18 Jul, 2023
Ruins Story
Ruins Story is an amazing 2D roguelite action shooter and a follow-up to “ReversEstory”. It’s a game full of challenging boss fights, lots of weapon and power-up customizations, and a unique fast-paced combat system.Each run starts at a screen from which we select which room to enter next. These rooms range from normal enemy encounters to supply rooms with new weapons or upgrades.
The goal is to defeat the difficult boss room, which we unlock by completing four elite rooms. But since we decide when to enter these, we can grind better weapons for an easier time, or head straight in for a real challenge.
Inside each one-screen room, we swipe and release to teleport around. Meanwhile, our first weapon is triggered by simply tapping the screen, and the other by holding down and swiping in the direction we want to shoot.
But this is where it gets interesting because we’ve got a gauge bar that moves up or down depending on which weapon we use. And if the bar reaches one of its ends, we’re forced to use the other weapon to continue fighting, which creates a fun challenge.
When we eventually die, we lose everything except the scraps and cores we’ve earned. We spend these on unlocking random new weapons and improving our character via a skill tree. There's a lot of depth to these systems.
The controls take a bit to get used to but work well once you get the hang of them. The art style is also neat, with convenient indicators of where the next enemy attack lands. There’s even a mysterious time-traveling story being told as we progress.
The biggest downside is by far the bad English translation.
Ruins Story monetizes via incentivized ads and iAPs for extra rewards and power-ups. Neither is at all necessary to enjoy the game.
The fact that each room only takes a minute to clear makes it a perfect game for short play sessions, and on a personal level, it has quickly become one of my favorite action roguelites.
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2 Comments
Athik,26 Aug, 2020
Nice turn-based / strategy fights full of zombies and different characters and attack patterns. Highly recommended.
Allie,26 Aug, 2020
Finished this game once. Don't get fooled by "Chill" difficulty - there is nothing chill about it. You'll be constantly on the edge, replaying turns and stages over and over. The only difference is that there is enough food to not waste time searching every nook and cranny. Anyway, the game is good.