Yeah I definitely think that the whole direct control of pals could be improved. I’d like to see something like holding a trigger to issue direct commands to your pal with face buttons. Would require rearranging the buttons a bit though.
It’s surprisingly entertaining, but you might want to wait until it leaves early access if you’re on the fence. It’s very buggy and there’s big aspects of the game that aren’t filled out yet.
That’s a good question, actually. I’ve played a fair bit of FTL and I do think it hews very close to the spirit of a true roguelike, since starting a game with the same ship is always the same experience. I do think meta unlocks change the way you play the game a bit, though, since you may target unlocks and achievements over victory. I’d ultimately put it on the “light” side, but I agree that the game skirts the line.
I haven’t played slay the spire, but I’m thinking of games like Binding of Isaac with a lot of unlocks, and I’d say that those change the game experience quite a bit depending on what you have unlocked.
It’s not really gatekeeping to say that not every game that features procedural generation is part of a very old and well-defined genre. Something like Rogue Legacy or Hades are pretty obviously not in the same genre as nethack, angband, or adom.
Roguelikes are a pretty specific genre of game that generally feature procedurally generated levels, permadeath, no meta progression, tile-based gameplay, hunger systems, randomized loot appearances, etc. Nethack is probably the best known example of a true roguelike.
Roguelights are a wide variety of games that feature some of the features of true roguelike but not all of them, most commonly procedural generation and permadeath, but most of them feature meta progression.
Honestly if you’ve ever played a true roguelike, the difference is immediately apparent. They’re usually not very similar at all. There’s just a very good chance that you’ve never played one, they’re not exactly wildly popular.
And just to stress: if a game features meta progression it is not a true roguelike. In true roguelikes, you start from zero every time.
That’s fine for people who are established, but unions are supposed to protect all members, especially the ones just getting started who don’t have as much bargaining power.