Developed by Cuddle Monster Games and published by Super Rare Originals, Lone Ruin is a brand-new and highly addictive twin-shooter roguelike. Making a good roguelike is an extremely difficult task since roguelikes are designed to kill you and force you to play them again so the game design has to be good enough for players to keep coming back to the game even if they are dying again and again and losing all of their progress. Lucky for us, Lone Ruin ticks all of the right boxes when it comes to being a good roguelike as this review will detail everything for you. This is our review of Lone Ruin in which we die fighting an old tree and level up some really cool spells to annihilate our enemies.
In Lone Ruin, you step in the shoes of an explorer who is trying to seek a mysterious ancient power inside a ruined magical city. Your goal in Lone Ruin is simple: kill everything that moves, level up your spells, and kill everything that moves again. Each run in Lone Ruin is unique because the enemies are randomly generated along with the levels. Each level is different from the previous one and although they are not too big in size, they give you a decent enough area to move around as you are fighting the enemies. The enemies are not too big in size, but they surely ramp up in numbers as you progress through the rooms. Each level has its own number of enemy waves and once you kill all enemies in a wave, you move to the next one, and similarly, you clear all waves to unlock the reward and move to the next levels. There are usually multiple levels to go into next and you can choose after looking at what they are offering upon completion.
After entering a level, you are completely blind to what to expect inside that room. The level design as well as the number of waves and what sort of enemies spawn are all randomly generated each time. There is no fixed route for the game and all levels are randomly generated every time as well along with the rewards that you earn after completing them. Some rooms are easy while some are hard however if the room is promising something really good, you can expect it to be hard. The story mode begins with you choosing one spell out of eight and then building your way up from there. The spells in the game are unique and there is something for everyone here. Apart from ranged spells, you will also find some melee spells here if you prefer melee over ranged.
Each of the spells has its own pros and cons and you have to work around them in order to defeat the enemies. For example, the Rail has massive damage, but it takes time to charge, and it is pretty slow to fire as well. On the other hand, Barrage lets you summon projectiles and hold them ready when you are ready to fire. Chain Lightning dampens down on the damage a little, but it arcs between the enemies and allows them to control crowds of enemies much more effectively. In this way, each and every spell in the game is unique and you have to stick with the pros and cons of your selection. They become better and better as you play the game, complete levels, and upgrade them. Apart from your dash, you can also unlock additional spells as you are progressing in the game. These spells are assigned to separate buttons on the console, and you can then press them to activate them. Each spell comes with a recharge time unless you have some sort of bonus attached to it that removes it.
Apart from your spells and their upgrades, you can further modify your playstyle and build by different items. Sometimes levels will offer you different items as rewards as well and when you pick them up, they will grant you various buffs and bonuses that affect your gameplay in different ways. If you find an item that you are looking for, you can complete its level and unlock it to add it to your inventory for its bonuses. This is all when it comes to spells and playstyle modification as there are no other ways to customize the stats of your character in the game.
The only other factor that comes into play is your own skill and the more you play Lone Ruin, the better you get at it as you start understanding the spells, items, and attack patterns of bosses and enemies. Lone Ruin is not an easy game and it will kill you a lot but it is also really easy to jump back into the game which makes it really addictive as you try and try again to obtain an item or defeat a boss.
Apart from the normal story mode, you also have a Survival mode in Lone Ruin which plays a little differently from the original mode. In the Survival mode, the level remains the same although it is randomly generated at the start and there is no limit to the enemy waves. The enemies just keep spawning in the level, and they start to get tougher and tougher the longer you survive in the mode. Your goal here is to survive for as long as you can without dying. After a certain time, passes, you can get access to some upgrades via a pop-up menu and that is all the support that you have for this game mode.
Similar to the normal mode, you have to carefully build yourself up for later because the enemies are absolutely relentless after a few initial waves. A time comes with the screen becomes absolutely filled with enemies and then it really gets hard to survive but that is the main goal here. You eventually have to die in the game but after how long, that is the real question here, and based on your performance, you will earn a score at the end that you can upload to the Leaderboards and compare with other players and your friends.
Despite having just two modes, Lone Ruin still makes you stick around for hours and hours. The beautiful visual art of the game and the fast-paced gameplay really sits with the amazing soundtrack and if you get good with the controls, you absolutely dominate in Lone Ruin. While the controls are not that hard to remember here, you still have to learn how to effectively use each spell and how to proceed further with upgrades and items because this will help you in the long run and if you want to see the later stages of the game.
Lone Ruin is a brutal game and if you do not get good at the game or master its techniques, you will be spending a lot of time during the initial levels of the game. The boss battles are a challenge on their own but defeating them is extremely satisfying and they appear randomly as well without any clue, you have to be ready for them as well. Each boss battle in the game has its own unique attack patterns that you need to learn and since there are no second chances, you have to be on top of your game if a boss emerges in front of you. Their life bars are huge while yours depend on the difficulty you selected at the start of the game so you might have more or less health but even then, you cannot afford to die during the boss battles or you will need to start again from the start.
Before I conclude this review, I will again mention here that Lone Ruin is extremely addictive and one of the facts that force you to come back to this brilliant roguelike is the fact that how easy it is to jump into the game, complete a run or two and just go on with your daily life. There are no long cutscenes to kick off the game, you just pick your spell, and the action begins right away. You complete some rooms and if you die, the game just ends with no strings attached.
There are no complicated RPG mechanics to look out for and nothing else that carries over to the next run. Each run is clean and unique, so you have nothing to lose even if you die in the very first room of a run. Lone Ruin on the Nintendo Switch is a deadly combination because it will be pushing its way into your mind again and again making you pick up your portable console for just ‘one more run’. If you love playing roguelikes, Lone Ruin is highly recommended for you but even if you casually jump into this genre sometimes, now is the time to do to experience this highly addictive title.
Final Verdict:
Lone Ruin is a beautiful roguelike twin-shooter with challenging gameplay mechanics. The gameplay is addictive and simple enough to keep you glued to the screen and the accessibility also makes it excellent for small, quick-play sessions. Everything from the soundtrack to the visual art style and the gameplay mechanics is excellent and it is really hard not to recommend it to you. Lone Ruin caters to a large variety of audiences thanks to its ease of understanding and simple mechanics and even if you are new to roguelikes, you will have a blast playing it. The game surely is challenging, and it requires precise controls and focus if you really want to progress in the game but that is the real beauty of this game because the soundtrack, visual art style, and everything else just forces you to dive back just for one more run. One of the best titles to kick off a solid 2023.
Final Score: 9.0/10
