‘RUINSMAGUS’ Review – Awesome Anime Vibes, Rinse and Repeat Dungeoning – Road to VR

RUINSMAGUS is a Japanese role-playing recreation with a heavy deal with dungeon crawling and magic-based fight. The sport’s anime-adjacent visuals and storytelling fashion are welcome and acquainted items, and find yourself delivering the kind of motion you’d anticipate finding in VR recreation constructed round a a lot bigger, extra established universe. Fight is generally efficacious, and it stretches you to implement every little thing they’ve at your disposal, though it’s in the end held again by a lackluster stock system and repetitive dungeons. This, alongside a variety of flatscreen holdovers, make this first-person magic brawler really feel prefer it adheres somewhat too rigidly to conventions to really be revolutionary.

RUINSMAGUS Particulars:

Obtainable On: Quest, SteamVR
Launch Date: July seventh, 2022
Value: $35
Developer: CharacterBank
Writer: CharacterBank, Mastiff
Reviewed On: Quest 2

Gameplay

Ruinsmagus is chock-full of anime drama paying homage to some medieval-flavored mainstays: Assault on Titan, Sword Artwork On-line, Full Metallic Alchemist—you already know, the kind of present the place the protagonist is destined to turn out to be the OP badass who saves the realm. It’s a enjoyable mixture that sticks to some acquainted worldbuilding ideas, and it nearly makes you’re feeling such as you’ve gone head first right into a a lot bigger anime collection than the 26-mission recreation would recommend due to the characteristically wealthy and expressive world.

I say ‘nearly’ as a result of, as you’d think about, there’s just a few caveats which will pull you out of your full dive into the Grand Amnis, a city that sits atop an enormous labyrinth of ruins stuffed with magic-wielding baddies. Nonetheless, there’s some laughs, romances, redemptions, betrayals—anime followers will really feel proper at dwelling.

To keep away from spoilers, right here’s a reasonably obscure rundown of the story: you’re a sucky wizard (Magus) who progressively turns into much less unhealthy as you tackle two dozen sequential dungeon-crawling missions into some historic ruins. The world is trying to you to search out some fairly vital objects that may do… one thing vital that may impact the entire world. By your aspect is scientist Iris who’s your fixed companion. Whilst you’re away on dungeoning missions her voice is piped in by way of somewhat floating Chibi dude, who may also mission Iris as a blue hologram. Iris is principally the sport’s waifu, so there’s that.

The story has fairly broad enchantment, however (as seen above) in the event you don’t perceive spoken Japanese, that is the place the ‘subs vs dubs’ crew wins the day. Ruinsmagus is voiced completely in Japanese and subtitled in English or Japanese, so take it or depart it. Subtitle home windows float across the middle of your imaginative and prescient and are interactable with both ‘A’ for proceed or ‘B’ to skip the complete part.

At the start of the sport you’re introduced with the selection of Simple, Regular or Exhausting. There’s no indication what these three substantively imply, and there’s no strategy to change issue when you’ve blindly picked one. For the report, I went with Regular, and a couple of fourth approach by way of the sport the problem ramps up fairly a bit, taking you from an space the place you possibly can simply vanquish any enemy to dungeons which will require a number of tries. It’s extra an advisory than a critique, however don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Beginning with fight, the sport’s brawler-style battle system is a little bit of a blended bag, however I’d contemplate it principally successful in translating fast and tactical gameplay into VR. You’re given a alternative of a most of 14 magic spells of which you’ll choose three (one major and two secondary) to bind to your proper hand.

Magical ammo is infinite, though you’ll want to reload your gauntlet periodically, which is finished with a satisfying downward motion. The little vials in your arm go down as you employ magic, which makes for an excellent visible indicator.

With solely few exceptions, magic is generally range-based, which means you both shoot spells from afar like a gun, or toss spells for space impact. Holding the ‘A’ button in your proper controller as an alternative of merely urgent it helps you to cost every skill for a bigger impact. Ganking baddies additionally fills up an final skill, including a fourth occasional energy to your arsenal.

There’s additionally protect to bodily shield your self from incoming projectiles and parry ranged assaults, sending their assaults straight again at them. Protect energy mechanically replenishes, though if the standing bar goes all the way in which down throughout a struggle you’ll should be gentle in your toes in order to not take an excessive amount of well being injury.

And being agile in your digital toes is an actual should, because the tons of of minions you’ll face together with periodic bosses will typically telegraph space assaults that may spell quick dying or critical damage in the event you don’t quick-jump out of the way in which, a kind of quick sprint transfer you’ll end up utilizing always.

Enemy variability, exterior of periodic bosses that are typically enjoyable and attention-grabbing encounters, feels on the low aspect. Though enemies acquire new powers as you progress by way of the sport’s two dozen missions, it’s principally: small man, tank man, quick man, flying man, and big guardian. Enemy spawn factors are additionally tremendous predictable since broad open areas at all times sign a struggle.

I gained’t spoil and boss battles, however all of them are designed in classical motion RPG fashion, the place the setting is molded across the bosses skill—suppose The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and lots of of these encounters really feel like they’ve been ripped from the clutches of Nintendo. And that’s excessive reward!

Each the protect and offensive magic are fairly straight ahead and work effectively. One factor that’s positive to journey you up although is the comparatively large variety of consumables at your disposal, a lot of that are unlocked round midway by way of the sport. These embody varied well being potions, a number of grenade kinds, and a handful of syringes for magic protection and offense. All of that’s effectively and good, however stock administration, or the dearth thereof, makes the entire expertise of utilizing these things principally a unending scramble of biking by way of each merchandise.

Your stock is represented as a single chest holster slot. Urgent a button in your proper controller cycles by way of these things one-by-one, which means you’ll have to undergo the complete record throughout fight simply to get to one thing.

What typically finally ends up taking place is you simply vomit out no matter is in your stock as you scramble to dodge magic missiles, protect your self, return fireplace, all of the whereas trying down on the holster to visually affirm that you simply’re truly on the best merchandise.

And shopping for them is an absolute chore too. It goes like this: finish a mission, view your rating, cycle by way of a textual content description of the stuff you received, teleport to the store, scroll by way of each merchandise, click on the merchandise you want, add the variety of lacking objects you want, purchase that particular class of merchandise, exit the store to teleport again to the hub, expertise no matter story bit there could also be, and head into the following mission.

Since you’re always utilizing consumables, you’ll must mechanically full these steps for each merchandise you require each single mission of the sport. And that objectively stinks.

Exterior of enemies, dungeons really feel very samey and seemingly empty, which is a disgrace. There’s no loot to seek for, or byways to discover; all rewards are foisted upon you on the finish of mission the place you’re graded in your time, dying, and kill efficiency. I saved anticipating bigger, extra labyrinthine dungeons, however all Ruinsmagus appears to have the ability to serve up is identical dungeon items on repeat with completely different colours.

In all, Ruinsmagus took me over eight hours to finish, which included a number of deaths all through dungeons and boss battles. There’s a such a mechanical nature to the sport that it might be finest performed in shorter stints than my hours-long gameplay periods.

Immersion

Ruinsmagus packs in a heap of enjoyable moments that make you’re feeling such as you’ve stepped into an anime. The story is possibly somewhat predictable, however the creators present a deft hand in making a world that feels alive and lived-in.

The sport’s music can also be equally superior, offering swelling orchestral preparations to underline these key narrative beats.

My solely want is I may have extra of these moments, and that they weren’t so damaged up by the mechanical nature of the sport. Mainly, I hate the concept, exterior of fight missions, most interactions happen by way of 2D menus with laser pointers. Object interplay is fairly non-existent exterior of some magazines you’ll discover laying round, all of which snap to your hand at awkward studying angles.

Whether or not or not it’s the mission choice board—which solely ever has one mission at a time—or the close to fixed prevalence of compelled teleportation throughout narrative sequences, you’re always being reminded that you simply’re not a participant however relatively a watcher in what unfolds. It’s possible you’ll be ‘light to black’ thrice in just a few seconds simply as you enter a reasonably nonconsequential chat. It appears the builders determined to section single narrative encounters so finely that each time a brand new character springs into the chat you’re light to black to reset the scene, which isn’t nice for participant company. Total I’d have appreciated Ruinsmagus to have made me really feel like I used to be extra of an energetic participant and never only a faceless protagonist that was at all times led by the nostril to the following mission.

Ruinsmagus additionally suffers from each frontloaded tutorials and early exposition dumps which set some expectations early on. Instantly you already know this shall be an expertise that focuses purely on fight and passive storytelling—the kind of dialogue drip I’m used to from a  lifetime of Last Fantasy video games. That’s no actual shock coming from a JRPG, however in VR all of it feels somewhat too outdated since immersion and participant company are such vital components to the medium.

Consolation

Ruinsmagus is frenetic, nevertheless it’s in the end very comfy due to some built-in consolation choices. There are just a few moments when your motion is compelled throughout narrative bits, though these are sluggish and only a few.