When comparing Nethack vs Rogue Legacy, the Slant community recommends Nethack for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes/roguelites on PC?” Nethack is ranked 16th while Rogue Legacy is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Nethack is:
The gameplay is very deep due to the amount of skills and systems present in the game.
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Pros
Pro Depth
The gameplay is very deep due to the amount of skills and systems present in the game.
Pro Potential for enormous skill growth
Nethack is a game that you can play for hundreds of hours and still not master. But you'll have tons of fun attempting to master it.
Pro Over two decades of constant development
Nethack was first released in 1987. The latest version, 3.6.0, came out in December 2015.
Pro ASCII and tiles available
Nethack is able to run on simple ASCII graphics or use graphic tiles instead.
Pro Lineage affects gameplay in an interesting way
Rogue Legacy has an interesting mechanic where each play-through is with a new descendant from the previous character, and they each have various traits and disabilities they inherit that effect how they play.
Pro Tons of replayability through procedurally generated levels
Rogue Legacy has procedurally generated levels, which means every time a player restarts the game it will be a different experience that plays out making for a ton of replayability.
Pro You don't lose purchased loot
The upgrade system in Rogue Legacy works by spending the money you gained in the last level (you lose all your money when you start a new one), with upgrades passing down through generations by being either upgrades to the family manor, or family heirlooms. This way even when the player dies (which happens a lot) the player will not loose their purchased items allowing them to continue without starting completely over.
Pro Lots of upgrades to buy
The upgrade system in Rogue Legacy works by spending the money you gained in the last level (you lose all your money when you start a new one), with upgrades passing down through generations by being either upgrades to the family manor, or family heirlooms.
Cons
Con Burden of knowledge
There's simply too much information that the game expects you to know before you can properly take advantage of the systems in the game.
Con Feature creep
NetHack has an overwhelming amount of features mostly because the development team found them cool at the time, but with little thought of their greater impact. For example, a Nethack staple is Sokoban as a built-in minigame, which feels out of place in a dungeon crawler.
The extremely large amount of items and abilities break the game's balance and coherence.
Con Outdated controls
You need to study a wiki just to learn the most basic controls. The game is broken in this regard.
Con ASCII Art
Con Run of the mill story
The story of the game is pretty generic fantasy fare. It features orcs, elves, and trolls in an effort for the hero to save the world. While it does not detract from the gameplay, it does seem very familiar to those interested in the genre.
Con Repetitive gameplay
Upgraded monsters are just palette shifts of old monsters that throw more projectiles. Even with the upgrade tree and armor/runes, the game always feels the same.