Lost Ruins

Gave this a few hours of my time but its next to unplayable. Main problems: the controls. Often they will not register the press of a button. Some times I had to press "menu" like five times before finally the menu would pop up. Then repeat for each potion I want to drink. A few times I died from burn damage / poision etc because the menu would not open, preventing me from drinking potions. This was the jankiest experience I ever had with a game with an official release. Can't even jump or attack sometimes. Even if the controls had been responsive, they would have been kind of crappy. The main character moves very stiffly and clumsily. Very cheap feeling. Your success in fights will not depend on your reflexes or anything, but if you have the right equipment and use the right items. The controls are so unbelievabley janky and unresponsive that it leaves little room for the player to develop any skills. It's more like "Ok, on this boss I need to use the lightning weapons and buff my fire resistance". Another important thing that will keep you alive. expect the controls to kill you. At any moment they may refuse to register a jump or attack input. The controls are generelly speaking your worst enemy. Last major problem: all the items. There are absurd amounts of weapons, spells and items. Often it is a bit unclear what sets them apart and the list of gear is a jumbled mess of whatever you have picked up in chronological order. Complete mess. The items themselves are often of the most annoying kind. Very niche. You are required to open the menu and switch gear around a lot. Some e.g. make you immune to lightning damage in water and are super useful in a few situation but completely useless in all others. I don't really like these "immune to X for 24 sec" pots that just clutter up menues. "OK, now the fire boss, lets spam these pots". Most items are niche like that. Major focus on items because the controls are so janky it cant be played like a normal game.

Lost ruins is a harder than average "metro-vania." It features lots of cute girls, but no hard-core hentai. It is mostly about learning to accept how much life sucks. In that sense it is very realistic. X D

Difficult battles for high level gamers. Tough even on easy level. It's fun, the story's interesting, and I like all the different weapons.

This game is a very interesting, creative, and witty Metroidvania/Survival Horror game, which really leans into the threat which non-linear gameplay can pose. No endless health restoration at save points, health restoring items far from guaranteed, and a punishing Dark Souls-esque need to memorise enemy attack animations or risk incredibly insidious status effects like drain and poison, even in the very early game, have caused me to spend more time juggling my weapons and items and really thinking about attack speeds and hitbox limitations than any other Metroidvania I have played. The dialogue is full of surprisingly understated comedy, with a fourth-wall breaking protagonist who seems as aware of the contrivance of the whole situation as the player is, but carries on anyway because that is what you do, and there are some interesting pieces of post-apocalyptic sci fi peppered throughout the primarily horror-anime aesthetic - the CRT televisions which act as save points 'like computers we have in my world but thicker' are nods towards the game's own self-consciousness as a Metroidvania title, clearly echoing the origins of the genre in 1986. Its pixel art is about as far from the abstract simplicity of the original Castlevania as it is possible to be, however, whilst remaining pixel art, beautiful ray casting and constant idle animation on the unnamed protagonist and all of the NPCs make the world appear extremely vibrant and lush. The decision to make the protagonist so large in the frame really allows the player to appreciate the subtlety of the model's movement, as well as making it, despite it's horror credentials, less oppressive than other titles in the genre like Hollow Knight or Blasphemous, in which the relative smallness of the avatar causes the screen to be filled with either empty darkness or a background which dwarfs the protagonist. I like saying nice things, so I'm not mentioning all the creepy nudity, it cost the game 2 stars, which is a shame.

I'll start with the graphics, which are very beautiful. The environments, special effects, animation of the heroine's movement and inaction, enemies - everything is great (even if some enemies were too attractive, especially some bosses). The gameplay part is quite interesting at first. Metroidvania with survival elements - I haven't seen such a combination of genres before. Because of that you can't take exp and have to rely on everything you find in the game, because money is rarer than a dagger. The game tries to kill you in every way possible, from stackable enemy attacks, traps, to your own stupidity when you throw a poison bottle and you don't have the right item to pass it. One of the biggest drawbacks, in my opinion, is the terrible sword swing speed: while you take a successful swing, the monsters will quickly massacre you. Another disadvantage is the large roll cooldown and its short range. Sometimes I found myself in a situation where I would roll to evade a monster attack, but instead I would just get destroyed because I was too close to them. There are a few puzzles in the game that aren't too hard to solve, but there is a small problem: if you accidentally die between checkpoints, you have to go through again and again, which isn't a big drawback, but kind of unnerving. The plot is pretty good. You play as a nameless heroine who has lost her memories, and in order to break the seal that holds her memories, she needs to defeat the forces of evil. In short, itțs a pretty solid game that i would recomend to hardcore players.