Got the game because reminded me of old Zelda games and did not regret it.
#5 Pros:
*1- The boss fights were simple, but interesting.
*2- You can really customize your skills to any play style, for example, allocate points to be a "combat mage".
*3- Many hidden treasures and locations to find.
*4- Local coop/splitscreen.
*5- Nice pixel graphics.

#5 Cons:
*1- Online did not work for me. I understand there's a bug on it right now.
*2- The different classes skill does not add any difference to the gameplay. Basically defend with shield and attack with sword. Each class should have had more depth and additional unique skills.
*3- Village customization is very boring, for example: you can't turn around objects in your house. And you can only put few houses that will get blocked, even though you have spaces available.
*4- There are no "final items", like a better shield, sword, etc.
*5- Some classes need to be balanced, for example: the Reaper and Knight are OP, while Ranger and Witch are very weak.

This is a soft no; it's not a bad game, just... hollow. Maybe better in a multiplayer, or after some patches.

Mechanically, it's Link to the Past, complete with most of the subweapons. Hookshot, boomerang, bow, hammer, etc. It plays basically the same, if a bit less polished, with two core differences: The first being that the dungeons (not the overworld) are randomized from a collection of premade rooms, and the second being some lite RPG elements in the form of classes and upgrade paths. Those differences are also where it kind of falls short.

Exploring the overworld is pretty neat. It's a fairly big world with a lot of secrets and unlockable shortcuts. The problem is that exploration doesn't really mean anything. Unlike LttP, there are no heart pieces and precious few items to find. You can wander down a long and circuitous side path, through hidden caves, hookshotting across ravines, and at the end of it you open up a shortcut that you'll never use because there's no reason to go back there. With few exceptions the only items you find in the world are orbs that make you lose 0.1% less gems when you enter a dungeon. You can sequence break in certain places to reach late game areas early, but there's no reason to, because there's nothing to find there and any enemies will take 800 hits to kill.

That leads to issue #2, the RPG elements. You level up by spending gems, which are only found in the randomized dungeons. The abilities you upgrade aren't particularly interesting, just tiny incremental improvements to damage, attack speed, area of effect, etc. You're never excited to spend gems, you just play a dungeon until you die and then your numbers go up. Next time it's a little easier, but the experience is the same. All it really amounts to is when you go down a dungeon floor suddenly enemies will take ten times as many hits to kill. Not different enemies, mind you, the same enemies just with higher stats. Then you push as far as you can, die, and now those enemies are easier because your numbers went up. The game would play exactly the same if it didn't have rpg elements and enemies didn't arbitrarily get more HP, it would just be half as long.

Secondary to the RPG elements, there's townbuilding. You pay gems to construct buildings, which unlocks new shops or upgrade trees. And that's basically the end of townbuilding. Some new NPCs show up, they have a textbox. They don't have personalities and they don't do anything.

And lastly, there's the randomness. Dungeons are randomly generated in roguelike fashion. You can find temporary versions of the various weapons as well as temporary stat boosts, both of which last until you leave the dungeon (usually by dying). It starts out pretty neat, then after a few hours just kinda becomes tedious. In LttP, the various puzzle rooms gate progression. You have to figure out a room to get an item or advance to the next room, and then you are done with that room. In Tasos, puzzles give you sometimes keys, rarely stat boots, usually just gems. They benefit you to solve them, but they aren't usually necessary, and that becomes a problem when the pool of rooms it's pulling from is way too small. You see the same puzzles over and over, and you don't want to spend the time going through the motions to solve them again because it's tedious and you probably won't get anything useful. At the same time, the randomness means you might not see certain rooms that you _need to find_. To craft a shovel, you need to collect 8 rare drops from an enemy that only shows up in a _single room_ in the first dungeon, and that room isn't guaranteed to appear. If those enemies also show up in later dungeons I haven't found them, and in ten hours i only have half the items needed to craft an item that, near as i can tell, you're expected to have at the beginning of the game.

All in all, it's still pretty good as an LttP-style adventure game, but frustrating in that all the roguelike selling points honestly just make the game worse, rather than providing any interesting new dimension. Not unsalvageable, but it needs some hammering.

tl;dr: I spoke really highly about the game after playing the demo. Gifting multiple copies to friends upon release. With all the errors and rough online coop, I'm glad that I gifted the game as I'd feel guilty if I convinced other people to purchase a buggy game.

Online Coop is currently brutal. I only played local coop on the demo, but didn't expect all the issues online.

If any player views their inventory, every player gets a black screen that says "Another player has paused the game." This is brutal as an accidental spacebar hit goes black screen for everyone. The only menus that do not lock other players are shop-menus.

When any player talks or interacts with an object, the text pops up - which is fine. However, it also shows you the controls for what they're using, that being controller/keyboard. So if you're playing on the opposite, then you're going to get confused.

Sometimes, textboxes seem to get "stuck" on screen. If you get this error, die and get res'ed.

Another brutal error is that multiple players can use keys on keydoors within a decent window - resulting in not enough keys for the dungeon... had to reset.

I'm on the fence about "Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos." We bought it to play online co-op. For that, it's... OK. It's fun to play. But, it just feels like co-op was added as an afterthought. If you're more interested in the social experience of playing a casual co-op game, it'll be fine. But, if you want to really focus on the game with some friends, you might want to think about it. Single-player presents even more of a poser: you lose some of the fun, social aspect. But, you also lose some of the co-op specific game problems. After 37.8 hours of gameplay (having finished the main/side questlines and working on the last four "grinding" Achievements), I'll lean slightly negative and Not Recommend it. But, it's close.

• One of the biggest issues is that often the game will de-sync what each player sees: some players will see one thing, while the others will see something else.
  
• There's also a problem with internet stability and player presence in the game. A player can only enter the game at the start from the lobby. If their internet goes down, they'll find that they've been kicked from the game and can't re-enter. The host has to save and quit and then re-invite everyone.

• The most obvious issue with co-op gameplay is the top-down view. If the game were first person, everyone could wander freely. But, top-down restricts the scope. As the players move farther and farther apart, the screen zooms out as the game tries to fit everyone in. At some point, the game can't do that anymore, you won't be able to see everyone, you won't be able to move apart any more, and you'll have to blindly move towards each other until everyone's visible.
  
• If you change rooms or areas, the whole team gets dragged over to it. In one case, one of our members fell into the ocean where there was no way to return to land. It was also at an area transition zone. So, the rest of us got dragged in and we all swam around until we died.
  
• In dungeons, if someone dies, the other team members can carry their bones to a resurrection statue to be resuscitated. If you're wandering the wilderness and someone dies, there's a problem. If you're near a transporter, you can transport someplace and the person will be revived. But, if you're not, there's no place to take their bones to be resurrected. The team has to choose whether they should trek back to town or leave that person as a ghost as they continue playing. They really need a Cleric type of class (or just a healing/resurrect) spell in the game.
  
• Menus are literal game stoppers. If anyone enters any kind of menu (even inventory), gameplay pauses and the other players are presented with a black screen saying someone's entered a menu. This really puts a damper on things as no one wants to look at a map, their inventory, their equipment, the Bestiary, or anything else because everyone else gets stopped while they do so.
  
• If someone talks to an NPC, everything else gets interrupted to watch the dialog go by. So, anyone trying to buy anything from a shopkeeper gets kicked out of that function if someone accidentally talks to the shopkeeper.
  
• The loot system varies in how it handles co-op. Health, gold and gems seem to get distributed across everyone equally. But, magic and other items seem to go to whoever picks them up. Usually, it works well. But, sometimes you wonder who's going to get what. For instance, we're still unsure if things like an "x% increase in tool use" pickup applies to the person who opened the chest or to everyone in the party.

• Finishing all four dungeons doesn't finish the main quest. You still have to enter the Eternal Dungeon, enter the transporter in the lobby, and defeat the four bosses. THAT finishes the quest. That "arena" needs to be put in its own location with a quest marker pointing to it.
  
• There are two currencies in the game. At the "wilderness" level, you find gold. But, you buy everything with gems. In the dungeons, you find gems. But, you "buy" everything with gold. There's no point in this. One currency should be able to do the job. Multiple currencies shouldn't be used as gatekeepers to tasks/abilities.
  
• There are unfinished/inaccessible areas in the game. In the northeast corner, you can get to Hilltop Mines, but there's no way to enter them. A bit to the west, there's an area of clouds that you can fully explore, but the cloud cover doesn't clear. On the east side of the map, just below the center line, there's an area of clouds with two question marks in it, with no way to access it. And, over in the southwest corner, there's a crab/skull rock that you finish a quest to get access to which contains nothing but an "Under Construction" sign.
  
• In the northeast corner of the map, there are invisible walls.
  
• At some point, you get a wand that's supposed to let you see the world as it really is. It puts purple sparkles around the view. But, as far as I can tell, it's only useful for one thing near where you get it.
  
• In the 4th dungeon, the trap triggers on the floor are so similar in color to the rest of the floor that you can't tell they're there. In one room, we had to trigger those to give us access to some areas and we couldn't find them. We finally found them by accident.
  
• In the dungeons, you can get a dungeon map. But, outside of the layout of the dungeon, it shows nothing useful. It should at least show the resurrection statues. Of course, even without finding/buying the map, once you find a resurrection statue, it should show on your mini-map until it gets used up.
  
• There are several digging areas that just don't work. Trying to dig where "x marks the spot" just plays a "boink" sound. Sometimes you can work around this by digging around the "x." But, not always. This is an Achievement buster (see the following).
  
• The 100 power spheres that you're supposed to find for an Achievement are nothing but a make-work pain. They let you keep more of your gems when you enter a dungeon. But, 1) why does a dungeon take the gems in the first place?, 2) at most you'll only ever be able to keep 25% of those gems, and 3) keeping more gems would only be useful in the very early part of the game (where you won't have any power spheres to speak of). They could be used as a reward for exploring the map. But, my map is fully explored and I've been spending hours trying to hunt down power spheres that are either impossible to find or can't be dug up in the first place.
  
• Why is there a "powerful glove" AND a hammer? Except for a few specific items, they're mostly interchangeable.
  
• The map doesn't default to zooming in on the character. Instead, it zooms in on the town.
  
• The giant frog is cute, but it's basically just a pain to use. You have to switch to the "call," use it, wait for the frog to appear and, hopefully, pick you up.
  
• To explore the Overgrowth (lava) area, you need a compass. But, I never noticed any difference between having the compass and not having it. Regardless, once you have it, it ought to do something useful. It could point to the nearest collectible.
  
• Swimming (which is upgradeable) seems to be useless. AFAIK, it's used solely for getting to three chests.
  
• Several characters have the ability to "fly." Yet, they can't use that ability to cross broken bridges or move over tiny obstacles.
  
• There's an Achievement associated with catching three Legendary fish. Two of them are in areas marked by jumping fish (which are supposed to mark areas where more rare fish are). But, the 3rd one is in an unmarked area.
  
• To use a potion, you have to go into your inventory and select which potion will be displayed. You have one potion slot that shows. When you use that potion, the slot doesn't show the next available potion.

This game is WAY BETTER than it has any right to be. This takes Link to the past, Stardew valley, and Crosscode, then drops them into a blender and forces them to make love as they splash into a beautiful new amalgamation. Is it a triple A game? Nope. Is it smooth and responsive? Yes! Is it a roguelike? Barely-- Its closer to an rpg that has respawns than a rogue IMO.

Has:
Combat
-Magic (Find spell "runes" while exploring to equip a new spell and spend mana)
-Swords (Everyone gets one! fast and consumes active stamina)
-Bows (Bows are chunky, slow, and satisfying!)
-Hookshot, hit-them-with-a-book, punch them with gloves, etc.
Exploration
-Zelda style overworld
-Quests and puzzles
-Nooks and Crannies
-Tons of environmental challenges
-Swim around inside frog mouth!
Village
-Farming
-Fishing
-NPC quests
-Pay the carpenter to build houses, workshops, etc
-Minigames!
Progression
-Dungeon currency (gems) is used for upgrades, which you get from going into a dungeon. You drop all gems when you enter a new dungeon, so try to spend em all.
-Gold is used for consumables as you unlock things.
-Exploration will earn you things like the power gloves and farmtools, but unlocking most things is a quest or dungeon reward. While in a dungeon, you can get temporary versions of things.

Doesn't have:
Microtransactions
Romance
Easy difficulty (Only normal, hard, and extreme IIRC)


Overall, while still a teensy bit janky and derpy, its a loving homage to Link to The Past and is honestly fantastic. 8.5/10.

I really wanted to like this game. This is a cute multiplayer copy of the older Zelda games, and honestly exactly what I would want if it weren't for the game breaking bugs, specifically, one MAJOR bug. Unfortunately, this bug make it a chore to play and after over a year I've lost hope they will ever fix it.

I will preface by saying I have only played this game in multiplayer, so I don't know if this bug exist in singleplayer. However, I bought this game purely for its multiplayer function, since well, I could just play The Legend of Zelda if I wanted a singleplayer game like this.

Now onto the actual bug:
At multiple locations where you exit a room back into the overworld (ex. exiting a cave), you get teleported to the corner of the map. This softlocks you since you end up either walking on the water out of bounds or in the snow biome, where you don't have the necessary gear to get out of said biome because you weren't supposed to be there yet. This does not happen at every room exit but it is completely repeatable at the exits where it does happen. I'm astonished this has not been fixed since it is completely game breaking and you will encounter this bug even if you are just going through the main story line - i.e. no exploring hidden paths, no checking the cracks etc.

I waited over a year to buy it hoping they would fix this bug. Alas, I am greatly disappointed.

Yes, I'd recommend, hesitantly, though. See, the game itself is a decent little Zelda wannabe. The art style is pleasant. The music isn't anything special, but it's not bad. It's... Just kinda there. And that's the biggest problem I have with the game. There's a lot of really half-baked ideas that are just... There. Not sure if this was a kickstarter game, but the game reeks of someone lazily including promised features in the most bare-bones way possible. There are several classes with very minor differences, they all play essentially the same. There's a weather system and day/night cycle that doesn't seem to actually affect anything. None of the NPCs even acknowledge it. There's a farming system which is extremely generic (rainy weather doesn't even water your crops!) and it's pretty much a waste of time, as all you get for doing it is gold, which has almost no uses. There's a fishing system, but really nothing to do with the fish you catch aside from put them in a fish tank. The potion makers interface seems to hint that there was a system to brew potions from different ingredients, but you have all the recipes from the beginning and it doesn't let you experiment. There are odd and unique rocks spread around the overworld. There's also someone in town who is clearly into rocks, as his whole house is covered in them. I *thought* there might be a connection between the two, so I bring one of the special rocks to him. He doesn't care. There's a tavern that just kinda sits there. The tavern owner acts like he might give you quests. He doesn't. There are 2 currencies, gold, which is ONLY used for opening chests and buying a couple items from a random vendor in dungeons, and gems, which buy all your upgrades. You can only find gems in dungeons, so exploring the overworld feels like a waste of time. For some reason, the game takes away all your gems when you enter a dungeon. The only real collectible item are these 100 orbs that let you keep a small percentage of your gems when you enter a dungeon, which is practically useless, as the amount they let you keep is negligible even if you collect all of them, and you're probably spending all your gems on upgrades before you enter, anyhow. So it's not a bad game, really, it's just frustrating to see all these half-assed features that clearly didn't get the time, thought, and effort they needed.

I purchased this game to play with my daughters (8 & 11) as 3 player couch co-op. We are loving it! Highly recommend if you want a dungeon crawler to play with young ones. Every time my girls read "Tasos" we say Tacos and laugh!
The progression is great and the keeps us coming back for more.

When i first played this game i was confused why it was only at 78% positive reviews on steam. After a little more time with the game i understand but will still cautiously recommend this game. The first 6-8 hours of gameplay in this game are really good. It is retro zelda gameplay, with a big overworld and dungeons to explore. After a death (or victory) in the dungeon you get to upgrade your town and yourself. There are new characters and tools to be acquired and a bunch of sidequests and secrets to hunt down if you are tired of the dungeon gameplay. And it even has multiplayer, what is there not to like?

Well the game is extremly shallow at times and feels kinda unfinished.
After a while the dungeons get really boring because neither the puzzles nor the fights provide a real challenge.
The differences between the character classes are too small for them to be considered character classes.
A lot of items and tools are used only a couple times, almost as if the developers forgot about them.
Gardening and fishing really serves no purpose as there is no depth to it.
There are plenty of softlocks and out-of-bounds glitches all over the game.
One achievement is currently impossible to complete and is glitched since May of last year.
Neither keyboard and mouse nor playing with a controller feels very good, selecting items is a hassle as there are just too many and the quick-select options are mediocre at best.

Despite all that the game is just fun to play, you go into a dungeon and mindlessly kill a bunch of enemies and solve some puzzles for an hour and it is a good time.

At the time of this review the developers are working on a big patch that should solve a lot of the issues the game currently has. (at the moment you can play a test-version of the upcoming patch)

My Playtime: 29.5h (100% achievement, finished the game)
My First Playthrough:
Grindy Achievement(s): No (some might be grindy depending on your playstyle).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (34 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a top-down action-adventure game that can be played by up to 4 players in both local co-op and online co-op. It offers 4 main dungeons and several smaller ones, with the main dungeons being randomly generated each run. That being said, the game is completely playable solo, and this review will be based on that.

Pros:
- 4+ dungeons, with the main dungeons being randomly generated each run
- Infinite dungeons for those who want to keep on playing after finishing all contents
- A lot of things to do: side quests, secret areas, and others

Cons:
- Grinding might be needed to progress at the beginning
- Exiting the game equals dying; your last location won't be saved
- Unable to zoom the map fully

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

Yes.
If you like top-down Zelda-like games and don't mind a bit of grind, buy this game.

---

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos uses pixelated visuals in a top-down view. The layout looks similar to The Legend of Zelda games with their rocky cliffs, square-shaped dungeon interiors with bricks, and other objects such as bushes, pots, and rocks, although it still tries to make them look different. The map size is bigger, for example, with more bushes that you can swipe in between. Moreover, the tileset is also changed based on the terrain, modifying all of the objects to match it. The enemies also try to follow suit with their recolor versions despite being treated as the same enemies.

The story is only told at the beginning. However, it can be hard to follow since the game auto-advances the dialogues. Luckily, it only serves as a premise to the game - you won't miss anything if you don't know about it, especially since there is nothing more to the story even after you finished the game.

Gameplay
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is an action-adventure game at its core. You have an overworld that you can explore with your trusty sword, which you can use to kill the enemies. Killed enemies won't respawn until you reenter the area, making it easy to mark explored spots. The game is pretty much linear - you might have some optional areas to explore, but most areas are only accessible until you progress the game.

Enemies have different attack patterns, and it's your job to figure out how to beat them. Learning how to kill some enemies without taking damage might seem tough at first, but most of them will be easy to beat once you know what to do. If you are still having trouble, you can upgrade your stats to kill most of them in 1 hit.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412359716

Upgrades need to be purchased. Unlike Zelda-like games that allow you to power up by finding items, you need to have enough gems to purchase a stat increase instead. This forces you to grind if you are not good enough, although this also means that you can cheese most bosses as long as you are willing to grind. On the other hand, I like seeing the town getting upgraded after you purchased some building upgrades.

Dungeons
As I said before, the main dungeons are randomly generated. Both layout and traps changed each run, and puzzles might need to be solved differently based on your starting location. Moreover, there are a lot of rooms available in the mix, making each run feel different. You need to redo each dungeon several times just to find all rooms that the dungeon has to offer, and playing the game after knowing all rooms isn't going to bore you out since there are still some slight randomizations in the rooms, whether it's from the enemies or the exploration to search for the area exit.

The game seems to not know how many keys you need. Clearing a room will net you some reward, which often has a key that can be used to unlock a door. However, I always find myself having more keys that I can use. This might seem to be done as a precaution in case people can't solve some of the puzzles that have the keys as a reward, but I just find it weird that you don't have to explore every room to finish the dungeon because of the spare keys.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2795230826

You need to restart the dungeon from the beginning if you die. Since dungeons are randomized, it's obvious that you can't pick up from where you left off. However, dying in a dungeon will allow you to keep your gems, which can be used to purchase upgrades to make you stronger. The same gems can also be kept if you manage to finish the dungeon, although it might be hard to do without investing a few upgrades beforehand.

You won't be able to keep your earned gems if you enter the dungeon. This seems to be one of the "roguelike" aspects that the game has. You need to use them all before you enter each dungeon, or risk losing them. To be honest, I find this feature to be useless - it just forces you to use all gems before entering a dungeon. Losing 400 gems won't matter if you can get 10k gems afterward.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2923228487

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 29.5h. The game can be finished faster if you just rushed both dungeons and enemies. It also has a lot of things that you can do: there are side quests to complete, secret areas to explore, bestiary to finish, and many more. As for the difficulty, the game isn't hard as long as you are willing to grind. Some puzzles in the dungeons might take some time to figure out, but most of them are simple enough. If you are stuck on some, there are a lot of spare keys that you can use - you are not forced to complete every room in the dungeon to finish it.

Issues
I got soft-locked when I tried to do the endless dungeon, forcing me to abandon my run to exit from the area. Moreover, you can't save inside the dungeon. Loading your save will also respawn you to your home, which makes it feel as if you are dying. This prevents people from playing the game in short sessions. Lastly, the map still looks blurry when zoomed to the max, making it hard to figure out everything.

Despite its roguelike tag, Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos doesn't feel like a roguelike at all. All it takes from that genre is the randomly generated dungeon with some upgrades in between. Your currency might be reset upon entering a dungeon, but you can always use them before entering. You might have to reset the dungeon from the beginning, but the game offers a shortcut to go directly to both the second and third floors once you manage to reach and unlock them. The game will try to make everything accessible no matter what, allowing you to finish the game as long as you don't mind grinding if you suck at it.

The game feels more like a solid Zelda-like game with some additional features. You can fish, expand your village, plant crops - there are a lot of optional elements, which don't take time to finish. You only need to spend a few minutes at most, allowing you to focus on the action-adventure elements. Exploration might feel unrewarding since it will only offer you collectibles that don't help much with the game, but it's still fun to do if you like to explore everything to its fullest. If you enjoy Zelda-like games and don't mind having to focus on upgrades instead of finding secret collectibles, make sure to buy this game.