Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a beautiful application of a roguelike system with a 2D dungeon crawler format married perfectly to a town-building system and overworld that invites exploration and grinding gems to uncover more things to do outside of combat. This is a no-brainer for classic Zelda fans or anyone looking for co-op fun, and it’s absolutely been the best gaming experience so far for me in 2021.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a fantastic Zelda-inspired, procedurally-generated, action-adventure with one of the most rewarding gameplay loops I’ve seen in some time. It perfectly captures the styles of its inspirations, while carving its own legacy as a standout Roguelike. I honestly enjoyed every second of my time with Rogue Heroes and can’t wait to continue playing in the coming weeks.

Rogue Heroes is a little pleasant surprise. It's love for the games it references and the addictive game loop makes the game so enjoyable.

While sometimes skirting a bit close to the line between inspiration and clone, Rogue Heroes has a lot to love. If you have a few friends to take dungeon crawling with you, you will laugh together, you will loot together, and you will have to work as a team to succeed. My boys and I got a lot of enjoyment from playing Rogue Heroes, and I think most other players will do too.

Does the “Zeldalike” genre exist? If it does, Rogue Heroes would be the perfect example: easy to pick up, but deep and complex enough if you try to go for 100% completion, with a top-down perspective view, pixel-art graphics and a story that leads us to travel in a big, hostile open world. While it does not achieve the excellence of its mentor, it stands out for it interesting gameplay choices such as the village management and an open world-oriented approach. To be played on your own digging up one secret after another, or in chaotic runs with up to three friends. Some repetitive sections and a few glitches only partially cloud what is overall a satysfying experience.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos draws inspiration from some groundbreaking references when it comes to adventure games, and adds to them an extra level of challenge with a roguelite component. But while the simple gameplay, the world development possibilities and the co-op experience are indeed very welcome and well implemented, an overly simplistic plot, a lacklustre protagonist and redundant character development mechanics make this a game of limited appeal outside its narrowest target audience.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos really is a blast to play both alone and with friends. The world is exciting to explore, and players never know what is going to be tucked away in some random corner for them to discover. Sadly, in its current state there are so many issues that manage to bring the whole experience down very quickly. Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos needs to have many of its problems fixed before it will be accessible to the greater video game community.