[Pfhreak]

The metagameplay -- rogue reset you, permanently, when you died. Similarly when you die in FTL you have to start all over.

It's both an incorrect term (because, as you mentioned, the overlap with rogue is limited) and absolutely the correct term (because people generally understand what it means, even if they've never heard of rogue).

I think it's important to remember that language evolves, it's more important to be understood than to be correct. Shouting into a hurricane isn't going to stop the storm, no matter how right you are.

[greggman3]

Except its not understood whatsoever. When I read roguelike or roguelite I understand that it should be something similar to "rogue". Since I'm not actually a fan of rogue I will therefore look no further at the game since it was clearly labeled as being similar to "rogue"

What other "~lite" or "~like" in the entire language as a similar property of being nothing like the "~" part?

[_qwfv]

You might not understand it, but the term is well understood in the gaming community. Just like Metroidvania, the genre description has evolved from previous games.

Another common genre is Souls-like, stemming from the mechanics of Dark Souls. It's a term for a game that has bonfire like mechanics, high difficulty, punishments on death, etc. There are many games that are souls likes that share none of the visual themes or moment to moment combat mechanics of Dark Souls.

And as several other people have commented, the games are similar to rogue, just at a higher level of abstraction than you are looking at them.

[greggman3]

MetroidVanias though actually make sense. The game play is similar to Metroid or Castlevania. So taking that same direction a roguelike should be similar to rogue. I've seen zero MetroidVanias where the similarities to Metroid and Castlevania aren't 100% clear.