Developed by Zockrates Laboratories UG and published by Phiphen Games, Ruffy and the Riverside is a brand-new open-adventure game featuring a special mechanic, Swap. Open-world platformers were one of the biggest genres on the original PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and we had some great titles, such as Banjo-Kazooie and Paper Mario, on Nintendo. Ruffy and the Riverside seems to combine both games into one title with its combination of a 3D world and 2D characters. The game gives you complete freedom to pick any texture and then paste it anywhere you like to change the properties of the object. It plays an important role in the game, and it is also one of the mechanics that sets it apart from other platformers of the time. This is our review of Ruffy and the Riverside on the Xbox Series X, in which we turn some waterfalls into vines and perform tricks in a halfpipe while riding a bale.
The story of Ruffy and the Riverside follows Ruffy, the Chosen One, who is on a mission to save the World Core and restore Riverside to its former glory. Accompanying Ruffy is his friend Pip, a bee, and many other characters like Sir Eddler, a mole addicted to finding gems, and Minna, a bird who looks after Ruffy and helps gather information about the world. When a small mishap unleashes the evil Groll over Riverside, Ruffy must do everything to save his home by using his special ability, Swap. Throughout the journey, you explore a beautiful world with unique locations, colorful characters, and an evil villain who looks like a Rubik’s Cube.
Probably, you already know at this point, but the main gameplay mechanic of Ruffy and the Riverside is Ruffy’s ability to swap things with each other. Whether it is a visual swap or a complete swap, this mechanic plays a vital role in the game. Using SWAP, you will progress through various sections, such as transforming a waterfall into a vine that allows you to climb, or converting a vast ocean into ice or lava to achieve your goals.
There is only one requirement: both items must match in some way. For example, if you are picking up sand, it can be placed on items that can be converted into sand, such as water streams or trees. Similarly, you can transform materials into one another, like wood into metal. At certain locations, you will also use swap to use them as functions like Up or Down arrows, or assign numerical values to different surfaces to affect their behavior.
The world of Ruffy and the Riverside is filled with content for you to explore. Tons of different puzzles, activities, and things to collect are scattered all over the locations, and most of these are unlocked right from the start of the game, so you can complete the game at your own pace while exploring the world. The main story unlocks some key game mechanics and locations, but the main island of Riverside is the biggest location in the game, and it houses most of the collectables, puzzles, and activities that you can access straight away.
The problem is that you must know how to solve the puzzles and how to complete different activities. Some of these puzzles are straightforward, like the Snake Board puzzles, where you must use Swap using arrows on a snake picture to complete it, and some puzzles are a little bit complicated, like the 2D puzzle areas inside the walls.
These puzzles are a 2-step puzzle where you must first solve an initial puzzle to unlock the portal to enter the 2D puzzle, and then you must solve the 2D puzzle to get a collectible like a gemstone or a butterfly. You will need to use Swap to solve these puzzles to make them easier. For example, like in one of the puzzles, you must replace water with lava to burn down a punching tree blocking your path, while in another picture, we had to swap chomping dinos with sleeping dinos to jump safely over their heads (Thanks, Robby!). Other puzzles include matching tiles in a certain pattern or figuring out the correct pattern on a buried potato to take it out of the ground. Each puzzle requires a swap in one way or the other to proceed.
On the other hand, activities range from bale races to using a slot machine to unlock upgrades for your capes. These activities are not directly dependent on the swap mechanic, but you can use it to your advantage. One example of this is how we swapped our opponent’s scores to zero and increased others to the maximum by copying and pasting numbers over the scores. In this case, Swap was not directly involved in the activity, but we used it to manipulate the outcome. This makes Ruffy and the Riverside’s swap mechanic a helpful feature to use in the game, even if you are using it to cheat your way to victory.
While the game is not strictly a collectathon, you have a lot of things to find and collect. Ranging from butterflies to Etoi, cute little guardians of the trees, these collectibles are scattered all over the map. For each one, you need to have a different strategy, so they are not just basic find and collect items as well. This keeps the gameplay unique and does not bore you in any way. Another great thing about completing these side objectives, puzzles, collecting items, and activities is that you will notice a visible difference in the world.
Potato puzzles start floating in the air, the Etoi start appearing in lakes after you clean them, and many more noticeable changes. This makes you actively work towards helping different NPCs and making the world around you alive. A handy Collectibles screen tracks the progress of all side content present in the game if you want to complete the game to its 100% state.
Combat does not play a vital role when it comes to gameplay in Ruffy and the Riverside, and this is one of the reasons why there is very little variety of enemies. Ruffy has a small punch combo that allows him to defeat any enemies loitering in stages, and he also has a powerful stomp attack, which is mostly used for pressing buttons rather than defeating enemies. Even when you’re fighting the boss, physical combat plays a minimal role in defeating the boss, and mostly, Swap takes the lead.
Ruffy and the Riverside is also a treat to look at. While the whole world of the game is designed in 3D, the characters and other items like trees, flowers, boxes, etc., are 2D and they rotate in the direction of Ruffy to present a 3D image. The 3D world gives strong vibes of early Banjo-Kazooie games, while the 2D models take us back to Paper Mario titles. While the characters might be in 2D, they fit well with their environments, and their movements are so smooth that you barely notice that they are rotating.
You only notice them move when you run circles around them, and even then, the rotations are smooth. Each location in the game is very well-designed with plenty of different elements to play around with, thanks to the wonderful Swap mechanic. You can pick a material or a color of any item around you and paste it around you to make it according to your liking. If you are not satisfied with swapping the colors around, you also unlock a painting sheet where you can customize the base color of over thirty different elements in the whole world.
These range from the color of water streams, oceans, lava streams, ground, mud, trees, flowers, and everything else. If you end up making a mess of the game visuals, like we did, a handy button allows you to disable all custom colors and go back to their default options without any worry. However, before you change everything up, you need to find hidden gems all around the map, and with each gemstone you find, you can change the color of another element in the world. Each location has so many activities to do that sometimes you feel a little overwhelmed with everything. A simple way to cope with everything, like we did, is to first complete the main story of the game and complete some side content that came in our path.
We write this as a compliment because we have played a lot of open-world platforming adventure games where the world felt dead and apart from some expected collectables, they did not offer much on the table. This is not the case with Ruffy and the Riverside. Not just the main island, but even the smaller islands we visited during our adventure were filled to the brim with life and things to do. Another element that enhances the visual appeal of Ruffy and the Riverside is its sound design.
Apart from its upbeat music, the game also has a great sound design that complements the gameplay. Ruffy makes noises while performing different tasks like running around or punching enemies, and when you get on the bale, the main theme starts playing. The sound effects are reminiscent of titles like Banjo-Kazooie and keep your ears entertained alongside your eyes as well.
Ruffy and the Riverside is filled with platforming sections and puzzles, so naturally, it has a difficulty level for both of these things. Combat is fairly easy, so we are not going to focus on that much here because the only time-consuming gameplay elements in the game are either puzzles or platforming sections. Both these mechanics will surely test your brain and platforming skills but nothing in the game is overly difficult, that it would ruin your gameplay but depending on your luck, you may get stuck in a puzzle or two that will make you pull out your hair, despite the answer sitting right in front of your eyes.
The puzzles are fun to solve, and some will tickle your brain as well. The same goes for platforming, and if you fail a platforming level again and again, it is because you are trying to rush through it and not taking it slow. Overall, Ruffy and the Riverside has a good balance of difficulty and accessibility, making it a fun experience for players of every skill level and age.
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Final Verdict:
Not only does Ruffy and the Riverside offer a charming story that is fun to experience up to its very end, but it also offers a beautifully designed world that is full of quirky characters and fun activities to do even after the completion of the main story. Ruffy and the Riverside manages to bring back the charm of the early PS1 and Xbox platforming action games back to life with its own unique mechanics and nostalgic visuals. The Swap mechanic is flawless, and the 2D characters in a 3D world bring out a vibe that no modern platformer has managed to deliver in a long time. It is easily one of the best platformers of this generation and will serve as a foundation for all future platformers to follow. Ruffy and the Riverside is a crown jewel for both Zockrates Laboratories UG and Phiphen Games, and one that should be on every player’s must-play list.
Final Score: 9.5/10
