Overview
Here is my guide on different aspects of Rogue Legacy, I will be outlining everything there is to know in the game including traits, classes, items, zones and bosses! I hope you enjoy my guide
Intro
Rogue Legacy is a Roguelike side scrolling action RPG, the object of the game is to delve into a castle filled with dangerous enemies and traps while looking for gold and loot. When you die your character is gone permenantly and you will play as a hier to your family with a randomized class and traits, you do keep your equipment and gold which you then spend on upgrades to your manor or gear. When you enter the castle you must pay up all your gold, this is why after death you should spend as much gold as possible.
Classes
Knave > Assassin
Knaves are you average knight with no special abilities and a -50% to all stats but a 30% chance to crit for 120% damage, kinda useless at the start of the game so id avoid picking them. Once they are upgraded however they become Assassins which gives them the Mist form ability, this ability makes you invunerable while you have mana spare, but if you attack it breaks it. This ability is only really useful when you are trapped in a corner
Knight > Paladin
Knights are the first class you will want to pick constantly with good traits if your lucky, Knights have moderate damage and are overall well rounded classes, once they are upgraded to Paladin’s they gain the guardian shield ability, this allows them to block incoming damage at a cost of 25mana. Late game paladin isnt such a great class when compared to some of the others but its still a good choice for gold collecting. They have a skill to become a statue and take 0 damage and no knockback by pressing Down + A, this drains mana fast.
Barbarian > Barbarian King/Queen
Barbarians are the tanks of the game and my personal favourite in gold collecting and exploring due to how long they can survive for. Barbarians have 50% more HP but -50% mana and strength. When upgraded to a king/queen they gain FUS RO DAH (literally), this knocks back enemies and destroys projectiles, a very powerful ability to avoid everything.
Shinobi > Hokage
Shinobi’s are my second favourite class as they deal the highest attack damage in the game and are extremely fast. Shinobi’s have high damage but no critical strikes and low defense and HP. When upgraded they become Hokage, this allows them to teleport a short distance ahead and leave behind a tree stump. This class along with barbarian are the best ones for taking on bosses, Believe it!
Mage > Archmage
Mage is a class iv hardly played due to not really playing spellcasters in any game so im not 100% how effective they are lategame, Mage has 50% more mana but -50% health so they dont last long, they are good if you max out magic damage and mana as without mana they are basically dead. When they are upgraded to archmage they can carry 3 spells and you can cycle through them by pressing A. If you are playing a mage make sure you dont have the trait that makes your spells fire backwards!
Miner > Spelunker
You like gold? cus this class does! Miners have a 30% bonus to gold drops and can see treasure all over the map making them perfect for treasure hunting, the only issue with them is they have -50% hp and mp plus -25% strength, making them the weakest class in the game, if your careful you can make lots of gold on this class, but id advise just playing barbarian or shinobi for gold. Spelunker is basically the same except it gains a headlamp, a pretty much useless ability that lets you see better in dark (the game isnt really THAT dark)
Lich > Lich King/Queen
Liches are quite fun, they are kinda like mages except killing stuff increases your max hp by 4 every time. They have high intellect but low HP. When upgraded to Lich Kings and Queens they gain the conversion skill, this lets them turn all the bonus HP they have gained into permenant mana boosts allowing them to spam spells more!
Spell Thief > Spell Sword
Spell Thief is basically a mage with no advantages or disadvantages, they use invisible swords so its sometimes difficult to tell your range, everytime they hit a target they drain mana from the targets, allowing them to keep thier mana high easily. When upgraded to spell sword they gain the empower spell ability, this doubles the spell damage of whatever spell they have and also increases its size but it does make the spell cost double.
Half-Dragon
oh boy Half-Dragon, this is the final class you unlock and it is rather cheap, this class doesnt have a normal sword attack it is replaced by a fireball spell that costs mana. this class also cannot jump, does that sound bad? well dont worry there is good news! They regen mana super fast so can near enough spam fireball and pressing Y allows permenant flight, you can just fly over everything but if you get hit you will land. This class is great for cheaply taking out bosses by abusing the range.
Traits
Rogue Legacy has a number of positive, negative and just plain silly traits
- ADHD: Movement speed is increased
- Alektorphobia: When you break stuff sometimes food drops, well this replaces it with chickens that run around and damage you if touched, doesnt sound that bad but if your in a room full of enemies at low HP it can really screw you over
- Alzheimers: The map doesnt show were you are, the minimap works just not the main one, truely a pain
- Ambilevous: spells are cast behind instead of infront, not a problem unless your a mage player
- Baldness: removes feathers from your helmet and makes the loading screen say balding
- C.I.P: Your HP is hidden from you, who cares? its not like your HP matters your gunna die anyway
- Color Blind: Exactly what its called, the game is in black and white
- Coprolalia: Your hero will swear everytime you get hit or die, just for show
- Dextrocardia: Your HP and MP bars are swapped around
- Dementia: Laughing and noises will be heard and imaginary enemies will spawn, they deal no damage they are just there to confuse you
- Dwarfism: You are small, allows access to hidden areas but your range is tiny, really sucks against bosses
- Dyslexia: You cant cast spells (who cares if you arnt a mage) and all dialog is jumbled
- Ectomorph : Enemies knock you back every far, massive pain in the butt
- E.D.S: You can midswing and redirect attacks, eh okish
- Eid. Mem: All enemies, chests, events and warp locations of visited places are always on the map
- Endomorph: Enemies cant knock you back and it makes you bigger, not a bad skill at all!
- Far-Sighted: Blurry around your character, not a big deal really
- Gay: No effect at all on the character, but it verses the lady/knight statues gender that gives food/mana in waypoint rooms and changes the ending cutscene
- Gigantism: Opposite to dwarf, makes you massive making your range incredible
- Hypergonadism: Makes your knockback massive, quite useful in most situations
- Hypochondriac: Everytime an enemy hits you it shows massive damage numbers (like 1k+), but its still just normal damage.
- I.B.S: You fart when jumping and dashing sometimes
- Muscle Weakness: No knockback for you
- Near-sighted: Everything is blurry except for the area around you
- Nostalgic: The game goes sepia tone mode just like the tutorial
- O.C.D: You gain 1mp per destroyed object
- P.A.D: You dont set of spike traps, this is amazing especially for hokage
- Savant: Random spells are given everytime you cast
- Stereo Blind: No animation for turning for you or enemies
- Tunnel Vision: Projectiles on the edge of the screen are hidden, kind of a pain but you dont really notice it
- Vertigo: Just kill yourself if you get this, trust me. it flips the screen the game is unplayable
NPC’s
The Blacksmith: The blacksmith sells you weapons and armor for a gold price, the thing is you need to collect the blueprints from chests which are always random. You will not get them all on one playthrough so expect many hours used up if you want to 100% the game. Items on the left are weakest and items on the right are strongest, each column gives a different type of item for example the top column is basic knight equipment while the bottom one is vampirism gear.
The Enchantress: She does exact what her name says, she enchants your gear with a number of effects which stacks with eachother, these runes are found in fairy chests which are challenges you must complete, everytime you buy a rune the price of them rises by 175g.
The Architect: This guy will lock the castle, allowing you to revisit the same map you died in last, it costs 30% of the earned gold and is only really useful if you want to retry bosses over and over till you kill them.
Charon: Charon is a cloaked figure that blocks the path to the castle, you must pay him all your gold to get past him, this makes it so you have nothing when entering to stop you hoarding gold, a skill does allow you to keep some gold though which is nice.
Booyan: A clown which gives you a spell to destroy targets with, either a knife or axe throwing challenge, the knife one has you throwing them at a distance at moving targets, everytime you hit one it adds 10+ gold to the reward. The axe one makes you throw axes at lots of targets in an attempt to break 90 or more of the 100 targets which will give you lots of gold and a iron chest.
Miserly Elf: This guy offers you 1 of 3 chests in exchange for a quarter of your gold, 2 chests have nothing in it, 1 has triple of what you spent, risky but it can give you alot of gold
Runes
These can be put on all pieces of equipment and they stack, my advice is the Bounty and vampire runes as they allow for longer survivability and more gold
Sprint: Allows you to dash short distances with LT/RT (if using a 360 controller)
Vault: Allows you to jump one extra time in the air
Bounty: Increases gold pickup by 10%
Siphon: Steals mana from dead enemies (2MP per kill)
Retaliation: Returns damage to the enemy
Grace: Enemies are easier but give you less gold
Balance: Killing enemies gives you HP and MP (1 each)
Curse: Harder enemies but more gold
Vampire: Drains HP from dead enemies (2HP per kill)
Air: Grants very limited flight
Haste: Move 30% faster
Manor Upgrades
Upgrading the manor gives you stat bonuses and unlocks different classes and abilties.
My advice is to unlock each class first, especially the mage side as you really want to get Half-Dragon, then work on gold up > haggle > attack up > equip up > down strike up > health up > armor up, the rest is up to you but those are what i went with, haggle and gold up so that you gain more gold overall, attack up so you can kill faster, equip up so you can equip better gear, downstrike up so you hit harder. the health and armor upgrades are really just for survivability, get them if you need them.
I dont advise going for mana upgrades, but thats just me i prefer quick and strong attacks, not magic!
- Smithy: Unlocks Smithy
- Architect: Unlocks Architect
- Enchantress: Unlocks Enchantress
- Upgrade Mage: Turns mages into archmages
- Upgrade Knight: Turns knights into paladins
- Upgrade Knave: Turns knaves into assassins
- Upgrade Barbarian: Turns barbarians into barbarian kings/queens
- Upgrade Lich: Turns liches into lich kings and queens
- Upgrade Miner: Turns miners into spelunkers
- Upgrade Shinobi: Turns shinobi’s into hokage’s
- Upgrade Spell Thief: Turns spell thieves into spell swords
- Beastiality: Unlocks Half-Dragon class
- Mana Up: Increases MP
- Health Up: Increases HP
- Equip Up: Increases weight
- Attack Up: Increases damage
- Crit Chance Up: Increases crit chance
- Crit Damage Up: Increases crit damage
- Armor Up: Increases armor
- Down Strike Up: Increases damage from multiple strikes
- Gold Up: Increases gold drops
- Potion Up: Increases potion/food gain
- Death Defy: Chance to defy death and get a 2nd chance
- Haggle: Lowers Charons toll
Event Rooms
There are a couple of event rooms in the game, some bad and some good
Carnival Game room: This room has a NPC that will make you play a carnival game to get gold, either axe throwing or knife throwing
Guess the chest room: This room has a NPC that will take a quarter of your gold to let you pick 1 of 3 chests, one chest has 3x the amount of gold you pay while the others have nothing
Big picture room: This room has a massive picture that when used will give information from the developers on a game they tried to make, some of these pictures can be attacked and act like mini-bosses
Journal Room: This room has a journal entry related to the story
Boss room: This room leads to the boss of the area, statues nearby drop food and mana
Waypoint room: This connects the castle to the other zones, there is a teleporter and 2 statues that gives food and mana when destroyed, teleporter allows you to teleport to other waypoints on the map
Shrine room: Heals you and gives mana
Fairy chest room: Challenge room to get a rune chest, this ranges from get to it in 5 seconds, kill all enemies, take no damage, dont attack, no jumping and no looking
Spellroom: This room has a spell in the middle of the room, pick it up replaces your old spell. If you are a archmage then it will give you 3 new spells instead of one
Prayer room: This is a statue that will give you an item, it can give these below
- Hermes Boots: Lets you run on spikes
- Charon’s Obol: Allows you to enter the castle once without paying the toll
- Hedgehog’s Curse: You drop coins everytime you are hit, just like Sonic
- Calypso’s Compass: Points to a hidden room on the map, when opened it will give you 2 chests
- Nerdy Glasses: Fixes Color Blindness, Nearsighted, Farsighted, Nostalgic and Vertigo traits and makes hidden items visible
- Helios’s Blessing: Makes more coins drop
- Hyperion Ring: Defys death one time, bringing you back to life with 25% hp
Zones
Here are the zones in the game in level order
Castle: The first area, this place is the easiest area and has a low gold drop rate, enemies are simple and only really fire one projectile except for special enemies.
Forest: This is the 2nd area, this place is slightly harder than castle but still pretty easy, this introduces new enemies which will fire a few more projectiles and also swing spikey balls around
Tower: This is the 3rd area, this place is harder than the forest but not too hard, this introduces one of the most annoying enemies in the game, the Mimic, im pretty sure everyone knows what a mimic is but if not il explain, its a stupid fake chest that attacks you for a tonne of damage when you get near.
Dungeon: This is the final area, the jump in difficulty from Tower > Dungeon is quite huge, enemies hit hard and fast, they fire many projectiles and have high health but the gold drop is amazing here. My advice is go in here as a barbarian when you are level 70+
Upper Castle: The final area, its just the castle with the final boss in it, nothing more.
Enemies + Traps
Enemies
Skeletons: These guys throw bones at you in a arc, they go through walls so be careful of skeletons that are above you, they have low hp so are easily killed
Skeletal Archers: Shoots arrows at you in a arc, easy to avoid and they dont go through walls, just wait till they fire then run at them and slice them to pieces
Berith and Halphas: Two massive gold skeleton mini-bosses that throw alot of bones, best way to beat them is to be very aggressive and kill them fast as a barbarian or hokage, they drop lots of gold and a chest
Flaming Skeletal Heads: These guys move towards you and fire projectiles above, below, left and right of them, quite easy to beat and you can tell when they are gunna do it due to animations
Pictures: ugh these guys are annoying, they pretend to be pictures but when you get near they will shake, once hit they will spin around the room trying to hit you, the stronger late game versions fire projectiles too. They can normally be spotted because sometimes they are put in awkward places for example on top of a bookshelf
Mimics: the most annoying enemy in the game, chests that attack you when you get near, they hit hard and move fast so make sure to fire a spell at every chest you see in the Maya/Tower, normally drops a nice amount of gold when killed.
Turrets: Turrets are simple to beat, they dont move and fire in a straight direction, there are 3 versions of them, the single shot one, the triple shot one and the homing one. The homing one is dungeon only while the triple shot is maya and forest.
Chain Knights: Spins a spike ball around on a chain, once killed the chain detaches and will move around the room like a normal spike ball
Knight: Big sword in hand they move slow and just swing at you, just hit and run them for a free kill
Shield Knight: Attacks from the front knock you back, jump over them and attack from behind
Spear Knights: These guys do a slash wave that moves towards you fast, the stronger versions can also charge so yea have fun!
Mages: These guys have different spells based on the color of the mage, red for example uses fire spells, they also fly around so try to target these first when clearing a room
Amon and Barbatos: Two black mage mini-bosses that use fire spells, treat them just like the skeleton bosses and just be very aggressive to try and kill one as fast as possible, drops lots of gold and a chest
Flaming sprite thingys: These things just circle you and charge you, hit them to knock them back, these can become a pain in high numbers
Flaming horse: Runs back and forth and leaves a firetrail that damages you
Wolf: Charges at you and jumps at you, pain if not killed quickly, time your sword attack to deal with them.
Slimes: These split everytime they are hit, keep killing them to permenantly kill it
Plants: These dont move but shoot lots of projectiles, might wanna kill these fast depending on the room as they cover alot of ground
Stolas and Focalor: Two plant mini-bosses, as with the other mini-bosses just be agressive, drops lots of gold and a chest
Zombie: Appears out of the ground and hides when you are far away, moves slow easily killed
Eyes: shoots projectiles at you, easy to avoid but the stronger versions fire alot, target these first in higher level areas
Spikey projectile shooting things: Shoots projectiles just like the flaming skull heads, except they dont move, easily avoidable
Demon ninjas: these guys just run around and throw shurikens at you, easy to kill and avoid
McBones: Red Skeleton, same as any other throwing bone skeleton, he is red, he jumps and throws 3 bones at once, just charge him and kill his face
Traps
Spike ball: moves around the map and bounces of walls, easy to avoid
Spike trap: these things are littered all over the floor normally, if you run across them you are safe just dont stop! a certain trait makes it so you can run across them safely.
Bosses
The Castle: Khidr The Gatekeeper
This guy is a giant Eye that sits in the middle of the room with two platforms on the side, he doesnt not move. his attacks are just firing projectiles, the best way to deal with him is pick barbarian or hokage, you have two strategies here, either play barbarian and stand there smacking away at him and just FUS RO DAH when he fires projectiles your unable to avoid or play Hokage and nuke him as fast as possible while avoiding projectiles as best you can. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 40
Forest: Alexander The Forgotten
This guy is a giant flaming skull head that will fly around the room firing massive pink projectiles that moves up, down, left and right of the boss. He will chase you and spawn small flaming skull heads, this is a fight based on speed, you need to kill him and the adds as fast as possible as he will keep spawning adds which will eventually overwelm you. I defeated him by being very agressive as a hokage while hiting any additional adds near him, you want to be able to 1 or 2 shot his adds or i wouldnt bother fighting him. Barbarian is good on this too as FUS RO DAH will knock back all of the adds and also destroy all the projectiles. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 60
Tower: Ponce De Leon The Sentinel
This guy is a massive flaming sprite that will chase you around the room, he wil leave behind a fire trail you must avoid and there are spike balls all around the room. his attack is only his charge which you will know is coming because he will stop for a second to do it. The way i delt with him is using Half-Dragon, just fly around the room, avoid his fire and spike balls and shoot him over and over till he dies, pretty simple. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 80
Dungeon: Herodotus The Infinite
Hate slimes? well your gunna hate this guy, he has very little health but everytime you kill him he splits. he will do this many times and will spawn a green mage every time, there are spike traps on the floor too so you cant really stop much. The best tactic to beating him is split him once then only split one of the blobs over and over, do not split both of them as you will get overwelmed by the amount of slimes. Kill the mage each time too!. I did this by using a cheap tactic, i used half dragon and stayed at the top of the room only flying down to split once then back up, the fight took awhile but it was easy this way. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 100 OR Dragon Skill Cheap tactic
Upper Castle: Johannes The Traitor
Johannes is the first knight you play as, he will spam the hell out of daggers, axes and blade walls and will hit like a truck, he will mirror you and can dash too. To be honest the best way to do this is a giant hokage and a lot of luck, his melee hits hard and if you arnt giant then its very hard to avoid it, the boss has low hp but hits like a train, sometimes he goes complete BS mode and spams his attacks way too much which will kill you, id advise having at least 150+ HP to beat him. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 100/120
Upper Castle: The Fountain – Second Form
After killing Johannes it throws you into this boss fight, lots of mana and food drops so dont worry! The boss will spam aoe attacks and attempt to melee you, the swords it spawns go across horizontally and vertically across the screen, easy to avoid just stop to jump over them. His melee is exploitable so you can get plenty of hits in, once he is dead you have completed the game! congrats! RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 100/120
New Game+ Changes
In new game+ you earn 5 extra gold per coin (50 for bags and 250 for diamonds) and enemies are in the next form up and scaled higher in level. The only other addition is new blacksmith plans and runes can be found for stronger gear.
NG++ onwards just increases gold drops and upgrades enemies yet again.
How to change your hero/heroine names
You are able to name your heroes! go to your Rogue Legacy folder and then in the contents folder there are a heroname and heroinename txt file, open that and add names/replace names and they will appear in the game!
Thanks!
Thanks for reading! this is my 2nd guide ever, first being a Don’t Starve one, i worked really hard on them and if you liked them please like an favourite it! I will update it with pictures and more soon.