Roguelikes, by and large, fit wonderfully into small windows of play, which means they are a perfect fit for mobile. Whether you have five, ten, or twenty minutes, a run can be as long or as short as needed. Of course, roguelikes are almost always brutally difficult, and runs are cut so short due to cumulative mistakes or simply ridiculous boss fights, not because the game is naturally short. The very thing that makes the roguelike genre fit on mobile so well?fast games?also hampers it simply because of the absence of the precise control a keyboard or controller provides. Of course, with the upcoming controller support in iOS 13 that will be somewhat mitigated, but it’s rather inconvenient to carry a controller in a back pocket.
Enter Rogue Legacy ($3.99), a rogue-lite with a very low tolerance for poor character control. Even with a number of quality of life changes, and some surprisingly good controls, this game is hard. It’s hard in other releases as well, but on screen controls simply cannot deliver the pinpoint control required, which makes the iOS experience even more challenging. Nevertheless, Rogue Legacy welcomes all comers for a quest to explore a cursed castle, beat bosses, and (maybe) figure out who the devil keeps writing all these journal entries.
Knowing how Rogue Legacy plays, and knowing the basic mechanics of the game, is fairly important for understanding why pinpoint control is so important. At its most basic, Rogue Legacy is a platforme...