Man, this game is pretty boring and I feel pretty confused about where all the praise is coming from. To be clear, and to begin on a positive note, I do see and respect just how much ambition went into this game. The devs spent a lot of time and energy on every aspect of this game. It's like Rogue Legacy quadrupled. The problem is that this is the problem! There's way too much thought here and not enough fun. As the first example, let me mention that this game has inflation in it. Actual fucking inflation. As if that's a fun real-life concept to put in your game.

So, the game design is still the same as it ever was. You play a sort of light metroidvania in sections, where you do have access to the entire map, but are really only meant to play each section in increments where you die over and over but make it out with gold to upgrade your castle so you can beat the area you were focusing on and move onto the next. In 2013, I loved this design since it felt fresh and new and I get very addicted to games with tons of unlocks and bars to fill, which is really the only thing Rogue Legacy has going for it. As a combat platformer, it's perfectly fine and controls well, but the level and enemy attack design always feels either simple or just annoying, and that hasn't changed at all. This sequel is exactly the same on that front. Some basic jumping around on platforms you are very unlikely to miss, and some smacking enemies around in situations that are mostly easy until they just feel unfair.

The core gameplay is fine. It's all of the thousands of layers of other stuff that either adds nothing or detracts from the experience as far as I'm concerned. For one thing, I'm not sure why this game has like 175 classes when most of them are just minor variations. Gunslinger is just a minor variant on Archer. I forget their specific names, but the black hole mage is a major difference from the regular mage and both are fun to play, but I really struggle to tell you any major differences between Knight, Duelist, Valkyrie, Assassin, Barbarian and Ronin. They're all sword users and, sure, they have differing attack damage, range and their own unique class skill, but the core experience is extremely similar. You jump close to enemies, bop them on the head and dodge attacks. Archer is at least wholly different in that you shoot arrows in stead, which changes the strategy, and the black hole mage is also cool in how it changes your whole playstyle and makes you "lay traps" instead of punching enemies in the face, but the melee characters all feel more or less the same except some of them do shit damage and are as such frustrating.

Then you have all of the other stuff. The fact that there are 7000 statuses to memorize the name of. You've now found an "empathy" which lowers your "handicap" in... Hell, I forget what the part of the game was called. This game needs to come with a physical glossary so you can look up what the countless words mean, and the worst part is that none of them seem to matter. So this item gives my main weapon the ability to "apply Combo". Okay. And what's that? I haven't noticed any difference when I pick that thing up. And that's really perhaps the worst part about the game for me. Picking items up. Not only do most of the items suck with very boring effects like "slightly raise crit chance", the devs have also included a sort of tax system for items. Picking one up severely lowers your maximum HP, to the point where you're only allowed to safely pick up 2 or 3 items. I have no idea why they did this to their game, since it absolutely murders run variety. Every run feels the same when the items are both lame and prohibitively expensive to pick up and as you traverse the same few rooms now assembled in a slightly different order.

They do sell an upgrade for this, because of course they do, so maybe you can have more fun with the items with a raised "resolve" (that's what the item limit system is called, because everything needs a name to memorize), but the problem is the aforementioned inflation. After you've purchased some unlocks, there's actually a text pop-up telling you that the price of labor has increased and will continue increasing. So not only does the game have a simple tier system where upgrade A1 costs 50 coints, A2 costs 100 coins and so on, the game also has an inflation system, so once you've purchased A1 and A2 at a total of 150 coints, B1 will then change from costing 50 coins to 75 coins. After you've purchased B1 and B2 at the new, inflated, cost of 75+175, C1 will change from 50 to 75 to 100 coins and so on. Why? Why the fuck would you do this? Who would ever want inflation in their videogame? This is the actual worst. Does this go away if I spend like 150 hours grinding out more resources and coins (because of course this game desn't just have gold, it also has 47 other currencies)? Do I care? No.

Another thing is the trait system. I remember RL1 as being a good mix of good and bad traits, but in this game, I feel like I either don't notice having a trait at all (which does happen often) or it's some negative bullshit that makes me kill the character immediately. Everything is greyscale now! Nope, instant suicide. Only critical hits deal damage! Hell no, instant suicide. Everything is sepia toned and all of the sounds are tinny and distorted! Niet, instant suicide. Your character now shrinks on taking a hit and you have to smash everything to desperately find mushrooms because Mario! Nahhhh, instant suicide. You are now a pacifist and can't deal (but can take) damage! Yeah, no, instant suicide and rage quit.

This game is well-programmed and I didn't run into any glitches. It looks and sounds very good, even though I preferred the pixel art of the original over the cartoon hand-drawn in this game. The platforming and combat is simplistic, but servicable and can even be enjoyable. At least some of the bosses were pretty cool. The ambition here is massive. But it's not fun. It's a grindfest so offensive that even a grind addict like me hates it. There's been too much thought put into pesky, annoying aspects of the game and not enough on the fun. There are too many classes with too little variation. Too many unlocks that split it into too many more unlocks, and then you have to unlock more unlocks by finishing New Game+18. And the game has motherfucking inflation. That should just tell you everything you need to know about how boring this game is. I'm done. I've stuck with it for some 10+ hours because I'm such a roguelite nut and because I had fond memories of the first game, but this game just sucks and isn't even a game. It's a boring unlock simulator with inflation in it. No, I'm never letting that go. They put inflation in their boring-ass game! I really have no idea how so many others are praising this game. It sucks and I hate it.