I don’t know if it’s my favourite, but Crypt of the Necrodancer is a roguelike/lite is one I still play at least once a week since I bought it in 2017, and it’s not one I see mentioned that often.

I never gravitate towards roguelikes tbh, but I ADORE rhythm games. Necrodancer really hooked me in with it’s variation on the rhythm gameplay loop, adding complexity that doesn’t seem arbitrary or frustratingly difficult (at least to me). Playing through the game with the different characters you unlock has yet to get boring after almost 6 years.

And of course, the absolute BANGER of a soundtrack helps a lot (thank you Danny Baranowsky and team). The remixed Zelda soundtrack they did for Cadence of Hyrule is also amazing, and I would sell every organ I have to be one of the 20 people with a vinyl press of it.

I’ve played the other roguelikes everyone likes (Slay the Spire, Gungeon, Isaac, Hades, etc) but nothing has really stuck to me as much as vanilla Necrodancer.

I have been playing UnderMine. The game plays a lot like The Binding of Isaac, but has a few differences like the meta profession after every run where you can unlock new upgrades and you can rescue people inside the mine that are vendors and the like.

The game scratched an inch I had for a new roguelite since I haven't played one in awhile.

My top picks are Synthetik, Dead Cells and Nova Drift

Is Remnant 2 a roguelike? Pretty sure it is.

Fantastic game, played it a fair bit since launch so I know most of the encounters in the N'Erud place, so I join random players in the other areas hoping to learn those encounters and get some sweet, sweet plunder.

My only contribution to this conversation is that not only does steam seem to have no fucking clue what a rogue like is, but that it certainly can't tell the difference between the two. So many games are in both of those lists, and many more shouldn't have the tag. Which sucks cuz I own most of the ACTUAL rogue-likes/lites on steam and am still looking for more

Hades is potentially my favourite game of all time. For me to absolutely nails this style of game by perfectly weaving in a compelling narrative to the rogue mechanic. It's also gorgeous with the most ridiculously tight gameplay.

Honourable mention to Enter the Gungeon, haven't seen that mentioned yet. Very fun game.

I haven’t really liked any Roguelikes, and that includes all-star Hades.

It mostly just feels like repeating the same thing. In some cases, eventually and with much skill you can gather a build that actually changes the dynamics of the game a bit - but until then, it usually just functions as a brutally hard version of some genre you’d normally enjoy, where every little mistake you’d shrug off now becomes a long-term debilitation you have to worry about.

Hades’ assist modes weren’t even giving progress fast enough - it requires you to die many times before giving you anything that might actually improve your odds at any of the boss fights.

So far, the only Roguelike I’ve enjoyed is Backpack Hero. It’s on the easier side, and plays very much in promotion of getting you your OP build options with relatively little time spent.

I think most of the games I've liked lately are roguelites:

• Bullets Per Minute
• Crypt of the Necrodancer
• Plate-Up
• Unrailed
• Noita
• Risk of Rain 2

Except for BPM and Noita, I'd recommend all of these as excellent coop games too. Here are some summary descriptions:

Bullets Per Minute:

• first-person shooter dungeon crawler
• awesome rock soundtrack with a steady beat
• you have to shoot and reload to the beat

Crypt of the Necrodancer:

• top-down 2d dungeon crawler
• awesome electronic soundtrack with a steady beat
• you have to attack and move to the beat

Plate-Up:

• top-down 2d restaurant simulator
• episodic gameplay where you try to make it through each day by serving all the customers
• if any customer waits too long, you lose
• inevitably gets crazy and chaotic, perfect for a group looking for a hectic and fun coop game
• devs are based, epic mod support

Unrailed:

• top-down 2d rail-building game
• you start with a train on some rails, with the train always moving forwards
• the goal is to continuously place rails in front of the train, otherwise you lose
• similarly to Plate-Up, incredibly chaotic energy, very fun

Noita:

• sidescrolling dungeon crawler
• you mainly fight enemies using wands and spells
• wands on their own are effectively just a bunch of empty slots; you decide which spells go in them, and in which order
• this may or may not eventually result in game-breaking shenanigans (or suicidal shenanigans, or both)
• there are a lot of secrets. like the entire game is a meta-narrative about discovering secrets. question everything.
• you will die. a lot. half the time to your own wacky spells. this is the way.

Risk of Rain 2:

• 3rd-person shooter (some characters are primarily melee, but whatever lol)
• game consists of a series of stages, each of which has a bunch of enemies, a bunch of chests with items, and a boss you must defeat to progress further
• also has a decent few secrets. Not on the same scale as Noita, but still quite a few

I've been having a lot of fun in Halls of Torment lately. The updates and patch notes are promising for an early access game.

Then I play a TON of Slay the Spire.

Hades is probably one of my most played ones of recent time.

This has become one of my favourite genres and I own a good number of them.

I’d like to mention Dreamscaper and One Step from Eden as notable ones.

Monster Train as well because of how unique it is.

No Rogue Legacy love? I played the heck out of that one on both PC and PS4. The 2nd one is good as well, but it hasn't grabbed me quite like the first.

I love roguelites and the genre melding you can do with them. I've been searching for one that competes with Risk of Rain 2 for me. I've played all the big ones but none have had the same staying power.

The biggest bummer for me is Dead Cells. For most of the run, I slaughter. First two original bosses I can pretty consistently no-hit. Then I get to the hand of the king and die in about 5 seconds every. Single. Time. It's 100% a skill issue but I feel it just asks so much of me compared to the rest of the game on the same difficulty, and I'm only on boss cell 1. I've even gone I to the training mode vs him and his tells paired with my time to respond just have not clicked.

There's also Enter the Gungeon. I also have struggled with it but actively plan to get back into it to work through it.

Lastly, shutout to Dicey Dungeons. It's lesser known and I think everyone should play it.

I started playing roguelikes with flash Binding of Isaac I bought for 99p in a steam sale, pre-Wrath of the Lamb. I'm still playing Rebirth and its expansions well over a decade later. I'd describe it as the perfect game. Why it shines as opposed where other great roguelites don't is because of how the items interact with each other. The interaction is key. It's still pure joy to walk into a room and absolutely melt everything in a second because of a synergy you've never seen. And now I think about it, what really makes the roguelike genre a favourite of mine is where every run is a challenge from the game: break me. I'd point at Noita as another game with this philosophy. Being given a random selection of tools and trying to cobble them together into something unstoppable.

FTL: Faster than Light, and Into the Breach.

Both are fantastic and made by subset games. FTL the better of the two imo, but that's personal preference.

CDDA, Dwarf Fortress, and FTL all had a huge impact on the genera of Rougelike or free-form games, and all 3 have slight variations in the degrees of free-form game play which is very welcome.

Most rougelikes I enjoy have a set ending, that being death, or rarely triumph, and playing after either isn't possible or just not the point for me.

As for the most memorable moment? To set the stage, I was 13, playing FTL blind. I had made a few runs before it, but I had just reached sector 8, the federation base and the last stand for the federation against the rebels.

I had fought the flagship once before, so I knew it was a big-fuckoff flagship with multiple weapon systems, but I had died really quick.

I had my faithful burst lasers, Artemis missiles, and beam, and was charged and ready to take this ship down. And it was a slog of a fight, I lost a lot of ship HP, and was in the red from the flagship missile launcher.

But it died, as my final shot landed, I rejoiced as its left wing broke apart, until I realized the noise and flash of FTL. It escaped. It had multiple stages.

I resolved to chase it down and desteoy the ship once and for all, victory or death! I died to the supercharged drones in about 2 mins flat.

It was then I learned, you don't win FTL, you just do a little better every run. It still kills me on the harder starts with Captains Edition on.

When he was alive, TotalBiscut made an excellent video on it which does it far more justice than I can in text here.

Rimworld is life.