A enjoyable journey with a couple of Ruff patches.
Ruffy and the Riverside is a 3D action-adventure with an open world to discover and resolve puzzles in. There’s dozens of things to gather and a pleasant sense of play as you management the titular Ruffy, a bear who appears not in contrast to a Star Wars ewok and has the ability to change his environment. The allure and tempo of Ruffy’s journey work nicely, however there are some frustrations and jank can generally put a damper on the expertise.
Ruffy’s world of Riverside is threatened by an ominous dice that wishes to destroy every part in sight. It is as much as Ruffy to develop into the chosen hero and accumulate a collection of letters to activate the world core and save his house. The world is split into a serious hub and smaller areas inside it, not in contrast to Tremendous Mario 64’s fortress and particular person portray ranges. Alongside the way in which, you may encounter a bunch of colourful characters and all method of distinctive and tough challenges–certainly one of which is the annoying ladders that normally need to be climbed proper down the center to efficiently attain the highest.
A lot of the gameplay facilities on Ruffy’s capacity to soak up one materials, object, or coloration after which swap it with one other. Whereas some puzzles may have extra apparent options that make use of this mechanic, others contain some (or a lot) trial and error. It is a fantastic feeling while you resolve a puzzle that had taken you 5 or 10 minutes to unravel, however I encountered a number of conditions the place the answer was both much less apparent or solely appeared after I had exhausted all of my choices and simply saved hitting every part round me or retracing my steps. Like with many puzzle video games, if the design clicks with you, you may in all probability have a greater time. This wasn’t at all times the case for me, although, so your mileage might fluctuate.
The controls can take some getting used to, with Ruffy having loads of pace however much less precision. There’s sufficient platforming that this turns into a difficulty at occasions, and compounding failure is a checkpoint system that may generally ship you again an annoying distance, which forces you to redo the identical puzzles or surmount the identical obstacles again and again. Cash you accumulate can be utilized to buy coronary heart containers to spice up your life meter or costumes to vary Ruffy’s look, however I really favored having the ability to spend them on the occasional puzzle answer in order that I may extra shortly progress via the sport.
Simply to present some context for the puzzles you encounter, a number of the early ones require that you simply swap the water of a waterfall with climbable leaves from a close-by wall or change stone pillars within the ocean into wooden so that they will float horizontally and function simpler platforms. Within the pursuit of the Riverside letters talked about earlier, you usually need to traverse a number of smaller areas earlier than yow will discover the letters, and a number of the challenges thrown at you find yourself being easy repeats of ones you have already executed. Being tasked with finishing an emblem matching train as soon as is ok, however having to do two or three in a row can really feel like busywork.
The sound results and music are gentle and humorous, pairing nicely with the humorous design of Ruffy himself, in all his dancing glory. The hand-drawn visible design of the surroundings conjures up a way of each simplicity and vibrancy, with a lot of shiny colours juxtaposed with sharp edges and primary constructions and objects. There is a good quantity of comedy within the writing, however the introduction/tutorial is slightly verbose and could possibly be pared down.
Ruffy and the Riverside is a pleasant journey whose allure takes priority over its jank and repetition. It performs nicely on Change 2, which is the place I reviewed the sport, and has loads of content material for completionists to sink their tooth into. A number of the puzzles may be irritating or obtuse, however the distinctive swapping mechanic makes for a enjoyable departure in comparison with different 3D action-adventure experiences. It could be a bit Ruffy across the edges, however this Riverside is one which I used to be joyful to dip my toes into.
