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[PC] Lost Ruins

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    [PC] Lost Ruins

    This is a short (around 5-6 hours on the first playthrough on easy difficulty) search-action game I backed on Kickstarter. It came out some time ago, but wasn't able to finish it up till now. The game has been done by two guys, and there will be console versions down the line.

    You take the role of an amnesiac and nameless heroine who has been summoned intot he game's world to take care of the Dark Lady and her followers. These followers are summons as the heroine, and due to the influence of the world have slowly turned into monster girls of various kind.

    The game system will be immediately familiar to anyone who picked up a similar game before: you have two weapon slots, two magic slots, a variable number of equip slots (based on difficulty and game progression), a roll, and the usual array of status effects like poison, confusion, bleed, and so on. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
    Some nice touches include use of liquids, potions, and elemental attacks. For example, throw a poison potion into a body of water, and that will become poisoned, slowly biting away at anyone (including you) stading in the water. A good number of enemies make use of burning oil, which will ignite if stuck by a fire attack. Use lightning in water and say bye bye to anything standing in there. Unfortunately some of these "reactionary" objects are lost among all the background clutter, and at times you will trigger some reactions you don't really want.

    One of the first things to notice about Lost Ruins is how slow both attacks and rolls are. Attack speed is based on the equipped weapon, and even the fastest weapons like daggers might initially slow...and they will continue to be, it's impossible to, for example, roll past an enemy, face towards it, and hack away with fast weapons. The best way to fight enemies I've found is to equip the hardest hitting weapon you have (like the zweihander you fight within the first hour), the flying boots, and then jump towards the enemy, hit the attack button, and watch as the heroine plunges towards an enemy that is standing still and unable to retaliate.
    At normal difficulty the game is very stingy with healing items, and checkpoint don't heal you, so it's better to take full advantage the game gives to you. Due to this stinginess I completed the game in easy mode, which is a bit too easy: checkpoints heal you, enemies drop more items, and you get from the start an item to increase item slots and that gives you HP regen; enemies hit much lighter too.

    The second thing to notice are the bugs. The game was delivered to backers one day earlier than the official release, and I was able to find a game-breaking bug within ten minutes. You start with no weapons, and in one room you need to collect a gladius to hit a switch and proceed. I got killed the room after that after I couldn't stop the bleeding after springing a trap, and the checkpoint brought me back before the gladius. Only that the checkpoint was triggered before I got the weapon, so I spawned without it...but the gladius didn't respawn and I had to restart the game.
    During the first days I also think various items didn't correctly spawn, and I was unable to complete one secondary quest and collect all of the info logs.
    Later, I hit a room where I couldn't reach a platform, getting me stuck there. I quit the game and booted up the game again thinking about a bad spawn, but nope, no way to progress. I left the game alone for almost two weeks, got back to it, reached the same room again, and here are the platforms I needed.
    The game is stable and maybe I'll go through it once again to see if bugs are gone, and completing the game unlocks a few extra modes as well (witch mode you can only use magic, assassin mode with only daggers and similar weapons).

    Graphics are of the pixel variant, are nice, and full of small touches like water dripping from the heroine, a lot of objects acting as light sources, rain dotting the screen, and stuff like that. The heroine's sprite is a bit plain, but she can equip some items to change her appearance.
    Sound is forgettable, and there is no voice acting, if not for a couple of yells here and there.

    Lost Ruins is not bad, but it's not great either. It's one of those average games with no objective problems, but some aspects (attack and dodge speed especially) will be not to everyone's liking.


    #2
    I played through the game a second time, this time in boss mode. This mode unlocks after completing the game once, and you play as three of the various bosses the unnamed heroine had to take down.
    Various spoilers ahead about this mode, so I'll hide this paragraph entirely.

    The three bosses (the undead sorceress, the insect archer, and the demon swordwoman...yeah, they have name but can't recall them) inhabit one body, and you switch between them with the shoulder buttons, that normally would be for spells. Each boss has her own speciality and attack.
    The sorceress is slow but floats above the terrain so she's no encumbered by water and ignores all fluids (posion burning oil) on the floor; she can't dodge but she can teleport through thin doors, and all her attacks are spells. She also regenerates MPs without any item.
    The archer moves as fast as the unnamed heroine and can dodge just like her. She's immune to poison and of course she uses a bow with infinite arrows.
    The demon swordwoman is the fastest of the three, and her dodge is replaced by an automated parry.
    All of them have fixed weapons, the only thing you can customize is the equipment. The map is the same as in the main game, just like boss encounters. It's interesting to face the labyrinth with these different mechanics, although I spent most of the time using the sorceress due to her ranged attacks and limtied dodge abilities. The other two bosses saw about the same amount of use, but you can brute-force pretty much every boss by just chugging MP potions and spam the sorceress' heavy spell, which becomes even more dangerous once you get items that enhance spell damage and reduce casting time.
    I think there are multiple endings for this mode too, but I'm not entirely sure.



    After that, I restarted the normal game in "recommended" difficulty, and knowledge makes a huge difference. Just equipped the winged shoes and the zweihander right away, and had an easy time against the two bosses I faced again so far.

    The game also received a number of bug fixes and improvements, the most evident are the quest start/quest end graphics.

    In the end I would put this only slightly lower than Momodora. Combat is a bit slow, and the map isn't particularly complex, but despite that, Lost Ruin is an enjoyable game with quite the amount of content for those willing to spend some time with it.
    Last edited by briareos_kerensky; 13-06-2021, 18:25.

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