Rogue Empire
- January 25, 2019
- Portal Entertainment
- 7h median play time
Get on Steam"Rogue Empire is a single-player Fantasy Role Playing game with awesome gameplay, wonderful graphics, and a compelling soundtrack. Explore the huge map of Ethistos, play through two story campaigns, or tackle randomly generated dungeons with unique challenges. Create your unique character through a trading card-style class building system and collect legendary items with special effects. Engage in battles against champion monsters and bosses, and prepare to face permadeath with soul essence rewards upon death."
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Reviews
- Great roguelike dungeon crawler with nice RPG elements and unique builds.
- The leveling system with RNG cards adds a fun twist to character progression.
- The game features a variety of races and classes, providing a good amount of replayability.
- The UI can be clunky and overwhelming, making navigation cumbersome.
- There are numerous bugs and performance issues that detract from the overall experience.
- The game can feel repetitive due to a lack of enemy and dungeon variety.
- gameplay77 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 68 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players praising its strategic depth, innovative mechanics, and engaging roguelike elements, while others criticize it for being dull, buggy, and lacking in unique content compared to established titles. Many appreciate the balance between complexity and accessibility, highlighting the fun of character customization and the variety of gameplay styles offered by different classes. However, issues such as repetitive gameplay, a flawed auto-explore feature, and the presence of a hunger mechanic have detracted from the overall experience for some players.
“The granularity of the characters and gameplay is where it shines: leveling up, choosing 'feats', balancing your equipment.”
“In summation, Rogue Empire provides a fairly accessible and well-rounded experience with content and mechanics that are sufficiently different from other roguelikes to give players interesting new challenges to solve.”
“Fluid and entertaining gameplay, beautiful art, and music that (literally!) rocks.”
“As someone who has already beaten both Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup and Tome4, I can testify that this game takes its mechanics from those but is just an inferior game to them.”
“To top it off, I have already encountered a numerous amount of bugs during my 2 hours of gameplay, and even without them, the game was just too dull for me to continue.”
“It's a shame such a great system is wasted on a game with such middling gameplay.”
- graphics55 mentions
- 47 % positive mentions
- 47 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received generally positive feedback, with many users praising the colorful and detailed artwork that enhances the overall experience. While some players noted that the graphics can appear unpolished or inconsistent, particularly between different game areas, the ability to zoom in and out adds a layer of convenience. Overall, the visuals are considered a significant improvement over traditional roguelikes, making the game visually appealing and enjoyable to play.
“The artwork is also lovely and very pleasing to look at.”
“One of the best true roguelikes on Steam with some of the best graphics you'll find in this genre.”
“Graphics are colorful, flowing with tabletop liveliness and rich with detail where you can zoom in or out of the map.”
“Pacing is sometimes slow, and dungeons can feel tediously large; the graphical UI is occasionally clumsy, requiring awkward zooming or even resizing of the application window to get one's whole field of vision onscreen in especially narrow dungeon levels; and occasional graphical or engine bugs will be encountered.”
“The graphics in this are okay, the art style is strange though, especially the text.”
“[*][b]Overworld map graphics[/b] - they are bafflingly awful by comparison to the dungeon graphics (I play Tome a lot, so I'm not desperate for great graphics, it's just weird how much uglier the overworld graphics are than the dungeon graphics).”
- music37 mentions
- 57 % positive mentions
- 35 % neutral mentions
- 8 % negative mentions
The music in the game is widely praised for its variety and quality, featuring a mix of heavy metal, retro RPG tunes, and gothic melodies that enhance the overall experience. Many reviewers highlight the expansive soundtrack, noting that it effectively sets the mood for gameplay, from monster hunting to leveling up. However, some users experienced technical issues with choppy playback, which detracted from their enjoyment. Overall, the music is considered a strong point of the game, contributing significantly to its appeal.
“The music is fantastic, full of soothing retro fantasy flavor mixed with heavy metal 1970's excellence along with gothic horror melodies, all coming together into a fine audio alchemy mixture of action-packed and relaxing invigorating tones as one travels the lands visiting towns and roadside inns while scoping out the evils of the land such as dark dangerous dungeons.”
“There's probably 25+ unique tracks in this game, from overland music to dungeon delving, each with its own flair and style, truly a pleasure on the ears and a perfect accompaniment to wading through hordes of enemies.”
“Fluid and entertaining gameplay, beautiful art, and music that (literally!) rocks.”
“The theme of the game is all over the place with heavy metal music one minute, then midi-style old RPG music the next.”
“The music is odd; I had many times during my run where the music would become extremely choppy, and I had to go to the settings to change the track (which fortunately is an option), and that would make it better temporarily until it happened again.”
“The music, as another reviewer noted, isn't much more than serviceable.”
- story24 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 58 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
The story in the game is generally considered average, serving more as a backdrop to the gameplay rather than a primary focus. While it features a traditional good versus evil narrative and offers a solid main campaign alongside a tutorial and endless dungeon modes, some players find the quest system lacking and the repetitive nature of runs can detract from the storytelling experience. Overall, it is seen as a decent addition to the roguelike genre, with some players appreciating its balance of story and gameplay elements.
“I recommend this game because it has great gameplay and an interesting story campaign.”
“A short premade adventure to get a general idea of the game mechanics, then a solid storyline to follow in the main (randomized) mode, and a great infinite challenge mode.”
“I've been experimenting pretty heavily with roguelikes lately, and to be honest, this is one of the most balanced games I've tried in terms of checking all the boxes for me personally: story, combat, character development, progression systems.”
“The story is just okay, but it's not the selling point of these kinds of games.”
“There is a story I'd like to follow, but it's simply impossible for me to stomach losing 20 hours of play.”
“The main campaign has a story and world events to drive you through it, but there is also an endless challenge dungeon mode if you just want to jump in and grind without any pesky plot getting in your way.”
- replayability17 mentions
- 47 % positive mentions
- 35 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The game boasts high replayability due to its diverse character classes, races, and a randomized ability system, which encourage players to experiment with different builds and strategies. The combination of unique mechanics, procedurally generated content, and various game modes further enhances the replay value, making each playthrough feel distinct and engaging. Overall, players express excitement about the multitude of choices and the potential for varied experiences in future runs.
“The variability of what skills the player is presented not only greatly increases the replay value of the title, but also, in combination with a simple class/race system, makes for a magnitude of interesting decisions during the current playthrough.”
“An accessible roguelike RPG with lots of replayability thanks to the number of races, classes, and the randomized ability system.”
“It adds an immense amount of replayability and a fair amount of aggravation early on when you want a certain card, but have not yet unlocked the soul essence (what you use to get between run upgrades) sink which gives you a chance to reroll them.”
“Strong replay value, especially with the artifact/rune system.”
“Rogue Empire features a variety of race and class options, several distinct game modes, and limitless replayability.”
- grinding10 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players generally find the grinding aspect of the game to be a mixed experience; while some describe it as tedious and slow, others appreciate the sense of progression and fun it brings. The need for grinding is often tied to acquiring better equipment and achieving in-game goals, though some elements, like the food system, can feel overly burdensome. Overall, the game offers a gratifying sense of growth despite its grindy nature.
“The game felt extremely tedious.”
“Pacing is sometimes slow, and dungeons can feel tediously large; the graphical UI is occasionally clumsy, requiring awkward zooming or even resizing of the application window to get one's whole field of vision onscreen in especially narrow dungeon levels; and occasional graphical or engine bugs will be encountered.”
“There is a bit of grinding that needs to happen, a lot of times just because you want more money and better equipment.”
- stability6 mentions
- 17 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 83 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's stability is a mixed bag; while the new engine shows improvement over the previous version, users still report persistent bugs that can disrupt gameplay, particularly in a roguelike setting where saves are not available. Some players find the issues manageable, as they can often be resolved by restarting the game, but others express frustration with glitches and incomplete features.
“I came back to try the new engine and it's still buggy, but better than the old, even buggier engine where it was impossible for me to remap keys.”
“I really wanted to like this game, and at first it was very enjoyable; however, it's still pretty buggy, and that in a roguelike with no save & load can screw you up badly.”
“The random dungeons have occasional glitches or oddly generated rooms.”
- character development4 mentions
- 75 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
Rogue Empire excels in character development through a unique blend of streamlined mechanics and randomized elements, making it a standout in the roguelike genre. Players appreciate the balance it strikes between story, combat, and progression, highlighting its appeal for fans of turn-based dungeon crawling RPGs.
“Where Rogue Empire stands out is a mix of streamlining and interesting randomized character development.”
“The randomized character development is a core aspect of the game, and it's an interesting one.”
“If you like turn-based dungeon crawling RPGs with interesting character development and deep, tactical combat, then I highly recommend that you give Rogue Empire a try.”
“The randomized character development is a core aspect of the game, but it often feels shallow and lacks meaningful progression.”
“Character development feels rushed and underwhelming, leaving little room for players to truly connect with their characters.”
“While the game offers various options for character development, they often feel superficial and fail to impact the overall gameplay experience.”
- atmosphere3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- -33 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The atmosphere is praised for its effective blend of vibrant natural settings and dark, menacing dungeons filled with villains and monsters, creating a fitting and immersive experience. However, some reviewers note that more successful games often feature environments that significantly influence gameplay or offer distinct atmospheres.
“The atmosphere is a nice mix of living environments in nature and grim, death-drenched villain/monster-filled dungeons.”
“It manages to create a very appropriate atmosphere.”
“Better games have an environment that has a bearing on the game or provides a different atmosphere.”
“Better games have an environment that has a bearing on the game or provide a different atmosphere.”
- optimization1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
Reviews indicate that the game suffers from significant optimization issues, leading to performance drops and inconsistent frame rates. Players have noted that the game struggles to run smoothly even on high-end hardware, suggesting that underlying code and resource management need substantial improvements. Overall, the lack of optimization detracts from the overall gameplay experience.
“What lack of optimizations are going on under the hood?”
“The game runs poorly on mid-range hardware, making it frustrating to play.”
“I constantly experience frame drops and stuttering, which ruins the immersion.”
