This review is actually pretty fair I won't lie. The grind can be tedious without a No Grind mod on PC and I think the switch port of Ruina isn't all too good. I think it's best to play on PC.
As much as I can sympathize with the grinding elements being unnecessary padding, it really sounds like you weren't optimizing for emotion. As annoying as it is, you CAN guarantee 100% drop rates and multiple copies of key cards with emotion farming. Again, I agree it's not a great system, but it is a system designed to reward skilled play and cuts out around 20-30 hours if used well. Of course there's also just the no grind mod.
@@LAGSAS emotion "farming" is just a playstyle which requires you to prioritize actions which maximize emotion. Sometimes this means intentionally letting units die, or prioritizing mooks before bosses, which makes the fights harder. It does not involve any sort of repetitive grinding.
@@TheAntiCosmic In implementation it feels like a poor version of the Drop System from The World Ends With You. And besides being unclear, having to play challenging fights with handicaps to maximise rewards is a bit frustrating when it costs pages to attempt in the first place. Whilst the drop system will give you better drop rates for playing with lower health, coupling with higher difficulties giving you more xp and better drops, the system encourages people to play and learn to play more skilled, as you get more xp for playing well too and if you lose, just punch retry or leave. Here, if I lose, I lose pages I need to challenge the fight in the first place, pages I could also spend on assets. This encourages conservative play. All that aside, it would be far less of an issue if the switch port wasn't extremely bad.
You have to redo fights even if you get high emotion levels, having had to redo crying children I gotta say the no grind mod is a godsend in the back half of the game, fights take a long time by the end and I only wanna replay fights because I want to, not to go back for cards after clear.
at least they admit the pc version is 10 times better while rating it a switch port a 4/10 (unlike another review site), funny enough that there is already a jp voice mod ripped from the console port.
The UI complaints I can understand. But I dont remember having to repeat a fight till around halfway through urban nightmare. As long as you save the big boss to kill last usually you get around 3-4 books of them. The one that i did have to re fight that i was not thrilled about was a certain Grandma color.
idk about the "grindy" aspect you mentioned, as long as you bring the emotion level of the enemies up you should only have to do a fight once or twice... and since you dont spend the books for the invitation if you win a fight you pretty much dont ever need to backtrack if you keep 1 copy of each book. Shame you didnt enjoy the game more than you did, the story and gameplay difficulty really gets going at around Star of the City
I did completely finish the game, that's why this took so long to come out, given we got the title pretty much on launch. The final stretch, Impuritas Civitatis, is full of highlights. This would have been way higher if not for crippling switch issues, and despite finding the grind frustrating, I can totally understand why this title would have such devoted fans. I'll be reccommending people the PC version.
@@LAGSAS i see, if the switch version is what plays a big part in the rating i cant really comment on that since i only played the PC version. But its great to hear that you took your time and finished the game, thats a rare but welcome sight in video game journalism (dont get me wrong, i know nothing of how much work this actually is and i can totally see how completing a game does just not fit in the time schedule, however its always a shame if a game doesnt get to show whats truly behind it)
where is this "grind" in ruina that people keep talking about??? the worst i had to suffer when playing the game was repeating some start of the city fights once or twice just to get some key pages i missed. that's not really grinding
I think it about grinding after you lose a fight. Like is Star of the city, i grind alot because of dying to Purple Tear, Xiao, Etc. Also to get Key page too.
Thanks for the review. Had played the PC port shortly, but dropped it. Kind of had forgotten why, so I wanted to get back into it with the news of the Switch port. But endless/mindless grind, yeah, that's a no-no. Too many games are released to waste dozens of hours on grinding like this.
grind was a big complaint...4 years ago. Now you get the cards the first or second time, just let emotion levels rise. You don't need to play badly to do so
I can understand the complaints about the Switch port text and ui problems, but im not sure how i feel about you giving the ENTIRE game a 4/10, especially when you only show footage from the early game (which definitely isnt grindy unless you somehow end up just using the basic librarian card for every combat) and the entire point of abnormality fights are to be a unique fight with special mechanics. Lets talk about something like Queen Of Hatred, a boss where you have to balance attacking and taking hits on marked librarians to keep her from reaching her full hysteria, or something like Big Bird where you have to clash your own librarians to keep them from attacking big bird while under his effect. Theres no need for grinding, youll only ever need to beat a stage once or twice, maybe three times max if you cannot figure out how to beat a specific enemy, like clashing against a ranged page doesnt need 4 melee dice, just 1 higher rolling melee dice, and you can go the entire game without bothering with the small buffs the cosmetics can give you, and even for most of those youll get them by chance and not on purpose. You also completely forgot the emotion levels (which give you more books for winning/losing Clashes or rolling Maximum or Minimum results of the Dice range (both sides)) which also means you completely forgot to talk about the ego buffs and if you got far enough, the Ego Pages.
Also EGO pages are mentioned by name in the review, I simply did not think it was worth speaking about every mechanical detail in-depth, especially since they do come later. Abnormality fights are actually praised here for being interesting puzzle bosses too.
@@LAGSASIdk about that, since he had a lot of complains about f.e. Afterimage where a lot of the criticism was puzzling considering they were non-issues later in the game making it seem like he only played the first 1-3 areas.
Even though LoR is my favourite game, i would never play it on switch, knowing how many issues this version has (if they are not fixed yet), also i have my PC version so i don't really need to play LoR on any other platform.
My biggest concern was UI issues; couldn't possibly fathom how Arcsystems could make it work on consoles. Bad UI just exacerbates any frustration with length. Bought it mostly for the coupon code 😂
Do you have plans to cover The Shell II: Purgatorio? I’m reading it now, and it’s a crime that the remaster (and retranslation) of a game of this quality has only gotten a single critical review (as far as I can tell).
The PC version can easily access a no grinding mod, which would mititgate this and save you apparently something like 30 hours of play time? Get it there
@darknesdkzr472 It's not that bad in the beginning, but once fights take like an hour to finish, it gets annoying farming for more books to burn if you have bad RNG.
You saved me from buying this on Switch. I was a few clicks away then I remembered to check if a new review has come up for it. Noisy Pixel doesn't disappoint.
Pc is the way. Funny thing is we can’t blame project moon (the creators of Ruina) for their shitty coding this time. Arc just made a bad port considering the bugs that exist on console and not on pc
From my experience an 8 at least. Story alone is that good. As for gameplay depends if you enjoy it or not it’s good but it can cost 2 points or more if you don’t like it. Also PM is somewhat infamous for bad tutorials like some jrpgs which doesn’t help
I feel like a 4/10 is a bit harsh Other than the egregious grind, the game is really really good Mechanics are really in depth and fun to play around with Story is great, characters are great, music is wonderful (love to Mili) 4/10 just feels a bit too low
I'm curious if you used any of the MANY ways to get more books the game gives you. And idk about each battle making the previous pages worthless. I feel like you're exaggerating a LOT and blaming port issues on the game as a whole.
Keep the low talked about game review coming. It keeps me subbed. The graphic style and story looks cool, but thanks to your review and my detest of needless grinding just for grinding sake, I’ll skip this one.
@@Renko324Which is part of why I gave it such a low score. 'just play badly and let the emotion levels rise for more drops', what universe are you from in which I should play a game badly in order to minimise grinding when playing badly means you lose. Crazy
Oh god, the comment section flaming that you gave a defective port of a grindy game a middling score... Now if they REALLY want to see a quality title given a criminally low score they should check out NP's review of Saya no Uta.
Tbf their complaints are mostly about the console port. The grinding is a valid complaint, but it's not THAT bad and certainly not so bad to know it all the way down to a 4/10. Apparently there is a pc mod that removed the grinding by giving you 999 books from stages you finish to burn. A bit overkill since you only need like 5-10 books depending on its rarity to get all the pages.
@@paledrake I don't think reviewers should take community mods into consideration for their reviews. The ability to use said mods and their continued availability and compatibility are not guaranteed, and there will be people wary of using the mods even if they are available. Hell, some mods can even cause stability issues with other mods or change the default system requirements, making any talk of performance and optimization completely useless. Also adds unrealistic pressures and expectations on reviewers to scour obscure and sketchy sites. Just think how impossible such expectations would make any Skyrim review.
Eh I can admit it's not for everyone, but I can imagine there are people who would enjoy it as much as I do who just won't stick it out long enough to feel the game click.
Game is great but not perfect. Though imo they do exaggerate on the grind. That aside LoR just got a bad port and for once we can’t blame PM and their shitty coding as the reason.
@Kindi001 I'm amazed that even this relatively non-demanding game is running badly on Switch. I know it's an underpowered console, but god damn. Also not adding touch controls to the menu is such a missed opportunity.
@@LAGSAS This review says it’s for the game, not for the port. If the only thing bringing the score down is the port, make that clear in the review and review the mechanics of the game separately.
This review is actually pretty fair I won't lie. The grind can be tedious without a No Grind mod on PC and I think the switch port of Ruina isn't all too good. I think it's best to play on PC.
There are no grind mods?! Please share
@@paledrakesteam workshop.
I CAST THE SPELL TO SUMMON A LIMBILLION PROJECT MOON FANS
Edit: Another 4/10, im actually laughing and crying at the same time
SaGa fans:
I know your pain
As much as I can sympathize with the grinding elements being unnecessary padding, it really sounds like you weren't optimizing for emotion. As annoying as it is, you CAN guarantee 100% drop rates and multiple copies of key cards with emotion farming. Again, I agree it's not a great system, but it is a system designed to reward skilled play and cuts out around 20-30 hours if used well. Of course there's also just the no grind mod.
There's no no grind mod mod on the switch, and aren't you literally stating 'farming' in this?
@@LAGSAS emotion "farming" is just a playstyle which requires you to prioritize actions which maximize emotion. Sometimes this means intentionally letting units die, or prioritizing mooks before bosses, which makes the fights harder. It does not involve any sort of repetitive grinding.
@@TheAntiCosmic In implementation it feels like a poor version of the Drop System from The World Ends With You.
And besides being unclear, having to play challenging fights with handicaps to maximise rewards is a bit frustrating when it costs pages to attempt in the first place.
Whilst the drop system will give you better drop rates for playing with lower health, coupling with higher difficulties giving you more xp and better drops, the system encourages people to play and learn to play more skilled, as you get more xp for playing well too and if you lose, just punch retry or leave.
Here, if I lose, I lose pages I need to challenge the fight in the first place, pages I could also spend on assets. This encourages conservative play.
All that aside, it would be far less of an issue if the switch port wasn't extremely bad.
You have to redo fights even if you get high emotion levels, having had to redo crying children I gotta say the no grind mod is a godsend in the back half of the game, fights take a long time by the end and I only wanna replay fights because I want to, not to go back for cards after clear.
at least they admit the pc version is 10 times better while rating it a switch port a 4/10 (unlike another review site), funny enough that there is already a jp voice mod ripped from the console port.
The UI complaints I can understand. But I dont remember having to repeat a fight till around halfway through urban nightmare. As long as you save the big boss to kill last usually you get around 3-4 books of them. The one that i did have to re fight that i was not thrilled about was a certain Grandma color.
I've been really interested in this game--it was great to hear your take on it
idk about the "grindy" aspect you mentioned, as long as you bring the emotion level of the enemies up you should only have to do a fight once or twice... and since you dont spend the books for the invitation if you win a fight you pretty much dont ever need to backtrack if you keep 1 copy of each book. Shame you didnt enjoy the game more than you did, the story and gameplay difficulty really gets going at around Star of the City
I did completely finish the game, that's why this took so long to come out, given we got the title pretty much on launch. The final stretch, Impuritas Civitatis, is full of highlights.
This would have been way higher if not for crippling switch issues, and despite finding the grind frustrating, I can totally understand why this title would have such devoted fans.
I'll be reccommending people the PC version.
I mean if you just quit out before the lose screen pops up you don't lose the card. Big brain
@@LAGSAS i see, if the switch version is what plays a big part in the rating i cant really comment on that since i only played the PC version. But its great to hear that you took your time and finished the game, thats a rare but welcome sight in video game journalism (dont get me wrong, i know nothing of how much work this actually is and i can totally see how completing a game does just not fit in the time schedule, however its always a shame if a game doesnt get to show whats truly behind it)
where is this "grind" in ruina that people keep talking about???
the worst i had to suffer when playing the game was repeating some start of the city fights once or twice just to get some key pages i missed.
that's not really grinding
I think it about grinding after you lose a fight. Like is Star of the city, i grind alot because of dying to Purple Tear, Xiao, Etc. Also to get Key page too.
Getting extra PT pages is also nice to have, that's not a one an done fight.
Tbh, better on pc, and the grind was like, barely noticable for me, took me like once or twice to basically get everything i needed
Thanks for the review. Had played the PC port shortly, but dropped it. Kind of had forgotten why, so I wanted to get back into it with the news of the Switch port.
But endless/mindless grind, yeah, that's a no-no. Too many games are released to waste dozens of hours on grinding like this.
grind was a big complaint...4 years ago. Now you get the cards the first or second time, just let emotion levels rise. You don't need to play badly to do so
Project Moon mentioned?!
I can understand the complaints about the Switch port text and ui problems, but im not sure how i feel about you giving the ENTIRE game a 4/10, especially when you only show footage from the early game (which definitely isnt grindy unless you somehow end up just using the basic librarian card for every combat) and the entire point of abnormality fights are to be a unique fight with special mechanics. Lets talk about something like Queen Of Hatred, a boss where you have to balance attacking and taking hits on marked librarians to keep her from reaching her full hysteria, or something like Big Bird where you have to clash your own librarians to keep them from attacking big bird while under his effect. Theres no need for grinding, youll only ever need to beat a stage once or twice, maybe three times max if you cannot figure out how to beat a specific enemy, like clashing against a ranged page doesnt need 4 melee dice, just 1 higher rolling melee dice, and you can go the entire game without bothering with the small buffs the cosmetics can give you, and even for most of those youll get them by chance and not on purpose. You also completely forgot the emotion levels (which give you more books for winning/losing Clashes or rolling Maximum or Minimum results of the Dice range (both sides)) which also means you completely forgot to talk about the ego buffs and if you got far enough, the Ego Pages.
Nobody's reading that wall of text. Quit crying.
We showed footage from the early game to avoid spoiling things.
I didnt think it was a good idea to really go for anything past the warp train.
Also EGO pages are mentioned by name in the review, I simply did not think it was worth speaking about every mechanical detail in-depth, especially since they do come later.
Abnormality fights are actually praised here for being interesting puzzle bosses too.
@@LAGSASIdk about that, since he had a lot of complains about f.e. Afterimage where a lot of the criticism was puzzling considering they were non-issues later in the game making it seem like he only played the first 1-3 areas.
PM fans writing a wall of text to justify their bad game. 😅
This review as been sponsored by The Head
Even though LoR is my favourite game, i would never play it on switch, knowing how many issues this version has (if they are not fixed yet), also i have my PC version so i don't really need to play LoR on any other platform.
ong
My biggest concern was UI issues; couldn't possibly fathom how Arcsystems could make it work on consoles. Bad UI just exacerbates any frustration with length. Bought it mostly for the coupon code 😂
I remember not liking the UI one bit when I first played it. Felt messy
Do you have plans to cover The Shell II: Purgatorio?
I’m reading it now, and it’s a crime that the remaster (and retranslation) of a game of this quality has only gotten a single critical review (as far as I can tell).
Damn, the art style is so cool, shame it is so grindy.
The PC version can easily access a no grinding mod, which would mititgate this and save you apparently something like 30 hours of play time?
Get it there
People exaggerate a lot on how grindy the game is, specially with obtaining cards.
@darknesdkzr472 It's not that bad in the beginning, but once fights take like an hour to finish, it gets annoying farming for more books to burn if you have bad RNG.
@@LAGSAS yo, thanks for the advice!!
most trouble i had to do was beat pt twice and thats about it tbh@@paledrake
PM SLEEPER AGENTS!!! RISE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!!!
You saved me from buying this on Switch. I was a few clicks away then I remembered to check if a new review has come up for it. Noisy Pixel doesn't disappoint.
Pc is the way. Funny thing is we can’t blame project moon (the creators of Ruina) for their shitty coding this time. Arc just made a bad port considering the bugs that exist on console and not on pc
What would you rate it on PC?
probably around 6~7?
probably higher if the mod for no grinding was in
From my experience an 8 at least. Story alone is that good. As for gameplay depends if you enjoy it or not it’s good but it can cost 2 points or more if you don’t like it. Also PM is somewhat infamous for bad tutorials like some jrpgs which doesn’t help
PM SLEEPER AGENTS!!! AWAKEN!!!
I feel like a 4/10 is a bit harsh
Other than the egregious grind, the game is really really good
Mechanics are really in depth and fun to play around with
Story is great, characters are great, music is wonderful (love to Mili)
4/10 just feels a bit too low
Typical PM ran can't accept that their game took an L! 🤪
@@Renko324 there any minuses?
I'm curious if you used any of the MANY ways to get more books the game gives you. And idk about each battle making the previous pages worthless. I feel like you're exaggerating a LOT and blaming port issues on the game as a whole.
Another 4/10 no way 😭
atleast its not roland the street thug
Noisy Pixel proves they are too dumb to understand the systems and instead bash their head in grinding
Long live project moon!!!!
Just recived my copy today :(
On PS4 I hope?
@@LAGSAS yes!
Thanks for the review, was thinking about playing the game but now I'll skip it
Just get it for pc instead.
If you want to play it do it on pc. Arc made a bad port
Nice
Keep the low talked about game review coming. It keeps me subbed. The graphic style and story looks cool, but thanks to your review and my detest of needless grinding just for grinding sake, I’ll skip this one.
PC version has easy access to mods, literally no reason to just grab that one
@@LAGSASA good game won't need mods in the first place! 😅
@@Renko324Which is part of why I gave it such a low score.
'just play badly and let the emotion levels rise for more drops', what universe are you from in which I should play a game badly in order to minimise grinding when playing badly means you lose. Crazy
Oh god, the comment section flaming that you gave a defective port of a grindy game a middling score...
Now if they REALLY want to see a quality title given a criminally low score they should check out NP's review of Saya no Uta.
Tbf their complaints are mostly about the console port. The grinding is a valid complaint, but it's not THAT bad and certainly not so bad to know it all the way down to a 4/10. Apparently there is a pc mod that removed the grinding by giving you 999 books from stages you finish to burn. A bit overkill since you only need like 5-10 books depending on its rarity to get all the pages.
Why are you guys bringing up the PC version in a Switch review? 😅
@@Renko324 Doesn't say it's a review of the Switch version specifically
@@paledrake0:46
@@paledrake I don't think reviewers should take community mods into consideration for their reviews.
The ability to use said mods and their continued availability and compatibility are not guaranteed, and there will be people wary of using the mods even if they are available. Hell, some mods can even cause stability issues with other mods or change the default system requirements, making any talk of performance and optimization completely useless.
Also adds unrealistic pressures and expectations on reviewers to scour obscure and sketchy sites.
Just think how impossible such expectations would make any Skyrim review.
PM fams in shambles! They can't accept that LoR has problems and that it isn't accessible for everyone! 😅
It certainly has its issues, especially with Switch, but it doesn’t really justify a 4/10
@@somefoolishfoolcrazy how i gave it one anyway
@@LAGSAS You did indeed. What I said is just what I think. Everyone is of course entitled to his or her own opinions ;)
Eh I can admit it's not for everyone, but I can imagine there are people who would enjoy it as much as I do who just won't stick it out long enough to feel the game click.
Game is great but not perfect. Though imo they do exaggerate on the grind. That aside LoR just got a bad port and for once we can’t blame PM and their shitty coding as the reason.
Noisy Pixel embarrassing themselves yet again
embarrassing ourselves by giving.... a bad port a low score and encouraging you to play a better version
ahh so this review play on Switch? no wonder
@Kindi001 I'm amazed that even this relatively non-demanding game is running badly on Switch. I know it's an underpowered console, but god damn. Also not adding touch controls to the menu is such a missed opportunity.
@@LAGSAS This review says it’s for the game, not for the port. If the only thing bringing the score down is the port, make that clear in the review and review the mechanics of the game separately.