Do you enjoy puzzles, dungeons, combat-heavy class systems, town-building, and farming? Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos has a healthy footing with all of these.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a 1-4 co-op rogue-lite RPG adventure game with farming simulator elements that was developed by Heliocentric Studios. Although this two-person team worked on smaller projects for Xbox Live, in the past three years they have released two of their own games together on Steam. Rogue Heroes is their most significant project. Joshua Grump is the programmer and sound designer, and Brandon Weatherbee is the artist and level designer.

GRAPHICS 8.2/10

Rogue Heroes’ 16-bit pixel graphics look fantastic.

Each class has distinguishing features and each jump dash and blink is exceptionally animated. The world gives off “A Link to the Past” vibes and features frozen mountains, boggy swamps (that you can drown in if you aren’t carefully paying attention), and my favorite area, a volcanic region (which made me nostalgic for “The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons”). The overworld submerses you into a well-tied-together atmosphere. Each area has its unique type of terrain, enemies, and plant life. Abilities and spells appear nicely as well. Rogue Heroes’ dungeons are exciting at first but slowly become monotonous as the art style doesn’t change from the first dungeon to the last.

SOUND QUALITY 8.8/10

Sound quality is one of Rogue Heroes’ best features. The immersive music and sounds made me feel completely engaged in each area.

Everything has a specific sound. Each primary weapon has its own slashing sound whether you hit brush, boxes, enemies, or anything else. Enemies have their distinctive cry. Traps in dungeons have a neat sound. Every arrow shot, every bomb dropped, and every gem and pot falling from the sky all make stepping on a trap button worth it. Completing a dungeon was my favorite because of the mini techno beat during the victory screen. The score and sound effects are never disappointing.

GAMEPLAY 9/10

In Rogue Heroes, you aren’t merely a dungeon diver. There are eight different classes to choose from and each class-tree gives you a different play style. Rather than simply hacking at the enemy (even though that seemed to work best), there are some challenging runs for the more difficult and engaging classes. The mage and ranger have very low defense but are more agile. I did this playthrough as the knight which gave me maximum protection and maximum damage (a "quality build," if you will). As a knight, I could eat everything the enemies, traps, and bosses had to offer. Aside from classes, there is also a level-up system that provides additional abilities. You are also able to switch classes at your leisure. The main currency in the game is gems that are only obtainable by delving through replayable dungeons. Gold is another currency, but it’s only for opening locked chests. Gems give you the ability to build your town which is required to level up damage, health, stamina, tool damage, and buy other classes. There is a great deal of content packed into this game and it makes you want to max out everything so you can get through the infinity dungeon with unlimited floors.

CHARACTERS 7/10

The characters felt reasonably simple without story character building; most side character missions are completed early on and don’t seem to change anything. Most NPCs are shop and store owners, giving you goods, upgrades for gems, and unlocking threads for classes. As the main hero, you do not speak and there is no story for how you came to be. Each area has a seemingly important NPC, but they mean nothing after completing the dungeon as you progress. Each new location has an NPC that gives you an idea of what’s to come or what you need to do to provide headway into each area. NPCs fit their role and include the region that you are currently in.

STORY 6.7/10

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos' lowest point is the immersion of the story. The tale is rudimentary and uncomplicated. You are the hero of this quest, and you must defeat each boss in the dungeon to collect coins to unlock the final dungeon. You can altogether skip to the final dungeon due to a teleport pad that takes you directly to the final boss. I was disappointed because I expected challenging puzzles and dynamically powerful enemies inside the last dungeon leading up to the final boss. Yet the final dungeon is simply an infinite dungeon, and I understand why it’s crafted this way. The are sidequest fillers are in this game to progress further in each region, but you can complete them without doing certain overworld side quests. I never felt like I was saving anything or anyone, and it seemed like no one was ever worried about the looming evil of the final boss. The main story is relatively short and can be completed in only 7-8 hours.

OVERALL 7.9/10

If you want something focused mainly on dungeons, puzzles, and combat, this is the game for you. The sound is perfect and the gameplay is fantastic. I completed the game by only maxing out my damage. I was unstoppable. The characters don’t include much lore, and the story is a bit watered down. However, Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos will hook you with its combat system and you will stay for the never-ending dungeon. Although dungeons are the focus of this game and the farming is minuscule, I was impressed by this game’s extraordinary ability to implement this niche mechanic without making it the only thing to do in the game. Replaying this game solo doesn’t necessarily appeal to me, but I can see myself having a great time playing this game again with up to 3 friends and spelunking through the final dungeon.

All-in-all, this is a great game to play with friends and is an excellent dungeon crawler rogue-lite.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos was released February 23rd, 2021, and is now available on Steam for PC. The reviewer paid full price for this game.