Heroes of Ruin Review

Heroes of Ruin Review

As a T-rated game on the 3ds, I tried the demo, and thought it resembled Zelda games. I bought the original game, and found how a game can be different from Zelda, retaining its own originality, yet have a great experience. I don’t want to ruin the story for you in the review, but I must say that Square Enix did a good job in developing a world that’s wraps around you, and makes it so well-made that you can dream about it.

Story: 10/10 The game mainly focuses on helping people with “Quests” Stolen items, kidnapped people, rare enemies (that are valued like a trophy) are things that you get from the worlds outside the hub city then return them to their respective owners to get cool prizes. It gives a great sensation when you help people because you feel like a hero (and that is the first reason why I play Zelda). The story gets a full score because of cutscenes that are satisfying. Quests are a great addition as well and they really keep you hooked (the only reason I close the game is because the 3ds ran out of battery life)

Gameplay: 8/10. Alright, in some other websites they say there is “Dungeons” trust me, it is so not Zelda, a little disappointing on that matter. The so-called dungeons are just full of enemies that you must defeat and (mostly) contain the waypoint near the very end of the quest that made you enter the dungeon itself. The combat in a fixed camera view is very hard too. It helps you die. Because you will always find yourself taking a few steps forward with every attack that makes you unable to corner your enemies or let them corner you so that you can hit multiple enemies with one strike. This makes blocking attacks twice as hard as SSBB (which I consider impossible). However if there is a defending expert that can actually defend in SSBB they can surely defend in Heroes of Ruin. A Plus to this is that combat is more fun than just bashing the B button, because you will always find yourself using the advantageous
special attacks (A, Y, X buttons) that are good. It loses score because dungeons don’t have puzzles, yet exploring is cool and combat isn’t bad, but just hard.

Re-playability: 10/10. Not much games can capture this part well, but heroes of ruin did. You have four save files and four different jobs, each job means different battle style and different armour and special attacks. There is also multiplayer (why is nobody online?) with anybody in the world, with your wifi friends, or local play. If you are like me, you will probably disconnect every five minutes so in order not to lose your progress I suggest single player. However, if you did not read this advice and got disconnected from internet, the waypoints will do you justice. The autosave feature is good. The online features (like daily and weekly challenges) are addictive because there is a merchant that sells special armour and weaponry if you complete these challenges. Like I said, I never want to put the game down! Also, all the quests have the option if you don’t want to take them, so you can always go back and accept doing the quest. The game is highly re-playable.

RPG features: 7/10 While the rewards in quests are good, The game lacks a few things on this side. 1- because it’s not Zelda. (I am not too harsh, really) 2- Because inventory is limited (but maybe that’s a good thing) and 3- No item check (however there is reserves)

To explain these: It is an action/adventure game, not an RPG game. But it does have RPG-like features, customizing character clothes and shape. Inventory space is limited to encourage you to sell useless stock and to make the game more realistic, but I do not prefer it. Reserves are a plus, but you can’t reserve potions. You can only carry 20 potions of the two types at a time which is a good thing to heat the battle field, but you may find yourself dying over and over. However it is not that frustrating. It is still passable, I guess. It doesn’t ruin the other great features of the game.

Difficulty: Moderately hard. Only in terms of combat, and exploration. There is barely any Zelda logic or puzzles. But the exploration is funny, and hitting a dead end would reward you with potions rather than let you scream in anger. Some Quests are VERY VERY hard and require running around in circles, and hardcore gamers must finish all there is in the game, so you may find yourself opening a walkthrough or something. Don’t get embaraced when that happens, because this is the sign of a truly awesome game.

Graphics 9/10. Amazing lights, nice graphics, displays the true powers of this handheld console. Only that you may have to look frequently in the map because it is a little hard to differentiate between a real path or just another fancy looking tree log, for example. And the fixed camera is not that fixed, so it isn’t boring at all.

Sound: 8/10. Good music, great voicing (like when the people talk and stuff) and OK sound effects. If you like war music then mentally give this 10/10.

Overall 9/10. A surprisingly good game for one that is not Zelda. May look gloomy on the outside atmosphere or in the demo, but like the old saying: don’t judge a game by its box art.