

While the moment-to-moment gameplay of Lone Ruin is rocksolid and worth checking out, it’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s somewhat of a barebones experience.
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Sure, Pride Swell sounds good thanks to its boost to damage, but you need to be at full health otherwise it’s useless. It is a roguelike though, so that random nature can be frustrating at times too, especially when the game keeps trying to give you the same useless blessing five runs in a row. Finding ways to stack damage or haste multipliers onto your to amplify your lethality or rate of fire makes for an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop. However, the real value comes when you build up your loadout to become way more powerful. You can even encounter shops to spend some of that hard-earned cash.Įven at a base level, Lone Ruin’s twin stick action is fun and responsive, though some spells take more getting used to than others. These rewards could either be a new spell, for which you can equip an extra two before starting a run, new blessings which can alter your stats in key ways, or other benefits like additional blessings slots, treasure and healing items. You’ll enter a chamber, kill a few waves on enemies, and then claim the rewards for doing so.

The game itself plays out similarly to roguelikes such as Hades.
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For each run, certain spells will start with a free upgrade as well, which incentivises experimenting with every spell to find the one right for you. Other spells are a bit more nuanced, like Barrage, which lets you charge up a hail of bullets before unleashing them in one direction, or Scythe, which is perfect for those who’d prefer a melee build. Some are pretty simple, like Shards which serves as a machine gun of sorts, while Rail functions like a high damage railgun that takes some time to charge. Those eight spells are essentially the weapons you can choose from to start off your run, and each one has their own quirks and nuances.

A mix between Resident Evil’s merchant and the old guy in the cave from the original Legend Of Zelda, the stranger proclaims that it’s “dangerous to go “lone,” before opening up their trenchcoat and offering one of eight different spells for you to use. To be fair, though, it’s hard to imagine the player character would have made it that far if it wasn’t for the helpful stranger you encounter at the start of every run. It’s a tough journey, but with the right tools, upgrades and quite a bit of skill, it’s not impossible. A gifted spellcaster, you’ve decided to find the truth behind what happened in this city, which means delving straight into the center of the ruins and killing any monsters who happen to be standing in your way. If a game doesn’t offer something new and innovative, it’s liable to fail, and while Lone Ruin certainly manages to be a fun roguelike, it’s missing that killer USP.Ī twin-shooter with roguelike elements, Lone Ruin depicts players as a solo adventurer, who arrive at the hostile ruins of a city corrupted by magic millenia ago. Now, more than ever, it feels like there’s more roguelikes launching than ever before, which means that the competition for your attention is stiffer than ever. If you had to single out one genre that’s grown more than any other in recent years, it would have to be the roguelike.
