Ruiner is a top down arcade style shooter set in the beautifully rendered cyberpunk city of Rengkok, you play as PUPPY a mysterious psychopath with cybernetic enhancements from head to toe on a mission to save his kidnapped brother.
The art style is iconic making use of simple strong tones that resonate with the silent-ish protagonist who projects short simple statements and gifs on his holo-mask in an inspired evolution of the 'television head' character design. The game wears its Akira/anime inspirations on its sleeve from the detailed harshly lit environments, character portraits, and intensity-first animation which work really well together but fuses it with contemporary gamer culture in a way that feels fresh and authentic. The music is suitable but not especially memorable.
Gameplay is very fast and very violent capturing a satisfyingly ultraviolent feel, even simple attacks paint the level with blood while finishers turn foes into a fountain of gore. The slow-mo mechanic helps to reign in the intensity for moments but the focus on reactive dashing keeps things frantic no matter how slow you want to take it. There's a variety of gadgets to use and upgrade like the energy shield, powered-up 'overload' mode, or bullet-deflecting kinetic barrier, but despite everything - Ruiner is at its heart repetitive.
The game is fast, violent, and that's it. Enemies function purely as reaction tests with harsh punishment for failure and their design toys with a single idea rather than providing more nuanced ones. 2 hours in enemies are still glass cannons, bosses are bullet sponges, and the gameplay is still 'hit stuff first' and 'don't get hit'. It just wasn't enough to sustain me how short the game is. It's a shame because it's all very pretty to look at.
The art style is iconic making use of simple strong tones that resonate with the silent-ish protagonist who projects short simple statements and gifs on his holo-mask in an inspired evolution of the 'television head' character design. The game wears its Akira/anime inspirations on its sleeve from the detailed harshly lit environments, character portraits, and intensity-first animation which work really well together but fuses it with contemporary gamer culture in a way that feels fresh and authentic. The music is suitable but not especially memorable.
Gameplay is very fast and very violent capturing a satisfyingly ultraviolent feel, even simple attacks paint the level with blood while finishers turn foes into a fountain of gore. The slow-mo mechanic helps to reign in the intensity for moments but the focus on reactive dashing keeps things frantic no matter how slow you want to take it. There's a variety of gadgets to use and upgrade like the energy shield, powered-up 'overload' mode, or bullet-deflecting kinetic barrier, but despite everything - Ruiner is at its heart repetitive.
The game is fast, violent, and that's it. Enemies function purely as reaction tests with harsh punishment for failure and their design toys with a single idea rather than providing more nuanced ones. 2 hours in enemies are still glass cannons, bosses are bullet sponges, and the gameplay is still 'hit stuff first' and 'don't get hit'. It just wasn't enough to sustain me how short the game is. It's a shame because it's all very pretty to look at.