Lost Ruins is a platforming and metroidvania game where you have to survive in a dungeon filled with monsters. The protagonist here is a schoolgirl named … Heroine. Without memories and awareness of what is happening, she wakes up in a dark and damp place and concludes that she was summoned to a fantasy world filled with monsters and magic. Typical isekai (popular Japanese genre about this).

Near the entrance, the Heroine meets an elf named Beatrice, who calls herself a keeper, and her mission is to guard an abandoned castle. A terrible Dark Lady is imprisoned in the castle, and her followers call people from another world to free their mistress. Beatrice claims that the Heroine will be able to regain her memory if she destroys the followers of the Dark Lady. From this point on, the game begins.

In the dungeon

The gameplay is slow. Lost Ruins punishes rash actions, especially if the difficulty level is above average. The heroine starts with 20 health points, and ordinary slime (slime) removes 12 HP on the veteran difficulty level. 

We have at our disposal a somersault, which gives less than a second of invulnerability, simple weapons and initial scrolls with magic. Spells often cannot be used due to the lack of ways to replenish mana. As a result, one has to look for an individual approach to each opponent: studying their behavior, luring them out one by one, experimenting with their strengths and weaknesses. 

But this whole system crumbles after two hours of play. As you progress, we find activated items of equipment that give a passive bonus to characteristics. They either give a harmless boost or completely break the game. These items include “Gladiator’s Armor, Linus Basket Stardew Valley, Green flame blade 5e “, thanks to which a gladius attack restores health. And the treatment takes place when anything is attacked, even inanimate objects. This gives a huge advantage in the early stages of the game. And the further we move around the world, the more such items we find (buy). 

Weapon

Divided into two-handed, one-handed, throwing, bows, shields, daggers and sticks. A two-handed weapon has a long range but deals high damage. All monsters in the game attack quickly, so you need to hit either in advance or from the back. One-handed swords and staves are the golden mean, which includes the plunger. When used with items that enhance the effect of the poison, it becomes a formidable weapon.

Throwing objects are rare, but among them there is a ham that deals pure damage and returns to the owner. With a bonus on throwing damage, under invisibility, you can kill bosses with several throws of meat. 

Daggers are suitable for assassins, shields block almost any damage, but some time passes between their use. Unlike scrolls, wands do not use mana for spells, but there are a limited number of them in your inventory. The bows in Lost Ruins are standard.

Effects and statuses

These include burning, frostbite, poisoning, getting wet and bleeding. Statuses can be applied to both monsters and the Heroine. Enemies that get wet get increased damage from electricity, the main thing is not to swing the Thunder Hammer while standing waist-deep in water. This is suicide! Fire, poison, cold, and bleeding all deal damage over time and are stopped by water, antidote, soup, and ointment, respectively. The ointment burns very well, but there is always toilet paper to clean up. 

You can get wet in the sewers, as well as on the upper floors, in the rain. Many monsters’ attacks lead to poisoning and bleeding. Some goblins carry vials of oil with them, which they throw at the Heroine, and small skeletons use flasks of poison. Often, you can see containers with various liquids under the ceilings and drop them on enemies, get an advantage.  

Magic

All spells are taken from either scrolls or wands. The most common elemental magic – attacking either directly or by forming spheres around the Heroine, heading towards the nearest enemy upon re-activation. At the same time, they ignore most obstacles, which allows them to destroy bosses while being in complete safety. The elements can be used in many ways: freeze water with ice, melt it with fire, or burn poison. 

Additional game modes

After the first playthrough of the game, players are presented with three unique modes for replaying.   

Assassin mode. We start the game as the Heroine, but with new characteristics. Her maximum health is reduced by 40%, critical damage is increased by 50%. She cannot use spells, but for 3 HP it becomes invisible. The characteristics of all items have been reworked with the expectation that we cannot use magic. Even the secret weapon has been changed for this mode!

Witch mode. Everything is the same, just the opposite. The health reduction remains, but now we can only use spells. We have a unique spell, using which, when we receive damage, we lose mana instead of health. Mana, fortunately, is restored automatically in this mode.

Boss mode. The most interesting of the available modes. We play as three bosses that the Heroine defeated in the main game: Demoness Kana, zombie Yuri and insect June. Kana wields a katana that repels enemy shells. She knows how to block attacks, and, unlike the Heroine, does not hold her skirt during the fall. Yuri uses magic, can teleport and levitate, avoiding most traps and dangerous surfaces. June shoots a bow, kicks and rolls. They all move at different speeds, and their constant squabbles add fun to the passage.

References

Lost Ruins has a lot of funny references. The little snowmen are dressed as Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. Under the winged boots there is a description of “I believe I can fly”, and in the castle, a frankly dressed lizard woman is sweeping a pool of blood. This is a direct reference to the famous book from The Elder Scrolls! 

The Lost Ruins don’t take themselves too seriously. It contains vending machines, old computers, and rocket launchers. And all this can be found in the dilapidated ruins.

Diagnosis

Lost Ruins is a very peculiar game. Its advantages include great music, smooth animation, beautiful art, “full of health” female characters and great optimization. And Lost Ruins has been supporting the Russian language from the very first day. And the translation is not bad!

The negative features include a very inconvenient combat system. The heroine moves through the dungeon very slowly and is not able to shoot up or down. Lost Ruins fans of metroidvania may not like it because of the small number of passages that can be opened over time. 

There is also a lot of violence in Lost Ruins. Moreover, this cruelty is not justified. It seems that the game gets pleasure from the mockery of living beings. Two bosses have a third stage of the battle, when they lose all desire to fight, but they need to be finished off.

This is a good game that is worth the money, but it lacks polish! It needs to be finalized, added to and diversified the dialogues of the characters, to work with a file in some places, and it will be good. And so, this is more of a sandbox with a hint of a plot, in which you can come up with a variety of ways to kill the enemy.

Pro:

• Funny
• Beautiful
• Lots of weapons
• Boss Mode(difficult person test)

Contra:

• Lack of balance
• Weak plot
• Unnecessary cruelty