Ruffy and the Riverside is about a small-town bear on an epic quest to thwart an evil box that plots to destroy everything. Why is Ruffy the only one who can do anything about this? He can swap textures and properties of almost any surface he sees. Sure, he may look like an overly-excited Ewok, and Sir Eddler the mole seems like he’s winging it all the time, but Riverside feels like a place to care about thanks to its fun cast of characters. It has a simple premise lacking pretension and keeps gamers focused on its many puzzles, exploration, and platforming.
Ruffy and the Riverside is bursting with creativity and carefree ’90s video game energy. Its utter lack of cynicism and modern-day parlance makes it feel like a game out of time. The graphics will undoubtedly stand out and resemble what kids in the early ’90s imagined how games would look in the future. Environments are comprised of low-poly models with illustrative texture art as opposed to the admittedly played-out chunky pixel maps. All characters, barring the main antagonist, are 2D drawn cut-outs designed in a playful storybook style.
The effect is marvelous, and thanks to smart usage of shadows and lighting, characters feel grounded despite being completely flat elements. Ruffy himself is a very lively bear with an incredibly goofy smile and wildly expressive hand-drawn animations drawn from multiple angles. When he dashes and jumps, it’s like he’s a little beast who can’t be contained, as his arms flail around and fat feet kick up cartoony dust clouds.
Ruffy and the Riverside‘s mechanics are simple and easy to understand. On the surface, it may resemble a 3D platformer, but it is a surprisingly complex puzzler set in a dense world. Ruffy jumps, attacks, climbs, and swaps. Swapping is the core of Ruffy and the Riverside, and every tricky situation centres on it. Need to climb a waterfall? Copy the vine texture and hurl it on that waterfall to transform it into a scalable surface.
Other instances, like raising or lowering platforms by applying up or down arrow textures, reshape access to other areas. Many puzzles require Ruffy to swap textured images to form or complete a picture. Textures can have elemental properties and cause changes. The range of creative ideas is impressive and will keep gamers on their toes.
The environments don’t hold back with the density of puzzles, collectables, and activities packed into areas. Some of the more exciting diversions are the bale of hay races. Ruffy gains a souped-up bale of hay that he and other bears ride around and race each other. The visual is hilarious and as fun as it looks. Taking a cue from Super Mario Odyssey, the retro-inspired 2D levels are plastered on some walls within stages. There is always something to do every few feet to the point it borders on being overstimulating.
As fun as Ruffy and the Riverside gets, it is a little “ruff” around the edges. Some of the mechanics don’t work as intended, like going up ladders, which is almost impossible. Ladders are fairly narrow, and Ruffy can latch on to them easily enough, but when he reaches the top, he often gets caught on some buggy collision and can’t climb onto the surface. This happens more than half the time, and jumping off and trying to glide onto the respective ledge is a mistake because Ruffy’s leap from the ladder is horizontal and does not clear the height to get to his destination.
Ruffy doesn’t get any new abilities apart from using the bale of hay. His swap powers are all the utilities he needs and prove to be versatile enough to carry most of the game. There isn’t much platforming required since jumping is mostly for traversing terrain. Pitfalls are rare, and the skill ceiling is kept low where Ruffy won’t be wall-jumping or performing technical manoeuvres. He’s mobile and responsive enough that he’s fun to control, just don’t expect him to be bursting at the seams with side-jumps or long-jumps.
The swap mechanic does not fulfill its potential. What can be swapped is sometimes inconsistent, and it’s disappointing when a logical swap has no effect. It also shouldn’t be called “swapping” because it functions more like copy and pasting than anything. An obvious and creative solution isn’t always the answer, and sometimes demands an absurd leap of logic or has a hint obscured in a place nobody would think to look.
The difficulty spike for some of these puzzles is blindsiding since most of them are easy or have the required textures only a stone’s throw away. The easy challenges and hard ones intermingled within a proximity, making for an uneven experience. It would have been nice if there was an extra save slot, too.
Ruffy and the Riverside could be funnier. It tries to have the sense of humour found in the kinds of games Rareware used to make during its tenure as a Nintendo 64 developer. Most of the dialogue prattles on too long and is blandly written. At best, it’s serviceable and gets the job done, but there is always a sense that the written gags and jokes could use a few passes. It’s a shame because the visual style and drawings carry most of the weight of the comedy by being funny looking.
The jaunty and uppity soundtrack is appropriate for the visual style. Character chatter sound effects are inspired by the likes of Banjo-Kazooie. Thankfully, Ruffy’s babbling is softened not to become obnoxious as he exclaims “Woohoo!” as he bounds and dashes all over Riverside.
Retro style platformer? Sign me up!
Yeah, I love the graphic approach taken with this! Looks really intriguing.