Lone Ruin Review: Solid, If Simple

If there are two genres of game that go together like peanut butter and jelly, it’s the twin-stick shooter and the action roguelike. After all, the key to success in a roguelike is skill and precision, and the twin-stick style provides exactly that. So if the framework itself is solid, what else can we do to make this combined genre stand out? Perhaps a healthy dose of magic, a la Lone Ruin?

Review Takeaways

• Nice, precise twin-stick control
• Decent variety of spells to choose from with distinct effects
• Good potential for discovering item and weapon synergies
• Rather light on presentation, no real story
• A bit short, not much replayability
• Final Score: 6 out of 10

Go Here, Do Magic

Lone Ruin doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a story beyond a brief cutscene at the beginning. From what I can gather, though, you’re a spellcasting adventurer journeying to the heart of a ruined city that was overcome by magical corruption eons ago. There’s only one character with dialogue who provides you with your starting spell, after which the game is an entirely silent affair. If you’re expecting something with an evolving story like Hades, you’re definitely not getting that here; Lone Ruin is about the gameplay first and foremost.

The gameplay should feel comfortably familiar if you’ve played any twin-stick roguelike before. You get your choice of an offensive spell to start, plus a dash, and you need to fight your way through a sequence of rooms populated by waves of baddies. As you clear rooms, you receive new spells, upgrades for your current spells, Blessings that give you passive abilities, and cash that lets you buy all of the above in designated shops. The game is made up of three sections, with a boss at the end of each, and if you can beat all three, you clear the run. Easy squeezy.

Magical Theory

Lone Ruin feels very nice to play. It’s got native support for both controllers and mouse and keyboard, and both control schemes are tight and responsive. On a controller, your spells are mapped to your shoulder bumpers and triggers, so your thumbs are free to rock the sticks and stay moving. I never had any instances where I felt like I lost control of my character, which is a big plus for this kind of game.

Your array of spells and Blessings, including both the ones you start with and the ones you pick up along the way, have a decent potential for synergy. Many of the spells have upgrades that add status effects like damage-over-time burns or slowing cold, for instance, and when combined with the blessing that multiplies damage based on how many enemies are inflicted with status effects, you can become quite the dynamo. There are few things as satisfying as stumbling upon that one perfect combination of abilities that makes you unstoppable.

You can only hold up to four spells and five Blessings at once, but at any time, you can open your pause menu to rearrange their placements on your hotbar or instantly sell them off to make room. You can also get extra slots for Blessings, though your spell slots are locked at four. There’s plenty of room for experimentation here, though, and there are enough spell types to accommodate most playstyles.

A Short Jaunt

I think if I had an overarching problem with Lone Ruin, it’s that it feels a bit… insubstantial. While there are a decent number of spells and Blessings to try, after a few runs, you’ve pretty much seen them all, and unlike other roguelike or roguelite games, the game doesn’t change at all between runs, or if it did, then not in any ways that were immediately apparent. Once you’ve reached the third strata of encounters, you’ve already seen everything the game has to offer. Even at the lowest levels, you’re still being attacked by first-strata enemies, and a lot of the room layouts are recycled to a noticeable extent.

Related: Top 5 Roguelites for Beginners

If you’re tired of the regular progression mode, there is a Survival mode you can try that’s somewhat reminiscent of Vampire Survivors. Enemies run at you endlessly, and as you collect dropped gold, you level up and receive your usual choice of upgrades. The goal is to survive until the timer runs out. Again, though, this mode doesn’t change with repeated attempts, so if you already have a few normal runs under your belt, there’s not going to be anything new here.

A Fleeting Taste

I’ll concede that perhaps I’ve been spoiled a bit by roguelike games that evolve in obvious ways as you play them, such as Enter the Gungeon or The Binding of Isaac. But without that evolving aspect, playing through a game like Lone Ruin feels less like the kind of gradual progression I relish in this kind of experience, and more like banging your head against a wall until it inevitably breaks. It’s a nice wall, and banging your head against it is pleasurable enough, but once the wall’s broken, there isn’t another wall behind it. It’s just over.

There are multiple difficulty settings to choose from, though as far as I could discern, the only differences between difficulties are how much health you start with and how much damage enemies do. I finished a run on normal difficulty after only a few attempts, and while doing so was fun, I don’t feel any particular impetus to go back and play again. There are detailed leaderboards if you’re the kind of person who likes to speedrun and opt for perfectionism, and it’s not a bad game for when you’re bored and just need to occupy yourself for 30 minutes. If you’re hoping for a commitment beyond that, though, it sadly won’t be found here.

Lone Ruin is available on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.