Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story | a Review
originally published on 02/12/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the god-forsaken buccaneer, GEMZ, a dastardly fiend of fortune and unbound hatred aimed at League of Legends, and here I am to talk to you about Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story (henceforth referred to as Ruined King).
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
Ruined King is a mostly turn based game that features two modes of play.
First is the mode of play that allows the Player to move around and explore the world, the so-called Dungeon mode of play. It features the Player controlling a character and wandering about the world of Ruined King, interacting with characters or objects by pressing the E button. A few things I’d like to point out - the control scheme for this mode of play, and the other mode of play (the combat one) is weird.
I’d wager it is such due to the fact that the game is obviously made with a console in mind and thus it is simply ruined by that, though the weirdest thing is that the mouse can be used to both move around the world and interact with things. Things such as the UI (User Interface) or things in the game world, which is a little confusing at times. The best approach for the Player is to abstract themselves from the mouse, because the game is made with a controller in mind - the only use for the mouse would be aiming dungeon abilities, which I will talk about in a bit.
The other weird factor is that the game utilizes the WASD keys to move the character around the world of the game, as well as the WASD keys to navigate the menus. On the one hand, that is convenient, as the Player needn’t move their hands over the keyboard, but, on the other hand, that is very weird, because, so far, gaming conventions have made it such that the arrow keys are used to navigate menus, rather than the WASD keys. Although it takes a little getting used to, it is not that great a problem. HOWEVER, there are other strange factors that really mess with the experience of controlling the game.
Again, in the menus, I might have said that the WASD keys are used - and, indeed, they are - but then there are also other buttons used to navigate around the tabs of, say, the Inventory screen. The buttons are 3 and 4. Why are they not Q and E, which are situated beside W and above A and D? Why would they not totally stick to the ease of access they seem to be going for? Because Q and E are used for other functions.
Overall, this game is drenched in the foul stench of a console. It suffers, slightly, as a result of that, but, impressively, the only great issues that I’ve really been affected by are the weird control scheme and the bouts of anger I experience as I think about consoles and the horrible things they have done for the gaming industry.
But let’s get back on target, even if this was definitely on target. The control scheme, once gotten used to, is pretty reasonable, even on a keyboard. The movement is smooth and relatively responsive, the means of interacting with things are decently done - as there is an indication what kind of thing the Player can interact with - and there is even an implemented “witcher vision” or “batman vision” or “detective mode” which entails clicking a button, shooting out a sonar wave and having every intractable thing highlighted for the Player.
How does that make sense in the context of the story? It doesn’t. But it is there as a means of making the game more accessible and easier to consume, as things are not highlighted when the Player walks up to them, safe for a tiny little icon that pops up over them. With time, the Player learns which objects can be interacted with, but the sheer number of NPCs (Non-Player Characters) in the world requires that the Player uses this “witcher vision” to figure out who can be spoken to, as only a select number of NPCs can be interacted with.
This is neither an overwhelmingly positive feature, nor is it an overwhelmingly negative one, so I’m just presenting it and stating - this coulda been done better, but when one thinks about the fact that this game is obtusely picturesque, having bits of UI all over everything that can be interacted with could get in the way of the fairy tale presentation. It is what it is and I don’t mind it all that much.
Now, here’s something intriguing - that “witcher vision” tends to reveal the levels of enemies. This is useful, as it allows the Player to guess which NPC is an enemy and is a threat, but, sometimes, the information provided by the “witcher vision” is wrong. I saw an enemy with the number 1 over its head, which indicates that it is level 1, however, when I entered a fight with it, it turned out to be level 5. That is one of, unfortunately, many bugs that I will be pointing at.
On the subject of combat, seeing as I mentioned that I ended up fighting things, how does one enter combat? By either walking into an enemy or hitting that enemy with a Champion’s Dungeon Ability. That’s two terms, though, and they’re important.
So, there are six Player characters - PCs - and they’re called Champions. The Player can have a party of three Champions, and, when they have that party of three Champions, they control one of the three while running around the world. Switching between Champions in the party is easy - all that’s needed is to press either X or Z and the next, or previous, Champion will now be in control. Players can switch the Champions who are in the party at a resting point… However, sometimes the player will be restricted and will be unable to remove a certain champion from the party, as they will be flagged as necessary for progression (read: introduction of a Champion specific mechanic)... That’s a little silly.
Each Champion has a certain set of abilities associated with them - those being some passive abilities which affect how the Champion can interact with things in the world and active abilities - the Dungeon Abilities.
So, depending on which Champion is being controlled, the Player has access to a Dungeon Ability, which can be used to achieve… Something. It often fires a projectile or affects an area of the screen, and, if an enemy is hit by the projectile or in the area of the screen that is affected by the Dungeon Ability, the Player will enter combat against the enemy with a beneficial effect occurring in favor of the Player.
Unfortunately, here comes another problem. Not only does the game suffer from being… A console game… But it also struggles with something else. I’d say it is bugs, and be done with it, but the multitude is quite impressive. Let me just state that Dungeon Abilities oftentimes don’t work, due to bad hitbox detection or collision boxes… As in: I shoot somebody, the projectile goes through them, and nothing happens. Or: I dodge a projectile, I walk a few steps to the side and take damage from that projectile.
But let’s jump into combat time already. That’s the turn-based mode of play. There can be a total of six characters in combat - 3 Champions and 3 enemies. There is no movement on the field, and everyone is simply static - as in, no movement commands can be issued. There is something that can be moved along - the initiative order.
I don’t think I’ve ever really encountered something quite like that before, so I’ll go a bit more in detail on it. The initiative order is decreed by the haste of all characters. The higher one’s haste, the sooner they get to act, and the more often do they get to act. Everyone gets to have their turn and then they get to have their turn again, though some characters can have more than one turn before another character can have even one turn.
The UI is simple and quite clean, although there are a lot of icons and very few bits of text that stick around. This is where the Q button comes in handy (and the limitations of consoles just start kicking our collective heads in). The Q button allows the Player to inspect the field - they can get more information about the initiative order, they can get more information about the characters - what current status effects they have and, if they are enemies, what kind of abilities they tend to have.
This is not too bad. The information is delivered to the Player, or, rather, it is accessible, which is very good - especially when it comes to a game that has tactical or strategic elements, such as Ruined King. HOWEVER, that clarity is shadowed by the buggyness of the game and the fact it’s made for consoles. When selecting a target for an ability, or an ability overall, the game shoves a spike up the Player’s ass, if the Player so much as dares have the mouse cursor anywhere in the vicinity.
The game is either meant to be played with a keyboard or with a mouse. There are mixed messages, though, because the Dungeon Ability cannot be used without the mouse, but it can also not be used without the keyboard. And, yet, whenever the Player tries to use both the mouse and the keyboard to play the game… They get royally ruined.
So, the Player can pick an ability. They have to navigate the ability menu with the WASD keys and then press E to pick it. However, if the mouse so much as touches the menu’s corners, it will be selected, as if the Player has navigated to it via the WASD keys. Even if the mouse does not MOVE this still happens. Sometimes the Player does not get to use the abilities they want to use because of this. The issue keeps growing more and more pervasive, however.
The player can pick a target… By either using the W or S keys, or the mouse. The same issue kicks in. Worst yet? There is a system that allows a character to affect their place on the initiative order. This system is called “lanes”.
There are three - a Speed Lane, a Balance Lane, and a Power Lane. Using an ability in the Speed Lane makes the ability go off sooner on the initiative order, but it’s a bit weaker, whereas the Power Lane makes it go off later, but it’s a bit stronger. To pick lanes the Player needs to roll the scroll wheel up or down. The mouse is NEEDED to play, but the mouse makes it more difficult to play.
However, those are just small issues, in the grand scheme of things. Of course, connect to a controller and those are no longer issues. Thus, I am counting them off and pointing at consoles for truly making gaming less qualitative, whilst keeping them in the back of my mind. These problems are very minor - they are more along the lines of inconveniences… But bugs come back in. Sometimes, the Player needs to use the mouse, because the WASD keys for targeting do not work. No specific reason, the game is just buggy.
Abstracting ourselves from these things, the combat system is very interesting. The Player has a multitude of options, with each Champion having quick actions, which are instant, lane abilities, which take a bit longer to cast, and ultimate abilities, which are super powerful but require a special resource to use. There are means of healing oneself, of mitigating damage, of dealing damage, of buffing or debuffing targets, of messing with other characters’ place on the initiative order… It is quite nice. Some abilities affect multiple targets, others affect single targets, some have random targets, others have specific targets. There are options, and I quite like that.
Performing quick actions, which are instant, does not require any resource. These actions are generally an attack that does some damage and incorporates the passive ability of the Champion (the mechanic the Champion has integrated into their kit - each has one big special mechanic) as well as a defensive action which reduces damage taken.
Lane abilities/actions require mana, but the game has an incredibly pleasant mechanic called overcharge. Some abilities, mostly quick action attacks, generate overcharge, which allows one to use it instead of mana. This allows for continuing a fight even after running out of mana, or straight up never wasting any mana at all.
Not only that, but there is another mechanic/resource to consider, ultimate points. Those get generated by just having actions get used, and, upon reaching a certain threshold, an ultimate ability can be used. Ultimates are instant and pretty good.
There are also the options of using items. The player can collect items during their wandering around the world, potions, and can then use them in combat instead of using an ability. This one is the buggiest of them all - sometimes, using the mouse to navigate that potion/item menu bugs it thoroughly, and one cannot navigate beyond a certain point. Sometimes, items do not show up. Sometimes, items show up twice or thrice. It is very messy.
The biggest issue is the clarity of the game, as well as the fact that some abilities are bugged and do not do what they say they supposedly do.
An example would be Illaoi - one of her ultimates states that all tentacles are consumed, and the lowest Health Champion is healed by a value multiplied by the number of consumed tentacles… Only for the value to be the same when the ability is used with 0 tentacles active and 6 tentacles active. One last example would be enemies being shown aiming at certain characters, and then, without any reason (no application of taunts or stealth that could forcefully change the target) hit a different Champion. When the only means of playing around something is knowing that it will happen, this is a problem.
Bugs keep showing up, though. Sometimes things are totally inaccessible, even though they should be. An example would be walking up to an object that is highlighted as intractable, and then trying to interact with it, only to find out that there is no prompt, nor any means, of interacting with it. Essentially, the object should be something other than a part of the scenery, but it ends up being simply that - a part of the scenery. Clutter.
That word, however, cannot be used for much of anything else. The complexity of the game is phenomenally tight, in a strange and pleasant manner. The progression is very straightforward and sensible, which makes it feel meaningful - and it is, one does want to get better items to do more damage or to withstand bigger hits. It’s all good fun.
The inventory system, although suffering from the fact it is made for a console, is really respectable. The usability of it is… Lackluster - an example of that would be the need to find the specific slot where one needs to hover the mouse, to then spin the mouse wheel, if they want to buy a multitude of items at once or sell a multitude of items at once. However, that is relatively minor - the game can be completed without buying or selling items at all… Even if, at higher difficulties, it is best to engage in trading.
But what is the point of trading and having items in the inventory? Well, enchanting. The game features an interesting way of implementing a crafting system - which can be completely ignored at the lower difficulties and might mean the difference between winning and getting curb stomped on the higher ones. Enchanting allows the player to use some material items they have to heighten the quality of equipment they have - called Infusion - there being three levels of quality, there’s room for growth. On top of that, a weapon, or armor piece, can be further upgraded by being provided with a special bonus effect that makes it, overall, stronger, or more useful.
The neat thing is that to obtain new recipes for enchantments, the player needs to find a specific object in a certain location and use it. Sometimes, there is a restriction that requires the acquisition of a specific item before any enchantment recipes can be learned. This leads me into a very neat little thing this game has - puzzles.
These puzzles are done spectacularly well, I must say. They are not difficult, at all. They are, in fact, very simple and quite easy to understand. The fun thing is that there is a bit of knowledge provided to the player, which bit of knowledge needs to be used so that the puzzle can be solved. Figuring out how to crystalize that knowledge into action is the fun part, which involves the solution of the puzzle. That’s how puzzles ought to be, frankly, and I enjoyed them tremendously.
Unfortunately, I must inform you, ladies and gentlemen, that there is an issue. Not just with puzzles - it is an issue that bothers the entirety of this game. Any intractable object may end up being impossible to interact with in the first place- yes, I’ve informed you already. However, that is not the only bug - some objects, when interacted with… Consume an item - which means they should do something for the player - and then become impossible to interact with. Not only does the player lose the option to utilize the object in the first place, but they also lose an item that they spent time and effort getting.
In essence, when it comes to gameplay? This game is great. Strategy, tactics, a multitude of means of approaching everything that can be presented. I did not go in great detail on the means of progression, but I’d like the readers to know that it is very good. There are more than a few systems that increase the power of the Champions… And they’re good.
I’d leave it at that, but there’s something else… Though, look for it in the Legendary Point. It is special. However, because of the intensity of this game’s bugginess at the moment… -1. I don’t know if they will be fixed. If this game was not as buggy as it is, it’d be a 3/3. Unfortunately, that is not the case. 2/3
Presentation
Game looks good. It is nicely stylized and features some really vibrant colors, in a large number of areas, and then some dreary and ominous ones, in the rest of the areas. Mood setting is very nicely done, and I have to admit that, even at the lowest possible graphical fidelity, the game had something incredible going for it - and that were its vistas. Every now and then it will show the player a location and zoom the camera out slightly, which just leaves almost nothing to be desired. The appearance of it is phenomenal, reminiscent of a spectacular landscape painting.
Not only that, but the way the areas in the game are so thoroughly, and carefully, filled with things gives them such a great amount of life, whenever there needs to be life. NPCs walking about, others standing close to one another and chit-chatting, boxes, crates, all kinds of things just strewn about or carefully ordered to resemble things. There’s a great attention to detail, I feel, and things are just wonderful.
Another spectacular thing that I’d like to point at is the artwork for the important characters and the artwork for the items the player might collect. The former is, simply put, superb, although they are all just a single image with no variations, whereas other games with a similar manner of conveying the story, would have had variations in expressions. The latter is great, mostly focused on the ‘Food’ items, which look incredibly appetizing or simply far too interesting to not leave an impression.
One thing I need to point out as not being all that good - the way the game does the presentation of the story. Now, naturally, one would expect this to be a bit… Inconsistent, right? Well, it is. Some characters are voiced, others are not. However, some of the voiced characters are, sometimes, not voiced. That would not be an issue if there was not a strange, uncanny propensity for… Having manual continuation and automatic continuation.
Let me get in detail. The game is presented via the lens of a Visual Novel. The characters are slapped on the screen and then there’s text underneath their portraits. However, there are also moments when the characters remain as their models, in the game world, and speech bubbles, as if out of a comic book, pop up above their heads. Every scene that features the characters being slapped on the screen (or, rather, the character artwork) is voiced.
Then, some of the scenes that feature the comic book speech bubbles are not voiced, while others are voiced. The Champions themselves, who are supposedly the ones who are properly voiced, also have many moments where they speak… Without being voiced. The inconsistency is a bit annoying, but the problem truly arises in another place.
The voiced scenes go on by themselves. The player does not need to press any buttons to continue to the next line of dialogue… Although they also cannot stop the dialogue from playing out, even if they can skip lines by pressing the E key repeatedly. That is a constant, and, although the loss of control, when it comes to whether or not the presentation of the story continues, is not pleasant, it is passable.
The scenes that are not voiced, however, have an issue. SOME of them go on by themselves, like the voiced scenes… But they go by far too quickly. And, again, they go on by themselves, and if the player stops paying attention for just a single moment, they are prone to missing out on whatever is being said. The biggest problem is that SOME of the un-voiced scenes require manual button inputs (E key) to bring up the next line of dialogue. This is an inconsistency that really makes the experience unpleasant, because not only can the player not stop the game for a moment (due to the fact that they will miss out on potentially important story or character development), but they also are forced into being ready to read as fast as possible, lest they miss out on some information that could prove to be important.
When it comes to voice acting, this one gets everything right, except one very important thing. Miss Fortune’s voice actor. The voice actress that voices Miss Fortune in League of Legends is astoundingly good and not only gives insane amounts of character to the Champion, but also makes her quite iconic - it is easy to recognize Miss Fortune just by her voice… Whereas the voice actress that voices Miss Fortune in Ruined King is NOT that same person, and the presentation, although not bad at all, is really lacking in that uniqueness. Sometimes, it is not hard to get Ahri and Miss Fortune mixed up, if one is not paying much attention, because their voices in this game sound quite similar. That just kinda undermined everything for me.
On the topic of sounds, the music is… It’s okay. It’s passable. It could even be called good, but it did not have anything far too memorable for me. The themes in Bilgewater, which is the main staging point for a lot of the game, are reminiscent of that Bilgewater theme that Riot released a while ago, during a certain event in League of Legends, which is not too bad - a certain DND playlist can benefit from some spicing up - but the tracks are just that - not bad. They’re not excellent, unfortunately.
As a result of those slight missteps, the game, which is stunning to behold, lags behind on the scoreboard. 2/3
Story
The story is great. It is what Infinity War was for Marvel. Characters, who have been built up over a long time, who have been defined in previous pieces of media, end up encountering one another and interacting, facing a common enemy. It is superb, as the only redeeming feature that League of Legends has is its story, and even that has been slowly going down-hill recently, what with some of the atrocious releases (Seraphine; Vex) that do horrendous things to the lore (introducing a K-pop character that exists purely because of K-pop into a world where there is no K for that pop, and there is no pop for the K-pop; introducing words like ‘normie’ and ‘tryhard’ which create such a foul dissonance that one’s suspension of disbelief is immediately catapulted out of the window)... Let’s not even mention the “Sentinels of Light” event.
In short - characters converge upon Bilgewater, drawn there by their own reasons, and end up encountering one another on their road to discovering whatever it is they are looking for. Teaming up, as it is easier to do things together, they find out that the issues that the opposition they have been meeting so far is actually far more sinister and fouler than one could have anticipated, and thus they reason to bring it down.
The story is very well crafted, and the characters, all of them, go through arcs that feature some growth, with the exception of a pair who have already been established as… Well, well rounded characters - those being Braum, who is literally a perfect character, and Pyke, who is literally dead and also insane - who are not really in need of/capable of changing without external influences that alter their entire beings. Even some of the villains get to have some character development, which was interesting.
In any case, though, the most phenomenal aspect of this game was the fact that the player got to experience the world of League of Legends - Runeterra, as it is called - firsthand. Wandering through Bilgewater, seeing characters talking about other characters, mentioning entities, interacting with one another, seeing how things are… It was just sublime. I can’t, with a good conscience, give this anything less than the most. 3/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? YES! Now, let me tell you why…
Two reasons are present. The first is Fishing. The second is childlike wonder.
Let’s get on with the fishing. Why do I mention this? Why is it here? Well, the reason is the following: The fishing in this game is as close to a perfect implementation of fishing in a video game, that is not centered around fishing, as it is ever going to get.
It is intricately connected to the empowerment of the characters. Through fishing, the player can obtain a special currency which then allows the player to obtain either really powerful, unique items, items that directly contribute to the increase of the power of the Champions in play, or even items that alter the appearance of said Champions. In addition to all that, the player also has the option of using these items to buy themselves boxes of loot, which contain resources, useful for enchanting and thus growing more powerful, and can also literally fish said boxes of loot out of the water.
The fact that the fishing mechanic in this game can have such an incredibly potent impact on the rest of the game, by way of increasing the power of the player, is very important. Why? Because it does not rip the player out of the game. Let me provide you with some examples, ladies and gentlemen, so that you may know.
Let’s take the fishing in World of Warcraft. The player can potentially use whatever they fish up to give themselves some extra customization options or use the resources provided, in conjunction with another system in the game, to provide themselves with miniscule, temporary improvements in power. The process of fishing involves pressing a button to begin the act of fishing, then waiting for a period of time until a sound and a visual indication appear, at which point the player needs to click the mouse, which can take anywhere from 5 to maybe even 10 seconds per catch.
Okay, how about fishing in… Say, Nier Automata? The player can sell the fish they fish up for medium amounts of profit. The act of fishing is similar to what World of Warcraft does, although, this time, there’s a different button to press. In essence, it is: press the button to start fishing, wait for the visual+sound que, and then hold the button.
Both of the examples provided do one thing that really fails at making the activity of fishing interesting. They implement waiting. The player, who has so far been running around like a headless chicken, fighting enemies in high octane standing and waiting matches (World of Warcraft) or brutal, obscenely intense action sequences that pump adrenaline up to 1 billion (Nier Automata), is suddenly stopping… And doing nothing but waiting.
The core gameplay of the game is utterly shattered. There is no movement, there is no mechanical complexity, there is no mental exertion, there’s literally nothing other than waiting. And, on top of that, the rewards earned from taking part in that activity are so inconsequential, it is evident that the activity itself is slapped on and not integrated into the game properly.
However, in Ruined King… The act of fishing is very nice. First, the player finds a fishing spot - those are limited - then, the player casts their line, which is preceded by a ‘mini-game’ that decides how far the player’s line will go. Sometimes, the player does not want to throw their line as far as possible… Imagine that? THEN, the player can either wait for a fish to swim up to the bait, or they can start reeling in the bait, which will make the fish start following it.
If a fish grabs onto the bait, it will start struggling against it. The player is then urged to reel the line in, but there are fineties to that - the player can allow the fish to struggle for a bit, which will weaken it, and then reel in, or they can keep reeling in for as long as they can. The fish might start moving towards the player, while struggling, which just helps the player. Already, there’s a multitude of things that the player needs to think about and a multitude of things that the player needs to do.
But that is not all! If the player decides not to let the fish bite the bait, they can reel the bait in, while navigating with the use of the W and S keys, avoiding the fish that start moving towards the bait, and reeling the line as close to themselves as possible… At which point, when the fish bites, they can easily reel the fish in with a 100% success chance, without having to struggle with the reeling that occurs when the fish is far away.
There’s movement to it. There’s thought to it. There’s a real reward to it. It’s perfectly well implemented, and I actually enjoyed fishing in this game. That’s… That’s a feat, if I’ve ever beheld one.
Onto the second thing - the childlike wonder. As mentioned before, I have played League of Legends. I am quite acutely aware of the lore of said game. I am, unfortunately, very passionate about that game. I was, and I still think I am, even though I do not play much of it anymore. In any case, it has managed to captivate my mind, be it with its colorful characters, its admittedly impressively fluent gameplay, or its staggeringly expansive world that features great potential.
The Ruined king grabbed two out of those three things and expanded upon them so vehemently that playing it felt as though I was an eleven-year-old little girl, a tremendous fan of Disney Princesses, going to DisneyLand for the first time… And actually getting to go on every single ride, because there were less than 1000 visitors to the whole amusement park.
Not only does this game grab these characters and flesh them out, give them heaps of extra detail and more personality than before, not only does it reveal the astoundingly rich world that they hail from, but it also leaves one wanting for more. It is quite like a hit of ketamine, after one has gone through the horror of addiction and then managed to quit. It was astounding for me; I could not stop myself from playing more and more of it. Even with responsibilities and things I needed to do in real life, even with heaps of work to do, even with only a few hours of free time for recreational activities, I only engaged with this game.
I’d like to say that speaks to just how phenomenal it was. I’d like to say that is an indication of just how enjoyable the experience of playing this game was. Naturally, I am heavily biased, but even if I were no fan of League of Legends, and had never played it, I believe that this game would have been very enjoyable. It might not have gotten the legendary point, but it would have still been a very good game.
So yes, it does get the Legendary Point. 1/1
Conclusion
8/10. A surprisingly good game. Very high quality. It’s a game I would like to say I would recommend to everybody, but, unfortunately, I would not say that is the case. However, with the advent of ‘story only’ difficulties, I’d say that if one likes narrative driven games, this game would be fantastic for them. In addition to that, any fan of JRPGs or Turn based combat is welcome to play it, and I’d wager they would enjoy it tremendously. Naturally, fans of League of Legends are obligated, by law, to play this game.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display.