When comparing Retro Rogue vs Nethack, the Slant community recommends Nethack for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes on Android?” Nethack is ranked 17th while Retro Rogue is ranked 54th. The most important reason people chose Nethack is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Simple gameplay for newcomers to the roguelike genre
For those that are new to the genre Retro Rogue is a good game to play to get their feet wet and learn the mechanics.
Pro Slider for graphics to emulate look of playing on a CRT
There is an option in game to allow an effect on the graphics that makes the game look as if it is being played on a CRT.
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 Depth
The gameplay is very deep due to the amount of skills and systems present in the game.
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.
Cons
Con Not a free software
There are some libre alternatives.
Con Not much replay value
Once one has beaten the game, there is not much incentive to play again.
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Con Outdated controls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.