I love Fred's hair

  • calunio
  • 06/29/2015 02:26 PM
  • 1122 views
Ruin is a classic retro-like RPG made by MOCBJ-Software. And it’s great.

I usually start every review by saying I'm not a fan of traditional RPGs, mostly because I've had enough of them. It’s still true. But while classic in many ways, Ruin is full of cleverness and fresh ideas that made me love every minute of it.

Let's break it down

Story
Story happens in a traditional medieval-fantasy-like world. The world has just suffered a cataclysmic earthquake that destroyed entire cities and kingdoms, and the ones that remained were changed in some way. You play as Fred, an awesome-haired knight who wakes up from the disaster in a distant land, and must find out what's happening.
Story progression is pretty standard RPG. Eventually it becomes a save-the-world thing, which is fine. Though I wouldn’t say the game is intended for mature audiences, it often dwells on heavy themes like abuse, discrimination and social inequity.
Story presentation is very straight-forward. Dialogs are never very long, and they mix serious with hints of comedy, though the game never takes itself too seriously, which is good.
What I liked more about the writing was the characterization. All party members are very unique and colorful, each with a very distinct personality and fancy looks. It's easy to actually like the characters and get attached to them, and the interaction among them is often entertaining. NPCs are also fun and distinguished.
I'd say the story and writing of the game is appealing just enough to keep you interested, though it's not really what got me hooked till the end. It is the gameplay.

Gameplay
I had a feeling the creator of this game took everything that is usually annoying in RPGs and made it better.
Battles are traditional turn-based. At a character's turn, you can use the basic attack command, use skills from two skillsets (usually one is offensive and the other is support skills), or use items. Skills use mastery (like skill points). You can replenish mastery by using items or by using the basic attack command, which I loved.
At each map, there is a specific number of battles you have to fight. After you fought them all, you can choose to keep random encounters activated or not. If not, you can just walk by freely. If so, battles give you twice as much XP, which is great for grinding. I grinded a lot, and maybe for this reason battles were very easy for me (but still entertaining). I never got a gameover. I guess the game's difficulty is adjusted for non-grinding players.
Character progression is fun, and it's probably what motivated me grinding. You get XP from battles and level up normally. Leveling up only raises your HP. If you want to raise other stats, you have to equip certain items. Each item raises a single stat at level up. Regarding skills, you learn new ones by using old ones. If you use your stronger skill within a skillset X times, you'll unlock one even stronger. Because of this, even though battles weren't really hard (I ended the game on level 18 I think), I was motivated not only to grind, but to think my actions in battles, so it was fun.
There is an item crafting system that is fun, but ultimately kinda pointless. There are two types of crafting: equipment and cooking (for healing items), and each uses only one type of material. You get such materials from battles and searching around. Crafting a specific item requires learning the recipe (new recipes are unlocked with game progression and some are hidden), having the proper materials, and having your crafting skill of that level. Though there seems to be room for creativity, eventually I noticed that I would always have the same items at the same parts of the game. Other than the hidden recipes, there's always a specific item each party member must be using. You can also buy the same items in stores (which are rare), so crafting is not really necessary. I wouldn’t say it annoyed me, but I wouldn’t call it a well-implemented crafting system. But then again, the crafting system was probably more fun than a full-traditional-shop system.
Exploration is rewarded with random loot, which you can find in almost any object. Loot is usually crafting materials, money, or low healing items, but sometimes you’ll find the rare items recipes. There are really hundreds, maybe thousands of places where you can find such random loots.
The game has a few side quests you can perform for extra rewards. Rewards are also a bunch of random loot. They don't sidetrack you too much from the main story, and you always know exactly what you're doing and why, which makes the game very linear.
Thinking of it now, the gameplay of this game is actually extremely simple, and this is why I liked it. It's not full of complicated systems and elements and strategies that force you to overthink everything, which is probably a bad tendency in recent RPGs.

Presentation
I found the game quite charming. The graphics are actual 8-bit retro-looking. The sprite animations are fast, which made them funny in a good way. Maps are well designed, but nothing mind-blowing. There are a few passability problems, but all passable. I especially liked the characters and enemies graphics within battles. They were very well drawn, beautiful and creative.
Sounds are also simple and retro, but the music is not. The soundtrack is original and extremely beautiful. Just after writing this sentence, I decided I'd make a donation to the game creators, because even though it's free, its overall presentation is very professional. The game is polished, cohesive as a whole and great.

Random things I liked
-> While the game is very classic and traditional in many ways, there are bits of weirdness which fascinated me. The monsters are very strange, and I especially liked the ones from the last dungeon, which were made from disfigured body parts. Characters were very unique-looking (except for Harvery, which was way too cliché).
-> Music. <3
-> I do love Fred’s hair.
-> One thing I liked about the ending sequence:
The fact that the enemy wants to destroy the world because there's nothing good about it is a major cliché, but the way the game's world is actually presented makes it more meaningful than other RPGs. This is also FFVI's Kefka's speech, for instance, but when Kefka says it, you just think he's some crazy guy that wants to destroy a nice world. But the world of Ruin is a bad place. People are mean, sad, and the ones that live peaceful lives often come out as selfish and ignorant. Yes, it is a world to be destroyed.


Random things I disliked
-> I don't know if it's a matter of key sensitivity or intentional randomness, but sometimes I had to click an object many times before I would get the loot. This caused me to skip important lines sometimes, because I got used to pressing the space bar repeatedly when interacting with objects.
-> Some major story events happen so fast I didn't know what was happening. Major story events need drama.

Like when Alan dies.
Or when an earthquake hits Morkheim after you kill that boss-guy (forgive me for not remembering the names well).
Or when you actually beat the last boss and finish the game!


Overall this was a very fun game, and I recommend it to everyone who likes RPGs, especially if you're looking for inspiration and different takes on old ideas. It took me about 7h10min.

Posts

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Thanks for the review! This is the second time someone has mentioned issues with having to click objects multiple times. Can you tell me which version you played? I have yet to run into that problem myself, but would like to fix it if I can.

Also, keep in mind that
shops carry some gear, only the best equipment can be crafted (+1 equipment and rare recipes, to name a few). Basic items/equipment in shops are there for those that choose to shoot for the craft-less achievements.
I played the Windows version.

I don't think it has to do with clicking multiple times, but maybe with some sort of key sensitivity. I don't know. Sometimes I felt like if I paused and pressed the space bar stronger (I know, doesn't make sense) I'd get an item without clicking multiple times. But some times I did have to search multiple times.

Oh, and sometimes I would get the loot sound, but no description of what loot I got. That happened in a quest loot once too.

Yes I did find some rare recipes (3 I think), and they were useful. I got +1 items twice, but they weren't that different from the original items, so deliberately crafting an item multiple times to try and get a +1 didn't seem worth it.
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