Ruiner

The game wants to be a dark and gritty cyberpunk twin-stick shooter. The game actually is a pile of mismatched concepts and mechanics with little direction and less cohesion. The game is littered with weapons you won't care about, because 95% of the time you'll just be spamming your melee attack and dash. Mechanics are introduced poorly or not at all, and there's at least one upgrade that I'm pretty sure doesn't actually do anything. By the second chapter, the gameplay has entirely fallen apart, as enemies will begin to actually cheat: not staying in one place long enough for attacks to land, teleporting randomly around the map with no pattern or consistency, and staying standing, animated, and attacking for a full second after the hit which killed them. Some of the ability upgrade paths are actually so useless that you'll forget they exist until the in-game narrator tells you to use them for a specific puzzle boss, at which point you'll be confused as to why they don't seem to do anything. World navigation is confusing when it's not linear. Map exploration is not encouraged. Opening up new areas in the overworld doesn't actually open up any areas. None of the weapon upgrades actually seem to do anything, as I was 1-shotting every non-boss enemy with the basic melee attack and no upgrade abilities applied. The game has a curiously heavy resource load for what it is, even with the visual settings significantly reduced. It's not a terrible game, especially for the price if you catch it on sale. It's just not very good, and there are plenty of other games that do what Ruiner ostensibly wants to, for the same price, with much better execution.

Wot I liked - Adrenaline-pumping action grips you so hard you basically forget to breathe while your masked maniac is providing plumbing services to the masses; - Gory visual violence; - Cyberpunk, the game really looks like a detailed-though out setting with many NPCs creating background - actually quite a pleasant surprise to have such good background for an indie game; - Story's intriguing - it contains (a quite obvious) turning of the tables; - Well thought well explained skill system - you change your build on the fly trying out every combination of a dozen of skills. Wot I disliked - Crashes and looses progress; - Camera angle is off; - Bosses are reused too much, few bosses really stand out; - Dodge is weird. At first I thought it's totally broken - putting a bullet time ability and usual dodge on a single key is a huge mistake. Then I kinda mastered it but it still does not feel right; - There's too much red, the fact that low health's also indicated by red glow doesn't help. To sum it all up, it's a nice and challenging fling. Raikon Games created an interesting view of our possible cyberpunk future.

The save system is one of the worst and most idiotic I've ever come across. This is the only reason this game is completely useless to me. I played for about 3 hours, I saw it saving. When I quit and returned to the game it started where I last saw it save, so that was good. Then I played another few hours running around Heaven I think it was, the first townish area. I completed a bunch of quests and ran into a place with no warning wound up in some type of minigame speedrun something. I didn't want this and after a frustrating 10 minutes finally found my way out only to wind up at the main screen where my only option was "Continue Game" which brought me back to the first save and hours lost. How this save system became considered as a possible option was a truly stupid decision and the fact it was chosen is beyond moronic. I will never play this game again and will be asking for a refund.

The idea and the concept of this game are good but this game has a problem: It is super repetitive. Near the beginning there is some kind of cyberpunk looking hub city that you can explore a bit. This is the most exiting part. Most of the game is all the same. And I'm not talking about the combat which isn't everybodys cup of tea but it's enjoyable. I'm talking about the same level design over and over and over to a point where you just wish the game would end already. But it doesnt. It re-uses boses, levels and everyting looks just the same. Dark, black/grey and red. Lots of red. Yes, it looks cool but there is litereally zero variety. Maybe I was expecting something different but what even then who expects zero variety from a game? The story is... well it's okay, I guess? Some mix of matrix and other Sci-Fi stuff - nothing really new and a plot twist that you can see comming from miles away. So if you want to pay 20€ for a 6-8 hours game (depending on how fast/good you are), from what you have seen everything after the first 2 hours at the latest, then go for it. Otherwise better wait for a sale or buy something else.

I love almost everything about this game, the gorgeous aesthetics, the amazing character designs, the little voice acting there is, the story, it's all very awesome and just, perfect. The issue is...the combat, which is what you'll be doing a lot, and it's like, it's fine, it works, it does the job, but it's also not very fun and polished. It lacks feedback, there's no ''oomph'' to your hits, melee or guns, maybe a hit-stop would've helped a bit, i don't know, as it is, it's very unsatisfying. Then comes the grades, now, it's Devil May Cry rules, if you don't take hits, and kill things fast, that's an S+ right, yeah, that's ok, in concept. Except the MOMENT an enemy with a gun joins the fray, you've lost any chance for that S+ unless you get lucky, cause they WILL hit you, even as you dodge, they're ACCURATE, and guess what happens if you shoot? You're very innacurate in return, on controller, guns just, refuse to lock properly, most shots are misses. You also BARELY get any feedback when you get hit, you might even die without noticing you have been chipped away by something, again, a Hit-Stop effect would've helped. And the aesthetics i love so much? Also gets in the way of the combat, visibility can be low, enemies bleed into the background and it's hard to tell at a glance where they are. It all amounts to a very unfun experience where the game asks you to be perfect to get the delicious good grades, but the game is very imperfect so it rarely feels fair or fun trying to do so. It'll probably drive perfectionists insane, like me, it's such a big flaw that it takes away a lot. There's a good game in here, maybe some more polish, more acessibility options like outlines for enemies so you can see them, this could be a GREAT game, but as it is, it's like, an OK, it's very flawed, but by god is it a beautiful game.