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Many people carry loads of nostalgia for the N64 and PS1 3D platformers of the late 90s. Ruffy and the Riverside positively makes an attempt to seize that feeling and produce it into a contemporary setting. And for essentially the most half, it succeeds, although it does stumble right here and there.
Ruffy and the Riverside has a narrative that matches the interval it is impressed by. Ruffy (our protagonist) does one thing, an evil entity is unleashed, and the entity ruins the world. Our protagonist should then embark on an journey to revive the world and defeat the entity. It’s totally fundamental as storylines go, and fairly paying homage to a Spyro or Crash Bandicoot story, however that is not the main target of the sport. The characters within the storyline are well-written and fascinating, advised fully by way of textual content bins that seem on the backside of the display screen.
In principle, Ruffy and the Riverside has all of the makings of a basic 3D platformer. Low-polygon 3D fashions? Test. Barely blurry textures? Test. Collectibles unfold throughout a number of maps? Test. These all work fairly nicely, and I do not thoughts the visible type of Ruffy and the Riverside, even when it is deliberately “dated.” However the sport lacks that nostalgic attraction I used to be searching for.
To provide some context, the sport’s world has a hub, which is the largest map within the sport, after which there are a number of, smaller, maps which might be related to it, the sport world in complete is fairly small, and does not examine to different titles like Yooka-Laylee, for instance.
There are collectibles as nicely, however they don’t seem to be the main target of the sport. In actual fact, they’re just about not talked about in any respect. I went for 2-3 hours earlier than I even noticed a real collectible, and this isn’t an extended sport. Your main goal is to finish the primary aim in every of the maps inside the hub world to acquire a brand new “Sacred Letter” and rebuild the Riverside signal, which requires a complete of six letters.
Ruffy and the Riverside locations a big emphasis on puzzles, and though there are enemies, there is not a lot selection within the enemy sorts, they usually can simply be defeated with a punch, which is just about your solely offensive transfer. The puzzles often contain the primary mechanic of the sport, which is your capability to swap materials sorts between objects.
For instance, it’s possible you’ll want to soak up a wood materials from a tree and switch a stone platform right into a wood one so it floats. Or perhaps you have to flip the water into lava in order that it burns away an object. It is a fairly distinctive gameplay mechanic, and it really works nicely. Sadly, it’s just about the one gameplay mechanic used for the puzzles, so you may be doing loads of it again and again for each puzzle. Generally, these puzzles could have the identical answer that you just already know. The examples talked about above are used at the least a number of instances all through the sport.
Motion can be fairly fundamental, with simply leaping, gliding, and sprinting (odd selection) being your choices right here; there is no capability to seize ledges, which might be super-useful within the sport. I am undecided why we now have a dash button both, it is “maintain to dash” and never a toggle; it will get fairly annoying having to carry a button everytime you’re traversing the map, and mixed with the stamina gauge, it simply makes touring world wide tedious.
The UI additionally feels a bit messy; the collectibles menu is only a mishmash of all of your collectibles, seemingly thrown onto the display screen in no matter place they’ll match. This may be paying homage to some older video games of the interval, however there is a motive builders moved away from that: it is laborious to learn.
So Ruffy and the Riverside does considerably seize the texture of a 3D Platformer of the Nineties, however principally within the improper methods, the visible type of the sport is nice, however the motion is basically fundamental for a platformer, the swapping supplies gameplay mechanic is exclusive, nevertheless it’s overused seeing because it’s the first technique of doing something within the sport, there are collectibles, nevertheless it’s not defined what they do or why you must accumulate them.
It is not a nasty sport, however some areas of the sport really feel fundamental and unpolished, and these are the areas that ought to obtain essentially the most consideration to element and polish. Motion is the best precedence, and never having any motion or momentum is an actual disgrace. In actuality, there are just about no enemies within the sport; you possibly can ignore them, and the puzzles get repetitive in the direction of the top of the sport. There’s solely a lot you are able to do with the 1 mechanic out there to you.
Ruffy and the Riverside – Steam Deck Efficiency
Ruffy and the Riverside runs nicely on the Steam Deck. It has good controller help, and I’d advocate utilizing a controller, even should you’re enjoying on a PC. It additionally helps 1280×800 as a decision, which is helpful, as the sport doesn’t supply any graphics settings.
Due to the Steam Deck’s 16:10 facet ratio, nonetheless, some UI components are “chopped off” in sure areas. It isn’t a significant concern, nevertheless it’s value noting. The sport formally solely helps 16:9 facet ratios, as customers with 21:9 shows are additionally reporting even worse UI points with the sport.
As I discussed, there are not any graphical settings out there right here, so I like to recommend limiting the sport to 60 FPS in SteamOS and operating with the 15W TDP Restrict. The sport will practically at all times run at 60 frames per second, nevertheless it does endure from traversal stuttering, which the upper TDP restrict will mitigate barely.
The ability draw is round 8-10W, and temperatures are round 50-55 °C. So you possibly can anticipate about 5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED, and about 3.5-4 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
Accessibility:
Ruffy and the Riverside has no accessibility choices.
Conclusion:
In the event you’re after a contemporary 3D platformer that maybe tries to emulate the 90s just a little too intently, then Ruffy and the Riverside is value a glance. It is positively not the worst try I’ve seen, and it is higher than a number of the 3D platformers of the ’90s, for certain. Nevertheless, it does really feel like the sport wanted just a little extra polish, particularly within the UI and platforming departments.
Ruffy and the Riverside runs nice on the Steam Deck; the one factor stopping me from awarding it a “Greatest On Deck” award is the marginally chopped-off UI components because of the 16:10 facet ratio, though they don’t seem to be important to the sport.
Our overview is predicated on the PC model of this sport.
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