game is the best part of this game, but the end game feels just painful. You'll repeat the same things again and again, with the same enemies, the same bosses save for one or two per NG+, in which you repeat the same issues over and over.
Even with all of these faults, I still recommend playing it. The game is fun when you can grasp it, but man, RL2 feels frustrating to play at times, especially late game. Grab it on a heavy sale and give it a try at least.