Lost Ruins [Xbox]
Developed by Altari Games, Lost Ruins is a 2D side-scrolling adventure game with survival elements. You play as a young girl who has lost her memories, whilst being summoned from another world as part of a ritual to awaken the ‘Dark Lady’. In order to regain your memories, you must track down the Dark Lady’s followers - and thankfully you’ve had ‘great power’ bestowed upon you from the summoning.
With multiple difficulty options, ranging from an Accessible mode that allows you to enjoy the story, to a Hardcore mode with permadeath - this helps to give you some semblance of control over how much of a challenge you’re looking for, as believe me - it is hard. You don’t have a lot of health, and health pickups can be quite few and far between, so it’s crucial to be aware of your surroundings and the enemy types you’ll come across on your journey. Enemies can frequently catch you off guard by dealing damage after death in the form of explosions, however many will drop health upon death (at least on the Normal difficulty) which is a lifesaver.
You can pick up side quests from NPCs who are looking for particular items, or for help dealing with certain enemies, they will often guide you on your way, and reward you once you complete their requests. There are also tonnes of things for you to collect that can help you on your journey, from equippable items that may replenish health over time, or offer resistance to certain effects such as poison. One of the NPCs that you’ll meet upon first entering the castle will however begin a quest where they tell you not to open any treasure chests, hindering your ability to find useful items. You can of course just ignore her advice and open them, but doing so will cause her quest to fail (and potentially have other effects further down the line).
Two weapons can be equipped at a time, with one attached to X and the other on Y, with a wide variety of these being found as you work your way through the story. Some weapons will have different attack types tied to them, which will make them more useful against some enemies, and less so on others, so you’ll have to swap these out at times in order to keep yourself as powerful as possible. The combat can feel a tad sluggish at times, but as you gain the ability to use spells this makes things feel a bit more fluid (with some even proving to be pretty overpowered). You can also equip items you find, such as Winged Shoes that will allow you to float when performing an attack midair, and certain rewards for defeating bosses and completing side quests may provide you with additional slots to equip. You can buy and sell stuff at Vending Machines in order to gain new Weapons, Spells, Items and Equipment, though it does take a fair bit of time to build up the funds if you’re not willing to sell things.
The pixel art style is stunning, and the animations are fantastically executed, with a little twisty-twirly stance from the main character, and plenty of gorgeous scenery. The level designs change as you progress, from working your way through the sewers to the fancy castle and then snow-covered areas and more, with enemy designs to match - though many of these are scantily dressed monster-girls or schoolgirls, which is always a bit of an odd-choice. Bosses are fantastically designed, with brightly coloured artwork and designs that link to their areas and each has a few different stages of attack which helps to keep you on your toes. The sound design is really well done too, with ambient environmental sounds as you travel through the sewers, moving on to more regal, musical tones within the castle and beyond.
With a metroidvania layout and plenty of stuff to find throughout, you’ll be doing a fair bit of backtracking to complete quests and to farm for items. Thankfully, there are Portals that allow you to fast travel, taking out a bit of the trudging around you’d otherwise have to resort to. Overall, we really enjoyed our time with Lost Ruins and found it kept us interested throughout, even if the lewd schoolgirls and risqué items did have us raising our eyebrows at a few points! There are a few different endings to trigger, and there are also multiple game modes that will be unlocked upon completing the story so there’s a decent bit of value for your money here, so if this sounds like something you’d like to try out, you can pick it up for £16.74 on the Xbox Store.
In the end, we decided to give Lost Ruins the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Lost Ruins? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to DANGEN Entertainment for the Lost Ruins Xbox review code!
