LONE RUIN Reviews
Lone Ruin nails the brief on what makes an appreciable roguelike – combining a slick and sexy aesthetic with a core gameplay loop that can be rapidly picked up, but is deep enough to beg for mastery.
Lone Ruin is a hardcore, action-packed roguelike game to its core, and it absolutely shines on the Switch. If more content is added later on, this could be an early front-runner for the top indie game of 2023.
A tense, twin-stick shooting experience awaits for those who adore the roguelike genre and all the uncertainty that comes with it… whether that’s positive or negative, I’ll leave up to you. But just know that once Lone Ruin sinks it’s teeth into you, those marks will be tremendously hard to remove.
Lone Ruin is a game with a lot of style and potential but lacks the content necessary to foster the replayability critical to a roguelike. In simpler terms, there’s a fun game here, just not a lot of it.
Lone Ruin gives off a great retro vibe, and if I were playing it on my ZX Spectrum in 1985 I would have enjoyed it a lot more. In today’s market, there is so much better to choose from. Great gameplay is hindered by a lack of content and continuity, the big question is ‘Why?
If starting all over again drives you up the wall, then Lone Ruin probably isn’t for you. For everyone else, it’s a frenetic, fun and highly replayable outing that’ll have you coming back for more. But if you do find a strange meteor in your backyard, do the sensible thing and toss it in next door’s wheelie bin.
It’s unfortunate that Lone Ruin came about two years after the jokes about every indie doing a pixel roguelike became exhausting. It’s well-made and undeniably entertaining, but there’s so much competition in this space and the developers didn’t seem overly concerned with doing something that would actually differentiate their game. So yes. This is a mechanically very solid production that I can recommend to people that like difficult action roguelikes. Unfortunately, I’ll also likely forget about it by the time the next one of these comes along, and that’s probably sometime next week.
While I like the low poly X pixel graphics style and think that the pulsing (albeit limited) soundtrack is great, I didn’t fall in love with Lone Ruin. Despite marketing itself on replayability, the main problem is that it didn’t do enough to make me want to keep coming back for more. The rapid-fire spell slinging is pretty good fun and there’s plenty of variety, but the short run length and lack of plotline or overarching upgrade systems makes Lone Ruin feel more like an arcade game than a roguelike. I’ve no doubt that the pick-up-and-play style will appeal to coin-op fans who like short-burn, intensive action, but I think traditional roguelike fans might lose engagement after just a couple of runs with the lack of a long game on offer.
A Rogue-like game that gives the sensation of shooting powerful bullets. The fast-paced gameplay provides a great experience when played on handheld consoles, but the overall playtime is unfortunately short.
Review in Korean | Read full review
A wise man once said that if you are going to do something, it should either be different or better than the competition. Whilst there are plenty of occasions where this isn’t always a fair statement, it couldn’t be truer when considering the development of a new roguelike or twin-stick shooter. Where once there was a clamouring for games of this ilk, eShops are now fit to burst with games that just haven’t done enough to avoid the cliched comparisons to Hades and The Binding of Isaac.
Lone Ruin is going to scratch an itch for those who love chasing high scores and trying to one-up friends.
Lone Ruin is a spell-based roguelike twin-stick shooter with a focus on replayability, but it doesn't always deliver on its promises.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Lone Ruin is a decent arcade roguelike, but it did leave me wanting a bit more. With only three main boss fights and nothing to really unlock during the game, it feels a little light on content. What does save it, though, is its solid gameplay, which made me come back, repeatedly, to try out new spells and jump into some instantly satisfying action. If you’re new to the action roguelike, this is a good place to start. If you’re well versed in the genre, consider this a solid pick-up and play arcade title, just maybe not the best compared to the competition.
Lone Ruin is a stylish good time while it lasts, but players will want more before too long.
Whilst it may be pleasing to the visual and audio senses, Lone Ruin balances out that pleasant feeling with fair challenge. A roguelike in the traditional sense, it offers that “one more run” gameplay for anyone that feels like they can do it better next time.
This roguelike twin-stick shooter has its own sense of style, but its somewhat vanilla arcade-like grind detracts from its long-term viability
Lone Ruin is a game all about replayability that I saw little reason to replay after the credits.
There could definitely be some balancing with the weapons, and bosses, as the bosses can feel like way more of a challenge than any of the enemies depending on your setup. That said though, it’s a very okay game with a lot of potential so maybe in the future with a few balance patches, it could stand on its own two feet for Hades fans waiting for the second game.
If this review feels shorter than usual, that’s for a good reason. A talented roguelite enthusiast can see the end credits in around an hour. The initial weapon selection is refreshing, yes. I also love the color palette used throughout the game. But beyond that, this is a bog standard roguelite. Random assortments of enemies attack with increasing ferocity. The bosses require practice and experimentation to master. Your success is determined by repetition and fortuitous reward drops at the end of every stage. Honestly, the short runtime might be an upside, depending on what you’re looking for. Roguelite players may find Lone Ruin rather disappointing. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a short, arcade-style experience, maybe give this game a shot.