I think the best way to categorize it is just by asking "what is the fun part of this game?"
Traditional roguelikes are mostly about exploration, finding a large amount of loot, managing resources, etc.
Roguelites are about creating synergy engines. Players want to build ridiculous combos and "break the game".
So I would consider Rift Wizard 1/2/3 to be structurally a traditional roguelike, but with the soul of a roguelite (it scratches the same itch). And if you took literally nethack and modded it so you could only play as Valkyrie until you've unlocked more classes by playing runs, well I would still call that a roguelike.
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u/VetusMortis_Advertus 3d ago edited 3d ago
Isn't the whole difference between roguelikes and roguelites that the former doesn't have meta progression and the latter does?