Ruiner

Genre: Top-Down Action / 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Ruiner is a Top-Down Action game with Two-Stick Shooter elements in a futuristic cyberpunk setting where you play as a man wearing a digital mask fighting against hordes of enemies. This game was originally released in 2017 on other platforms, and was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Visually, Ruiner looks decent but not especially noteworthy, with 3D visuals depicting its characters from a distance above. However, this entire game is pretty dark, which can at times make it difficult to see the characters and especially distinguish different types of weapons enemies have dropped, and the game doesn’t do a great job of conveying to the player important information about what’s off-screen – both in terms of enemies as well as which way players need to go to proceed. This game’s visuals are backed by an electronica soundtrack that gets the job done but isn’t all that memorable.

As for the gameplay, the closest analog I can think of to this game is Hotline Miami, which has players grabbing weapons from enemies, making use of their limited ammo to down other enemies, and then tossing their weapon aside to either snatch up a different weapon or use melee attacks. However, Ruiner does a few things a bit differently. It has an RPG-style upgrade system, as well as a cool dash system that allows you to briefly slow down time to plan out a series of dashes. This dash system is probably the most unique thing the game has going for it, and it had a lot of potential to make for some interesting gameplay.

Unfortunately, I find just about every element of combat to be unsatisfying in some way or another. Guns have frustratingly few bullets given how (unlike Hotline Miami) enemies often take multiple hits before going down, making them unreliable in the heat of combat, and being unable to easily tell by sight what other weapons are laying around makes planning your moves more difficult than it should be. One could depend on the unique dashing feature to stay safe, except players are still vulnerable to gunfire while dashing, and committing to multiple points to dash through when enemies are spraying the area with bullets is rolling the dice when you don’t know where those bullets will be when time starts flowing again. Also, players are limited in their ability to dash, which again makes dashing unreliable in fast-paced combat. And melee combat is frustratingly slow and short-range, meaning that if you miss a swing (which can happen pretty easily), you leave a wide opening for a counter-attack.

The really frustrating thing is just how much potential this combat had. I like the idea of RPG-style progression in a game like this, and I especially like the idea of stopping time to plan out a series of attacks. However, even there this potential is squandered, as you can plan out a series of dashes, but apparently can’t attack until you reach the end of your pre-determined route.

Despite its flaws, Ruiner still has some decent Top-Down Action gameplay, but what it does right, Hotline Miami does much better, and what it does that’s unique, it fails to make particularly good use of.

tl;dr – Ruiner is a Top-Down Action game in the vein of Hotline Miami where players take the role of a masked man in a cyberpunk setting. There are some interesting gameplay systems here, such as a time-manipulating multi-dash move, but these gameplay systems aren’t utilized well, and the basic flaws in the game’s combat lead the action to all too often be unsatisfying. This isn’t a bad game, but it’s nowhere near as good as it had the potential to be.

Grade: C

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