For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG, from PocketHaven Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
The App store page for Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG initially looks like any other idle RPG kind of game. but when i browsed the screenshots, the board game aspect of the gameplay really grabbed my attention. all to often these games have a scrolling background and our main character running into enemies or enemies running into us. But the addition of a board really means each run could be different, which is useful in a roguelike game.
Unfortunately, there was an odd 5 minute initial load to start the game. this clearly has to be a bug of some sort as this is something i've only experienced with games downloading data and Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG never mentioned it was doing this. I'll try to send the developers an email about this bug.
The tutorial for Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG is lite. there is a tutorial finger which shows us where to go and then stops. Or it'll point out a new feature and then stop. It could be done a little better. thankfully Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG doesn't overload it's home screen with buttons from the start so newcomers or those unfamiliar with these sorts of games probably won't feel overwhelmed.
The game's art does look simple, but when you look closer you'll see our character has a lot of animations, more so when we're on the board and fighting. once you notice this you'll see there are other nice animations on enemies and board pieces. This is so nice that it's just as obvious when the wider world map doesn't move. for more powerful phones it'd be nice if this also animated.
The board gameplay was great. each time we got around the board, it'd refresh itself and the enemies got harder. the only 4 pieces that didn't change were the corners. the steps between each corner could change from a monster tile to a buff tile, a debuff tile to a digging tile, a enemy tile to a double enemy tile, etc. There is another element, our character has to survive 30 rolls of the dice. on the first board, there was a mini boss after 15 rolls. on the second board there were two mini bosses.
To help, one of the corner tiles is a shop that we can purchase abilities from. there are other tiles that can grant up a power up, level up a power, heal us, or let us gamble for a chance of a power up. My first and second runs on the first board were very different, not just on the tiles i landed on but also what power ups were available for purchase.
Much like how lite the tutorial was, the game does lack little finishing touches. for example, the Battle Pass screen has a Collect All button, but no other screen does. the equipment screen doesn't have a Equip All button. The idle aspect of the game doesn't say how long it'll collect coins and stuff. thankfully the main game is very well done and i really enjoyed myself.
As Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG is a Roguelike, we get money after each run whether we succeed or fail. The Roguelike mechanic in this game is that we spend the money on improving our stats via a level up screen. Money also comes in from the idle aspect of the game. there are also chests where we can win equipment or items that'll upgrade equipment. there seems to be some free stuff daily. So Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG doesn't demand your attention all the time, it needs to be put down in order to get more gold to help with the levelling up.
I really enjoyed playing Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG. the Roguelike loop is solid, the board gameplay was refreshing and interesting, and the game doesn't feel too complicated with too many systems. it's great for those curious about the genre and something new for those who have played a lot. I would go so far as to say that Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG might even make it on to my download and go top 5 of the year!
Version 0.573 Played
