Ruined King - League of Legends turn-based RPG by Battle Chasers dev

[ERYFKRAD]

ignore most mechanics

 

[Grunker]

Ye, game gets too easy after getting Ahri. Another proof, that healing without use limit should not be a thing in games.

You don't have to use Ahri. I'm not. But Illaoi can nearly solo fights... even the bosses are trivial after Mao

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

MAN I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE STORY OR GAMEPLAY OR ANY OF THAT "RPG" SHIT

HOW BIG ARE AHRI'S TITS?

 

[Gradenmayer]

Ye, game gets too easy after getting Ahri. Another proof, that healing without use limit should not be a thing in games.

You don't have to use Ahri. I'm not. But Illaoi can nearly solo fights... even the bosses are trivial after Mao

Illaoi is the best tank in the game (defend with 6 tentacles blocks almost all dmg and enemies just end up healing her) , that does really good damage and has a lot of team healing. Makes Braum's existance questionable, especially with every 2nd mob being immune to stuns.

 

[Grunker]

Done. Total playtime 47 hours though a good deal of that time was probably spent on testing out new compositions and builds. Obviously I enjoyed it more than Xunwael but I can certainly see why he soured on it.

The following is just a summary of the gameplay - the story is asinine as is custom and the controls are terrible. Basically you can break the game down into three thirds:

First part: Very enjoyable, the systems all work, the progression is extremely satisfying, the game is very hard. The enemy design is generally quite interesting. Bosses are frequent.

Second part (reaching Shadow Isles): The synergies of the progressions systems start to compound on each other reducing difficulty and the enemy design starts to lean way less on the game's unique mechanics. Bosses are less frequient. Still enjoyable enough.

Third part (after getting Ahri): The progression systems spin totally out of control. Illaoi becomes an immortal tank who is permanently on full health even solo and Yasuo can one-shot nearly anything in the game making those two the clearly most overpowered characters in the game. Even if you don't use those them, chances are Ahri's healing will keep Braum fully healed up 100% of the time. So that leaves you with one potentially balanced comp: Braum, Miss Fortune and Pyke. Now, Pyke is almost as OP as Yasuo, so that leaves Braum and Miss Fortune as somewhat balanced characters. Even those two however have progression systems that makes short work of enemies. As a result, anything you fight after getting Ahri - even if you don't use her - is a total roflstomp. I did not reload a single time past these point - even on bosses. This is quite sad since the game ramps up boss design at this point and starts to use the game's uniques systems again unlike in Part 2, it's just all for naught because everything is so easy.

So a final score is hard to give. I'd heartily recommend it if it kept the quality of the first third, I'd probably say "yeah, it's OK" if the last third was at least as good as the second third. As is, you have to really enjoy toying round with different builds and the progression. If you're like me, that'll be enough. If you're not, steer clear I'd say.

 

[Xunwael]

I would just like to comment that the posts in here saying that Illaoi is a better tank than Braum, and thus (by implication) I'm an idiot for using him instead, *actually* are a good thing for my argument that the game is too easy since it means that even while playing like a moron there's still no challenge for the final, like, half of the game where the synergies start spinning out of control.

 

[1451]

Braum is the dedicated shield bot and dispeller.
Illaoi is the healer. They can coexist.
Basically only the dps slot is up to the player.
Killed the final boss, the fight is extremely gimicky and annoying.
It's good that the game allows you to complete the side quests after finishing the main quest.
Currently I'm trying to kill the worm in the arena with no success.
When I 100% the game I'll try replaying it at the hardest difficulty to see if tactics and potions acquire any meaning.

 

[Reinhardt]

Don't really like start of the game. Running with party of two and both are fucking tanks is BOOOORING

 

[Grunker]

Killed the final boss, the fight is extremely gimicky and annoying.

dude weren't you playing on normal

Currently I'm trying to kill the worm in the arena with no success

Illaoi can do it on Heroic without ever losing more than 5% HP

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/125783-ruined-king-a-league-of-legends-story-reviews.html

WCCFTech 9/10:

While it doesn't innovate the formula introduced in Battle Chasers: Nightwar too much, Ruined King: A League of Legends Story's quality is undeniably high, so much that even those with little to no knowledge of the League of Legends universe can enjoy the game fully. With an engaging story, charming characters and amazing combat system, the game by Airship Syndicate is the best possible debut for Riot Forge, and one of the best role-playing games released this year.

Twinfinite 4/5:

It is clear that Ruined King: A League of Legends Story is a work of love, combining a well-written narrative, engaging characters, and a world worth exploring and experiencing. The combat elements add to a familiar formula, and the turn-based elements are not that hard for anyone to wrap their heads around. Save for a few yet annoying bugs and glitches, it is hard not to see Ruined King: A League of Legends Story as a bonafide breakout hit for Riot Forge and Airship Syndicate.

NME 4/5:

Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story is a passionate love letter to the League Of Legends universe, but that shouldn’t put off anyone looking to explore Runeterra for the first time. Full of compelling characters and a stunning environment, Ruined King is well worth the dive for any RPG fan.

But Why Tho? 9.5/10:

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story blends wonderful characters and a fascinating world with some of the finest turn-based gameplay I’ve ever experienced. Despite a few stumbles, this is a package that anyone who loves this genre should check out. While I still have to give it some more thought, this game is most likely going to end up being my game of the year.

Nintendo Life 9/10:

Even if you don’t want anything to do with League, we would highly recommend that you give Ruined King a shot; this is a spectacular JRPG that consistently demonstrates mastery of all the ingredients needed to make a great entry in the genre. The core campaign is just long enough to feel satisfying, there are dizzying amounts of character customization, and the combat system is one of the finest we’ve encountered in a turn-based RPG in a long time. If you’re a fan of RPGs, you’d be doing yourself a great disservice to pass on Ruined King. Even if you’re a newcomer to the genre we’d still absolutely encourage you to give this a punt; it's an excellent effort.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/ruined-king-a-league-of-legends-story-review/

RUINED KING: A LEAGUE OF LEGENDS STORY REVIEW
The League of Legends RPG stays in its lane.

Ruined King may seem familiar if you follow fantasy RPGs. Not because it’s a League of Legends spin-off—I’ll get to that in a moment—but because it draws heavily from developer Airship Syndicate’s Battle Chasers: Nightwar. Ruined King, too, is an isometric RPG with a turn-based battle system and the unmistakable artwork of Joe Madureira. Ruined King, too, has a fishing minigame and vaguely Zelda-ish dungeons. If you’ve played Battle Chasers, you’ll be right at home. Those coming to this from League of Legends may require a more detailed explanation.

Essentially, a few of the LoL champs—Miss Fortune, Illaoi, Braum and a handful of others—have teamed up to save the city of Bilgewater from your standard Deadly Fantasy Mist: the same mist that has consumed the nearby Shadow Isles (nee Blessed Isles). Each happens to be in Bilgewater on unrelated business, before fate conspires to bring the gang together. It’s all to do with former Bilgewater tyrant Gangplank—he’s another LoL champion, by the way—who has murdery history with Miss Fortune, and romantic history with Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess.

There’s not much more to Ruined King’s story than that. It’s a straightforward fantasy RPG, with a setting that’s barely touched on, and with characters moulded firmly on archetypes. Sarah Fortune is the fiery, headstrong pirate captain, Braum is the lovable lump of muscle, Yasuo the disgraced samurai seeking redemption. Illaoi is more notable, being a muscly priestess who batters foes with a massive golden idol. Still, you’ve seen versions of most of these characters before, in other RPGs or fantasy fiction.

Not that that’s necessarily a criticism—it’s what you do with the characters that counts. And the cast of Ruined King, on the whole, is an entertaining bunch. They’re so cartoonish and larger than life that I feel I knew them already, despite having no knowledge of the game this has spun off from. That’s partly because they’re based on archetypes, but also because they’re so vividly realised, coming to life during the snappy party banter and—in particular—the juicy, turn-based combat.

I’ll bang on about that in a minute, but on a basic level it’s just glorious to watch, as the champs and villains duke it out in side-on, Final Fantasy-style battles. As in Battle Chasers, the animation here is fluid and expressive, whether it’s a basic attack, a nasty chomp from one of the giant bosses, or one of the flashy limit breaks each character soon gains access to. If the story is lean—wasting little time on trifling world-building or character development—then we can learn about our heroes by watching Sarah Fortune juggle her flintlock pistols, or Illaoi heave her idol like a burdensome bowling ball.

Particularly impressive are the boss animations, which force the camera to zoom way out to accommodate them. With their respawning minions and very specific battle conditions, they’re the enemies that make the most of Ruined King’s complicated battle system: a tangle of buffs and debuffs, synergies, and timeline management.

JRPG fans will be familiar with games that use a combat timeline—for example, Final Fantasy X, where you can see the order that everyone will go in combat. Ruined King builds on the concept by turning the timeline into a Lane, a term borrowed from LoL proper that makes the whole thing more confusing than it should be.

The icons in the Lane (shown at the bottom of the screen) are so small and indistinct, the menu so unintuitive that it took me a while to grok the system, which is essentially a way to shunt combatants back and forth along the timeline. Say you want your pal Yasuo to act before that pirate jerk—just use an ability that pushes the enemy back along the Lane. Abilities have a wind-up time, so might not activate immediately. The enemy may kill your wounded fighter before your heal spell finally goes off.

If that all sounds perfectly reasonable, that’s because I’ve only told the half of it. There are also environmental Wildcard effects that positively, or negatively, affect each battle. These can come from exterior sources—say, a sniper shooting as you explore a dungeon – but the game will randomly assign effects, including poison and healing, too. Wildcards are eventually activated when someone lands in the box situated on the timeline, giving further reason to shunt participants back and forth.

The Lane system is innovative, adding a few more layers of complexity to an already robust battle system. I just wish it hadn’t been implemented in such a fiddly way.

You will need to put your all into combat, as Ruined King isn’t keen on the sort of mindless filler battles common to the genre and so weaker enemies will literally flee from you during exploration. That’s great, in a way—what’s the point in fighting a one-sided battle?—but the relentless pace can make the fights feel quite exhausting.

Combat is clearly the heart of the game, but a compact city sits around it, housing side quests, bounty hunts, and even a spot of mildly diverting fishing. You’ll spend half the game in the menu, of course, crafting enchantments and toggling character upgrades. Everything you’d expect from a turn-based RPG is dutifully and slickly presented here.

It’s just not very exciting. There is little here that surprises. Ultimately, a lot of the game just feels like content, with a League of Legends veneer daubed over the top.

As for why the story didn’t grip me, it didn’t give me time to care—about the characters, or about the fate of their world. This is a CliffsNotes take on the RPG: excitable and lightning-paced, but where it feels like it starts about halfway through the adventure.

Flashbacks fill in some of the gaps, but not enough to make me invested in the world. I suspect you’ll get much more out of Ruined King if you’re already on-board with the characters and setting of League of Legends.

THE VERDICT
75

RUINED KING
Ruined King’s innovative battle system is the highlight of an attractive but unexciting RPG.

 

[Maxie]

just the type of game to leave a snide opinion on with a shit-eating grin plastered on your face despite never having played it

 

[Sykar]

Pff forget this game. THIS is true LoL satisfaction:

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...rm-welcome-into-one-of-gamings-busiest-worlds

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story review - a warm welcome into one of gaming's busiest worlds
Big leagues.

A couple of weeks ago, I became very intrigued by the look of Ruined King, a spin-off, turn-based, single-player game set in the League of Legends universe, that was released by surprise in mid-November. I've never played LoL, but to my own surprise I've been hooked.

Whereas the main LoL game is, as you probably already know, a MOBA, Ruined King is a narrative RPG set in the port city of... Bilgewater (?) and the creepy Shadow Isles (?). Your task is to help Illaoi (?), Miss Fortune (?) and non-human Ahri (?), along with others, to fight back against the mysterious and deadly Black Mist (?). The Black Mist is some kind of "thing" that's disrupting the whole region, bringing with it shadowy creatures whose main goal is seemingly just to kill everyone.

Those question marks are me displaying my ignorance about this not-cinematic universe, as some of those names have apparently been featured in the series before (in fact, looking it up, all of them have apart from the Black Mist). I had zero idea about what to expect before loading up the game and I have to say, as a LoL-idiot, I find myself engaged in the lore and atmosphere of Ruined King. The story is an interesting adventure.

After the opening cutscenes, we're going through the basics with Miss Fortune, who decides to avenge her mother's death against pirate (and another LoL champion) Gangplank, and in the process take the helm of Bilgewater itself. We then switch to Illaoi, Gangplank's former lover from the Buhru faction, who is aware of the creepy Black Mist thanks to her supernatural powers, and vows to stop its predicted torment over the region.

First, let me just say Ruined King looks great. The art has a cartoon-like quality that's instantly appealing and inviting. Second, the gameplay - after a few guided battles - is simple and easy to master. Each character has the chance to make an instant move, such as a low-powered attack or a temporary defensive shield, or a more powerful "lane" move that'll take place further on in battle, helpfully shown in the visual timeline. There are also "ultimate" attacks, but these are few and far between. These battle tactics, healing potions and different types of armour are what you can upgrade and purchase as you progress, thanks to gold coins earned along the way.

Typical to the genre, each character gains points after every victorious battle, which eventually leads to increases in their level and the chance to improve the effects of those instant and lane abilities in turn. You'll also need to upgrade your equipment, including different rings and trinkets each character wears, which come with some simple trade-offs: they might increase your attack power or stamina, at the expense of negatively affecting your character's other skills, such as magical and physical defence. There isn't a strict sense of character classes, but there are plenty more of those RPG staples like managing your mana through battle.

The fights can happen everywhere, as both human and supernatural creatures spot you while roaming around and won't stop chasing you. Thanks to that relentlessness these battles can occur a little too frequently, and coupled with a fair bit of backtracking and roaming around in certain areas it can become an annoyance, albeit a nice excuse to admire the work developer Airship Syndicate has done to build Ruined King's world.

It also helps that the voice acting is really well done, to the point where I wish there was more of it. As you explore, for instance, besides picking up the random bric-a-brac items these games love, you can collect lost notes and diary entries that provide the bulk of Ruined King's lore and backstory. It made me think of games like Trine, another fantastical world only one where snippets of other people's lives are narrated, unlike here, by an old, whimsical male voice, and given publisher Riot Games' near endless resources it might've been nice to hear a few of these many scribbles read aloud, instead of making you read like an undergrad at the library.

There are a couple of genuine hiccups in the 20 hours or so I've played through here, too. First, loading times. Despite its prettiness Ruined King isn't some souped-up, polygon-heavy, ray-tracing showcase and so, especially given the loading capabilities of the Series X, I have no idea why it sometimes takes a few solid beats to load up the next screen as you move between different parts of a map. Likewise even wanting to view the map brings up the buffering swirl of hell from time to time. Airship Syndicate has promised upgraded, native Xbox Series and PS5 versions in the new year, so hopefully this will be addressed there.

Also, although there is a sprinting option to help you move around quicker, Ruined King still felt slow to me. I'm currently addicted to the superslide-friendly Apex Legends, which doesn't help comparisons, but this was still slow for a game of any genre in 2021. There is also, crucially, the matter of the lingering workplace discrimination lawsuit at publisher Riot Games which remains unresolved and is hard to ignore.

Still, before this review, the closest I'd come to playing LoL was through watching the moments shown by YouTubers when they review different laptops, and developer Airship Syndicate has done well to bridge that gap with an enjoyable solo game for those of us who'll never get any closer to playing the MOBA. The gameplay isn't overly complicated, and the story is dreamy enough without being overly stuffy, making it an alluring option even for people allergic to fantasy altogether. Put me down as a successful LoL convert - or at least a willing entrant to its world, if not the main game itself.