Ruiner Reviews
Only drop coin on this if you're a huge fan of the genre
RUINER ruins its own explosive presentation and promising combat with poorly thought-out difficulty and incomplete narrative and gameplay concepts.
Ruiner succeeds upon completion
Ruiner has some great set pieces and a dark, bleak world that I would normally gravitate towards. Yet when the dystopian renders everyone inhabiting it to be as relatable as raw sewage, there was little for me to latch onto. Maybe you'll find the world of Ruiner to be more bearable than I did, but even the best films of the genre have a glimmer of hope for the audience to cling to, something Ruiner is devoid of.
By the time I fought Mother for the third and last time, I was prepared to throw my controller because of how quickly she evaporated my energy and health bars the first two times. Ruiner is one of those games that is unabashedly difficult for the sake of being difficult. It demands you face waves upon waves of the same enemies and mini-bosses before you can even see the final, incredibly trite cinematic. Are you the ruiner or the ruined? I won't spoil the answer that the game offers up, but I will say that I sure didn't feel triumphant when I finally set the controller down.
Fighting my way through Ruiner felt like work, and if I weren't obligated to finish it for the review I probably wouldn't have bothered. It's too bad it focuses on being difficult over being fun, because the combat totally works when you're given access to the full range of weaponry and gadgets and can finally stand up to the nearly endless waves of varied enemies thrown at you. This one is definitely better the second time around. Games should be fun right from when you hit the start button – that's kind of the whole point – but Ruiner puts you through too much of a hazing ritual to get there.
Ruiner is a futuristic adventure with some interesting features, but it fails to stand out. The cyberpunk atmosphere is impeccable with its elaborate world, great art direction and electronic soundtrack. As a game, it features basic and competent shooting mechanics that have been combined with some skills that offer good possibilities and agile confrontations. However, the experience proves to be quite repetitive because of the limited structure of stages, the small variety of enemies and situations, and problems in the difficulty. In the end, Ruiner is a brief but not memorable diversion.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
RUINER is well worth the money spent and the time played. It's a solid game with an interesting story and mechanics and not too many negatives.
Ruiner is a competent top down sci-fi shooter that boasts an emphasis on difficultly, but a lacking in story. The gameplay sells it, for sure, just don't be shocked when the plot doesn't draw you in.
However, when a game is purposely difficult solely due to the amount of overpowered enemies it can throw at you, it makes for an unsatisfying experience. This blended with clunky gameplay only amplified my disappointment. I would not be surprised if someone stopped playing twenty minutes into Ruiner with its uninviting gameplay. Despite my outlook, if you're a fan of dystopian sci-fi revenge stories, Ruiner may be worth checking out.
I can only recommend the Switch version of RUINER to die-hard twin-stick shooter fans. It’s still a stupidly challenging but entertaining title, and its chaotic, arcade-like nature is a good fit for a portable system, but the Switch’s controller options just don’t offer the precision a game like this needs in order to become truly enjoyable.
Ruiner is a brutal cyberpunk shooter with fast-paced and unforgiving combat, matched by a ruinous and richly detailed dystopic world. With a brilliant soundtrack from Susumu Hirasawa and a bloodied chrome aesthetic, Ruiner is only let down by a lack of variation in its enemies and level design
Ruiner has been successful in delivering a perfect cyber-punk world and it is also a good game in shooting genre. However, unfortunately, some in-game issues such as unbalanced difficulty and various glitches have prevented the game from being a fully entertaining experience.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Does your heart beat faster when you hear “neon”, “cyberpunk”, and “hardcore” in one sentence? Then you definitely should give RUINER a shot.
Review in Russian | Read full review
It's quite a slick and accomplished title that won't win any awards for its visual aesthetic, story or the way the game plays, but it does deliver exactly what it says on the tin, and doesn't apologize for the difficulty setting that's thrown at you.
Ultra violent and very entertaining, Ruiner is quite an achievement. Not only does the game offer a meaty challenge, it doesn't bore and frustrate players with wave after wave of minions; each level is filled with just enough action to keep them invested. Some aspects aren't quite as polished as they could be but, again, a great soundtrack makes everything better. The effects could have also been dialled back a tad, but otherwise its inspired art direction is really impressive. On the merits of its presentation alone, this cyberpunk thriller deserves a look. Of course, it certainly helps that the rest of the game is solid, as well.
A brutal, chaotic top-down shooter that offers great focused gameplay but little else.
Ruiner is a dizzying affair in combat, offering tons of things for players to consider as music pounds their senses. However, a lack of weapon impact, fights that often feel too similar, and a lifeless world takes away from its appeal.
Ruiner is a fast-paced, hectic game of survival, cast in a cyberpunk filled future. A brilliant twin-stick shooter that is sadly riddled with control issues. Yet so full of fantastic artistic stylization, extremely pleasing visual and some pretty technical tricks. Definitely a good strong showing for Polish developer Reikon Games.