Heroes of Ruin Review

Heroes of Ruin is a 3DS success that’s almost certainly destined to become a failure. In some ways that echoes the inconsistencies that lie at the heart of the game: it’s graphically weak, yet technically excellent, while its generic mechanics slot into a boldly designed, connected framework. The latter point is both its biggest triumph and its Achilles heel: this is an online-focused game for an audience that I’m not sure is big enough to sustain it.Certainly the lack of enthusiasm that greeted its arrival would suggest as much, though the collective efforts of Square Enix and Nintendo to generate interest have been feeble. An eShop demo and a brief appearance during Nintendo Direct broadcasts does not equate to an effective promotional campaign. This is a game that deserves a bigger push than it has received so far.

Then again, outwardly it’s not the easiest sell. To all intents and purposes, this is a straightforward dungeon crawler that looks pretty ugly in screens and 2D video. Developer n-Space clearly hasn’t had the biggest of budgets to work with, and so we’re treated to awkward animations, a lack of detail in both characters and environments, and a frame-rate that’s alarmingly erratic in places. Turn the 3D slider down and things improve slightly, but you’ll be reluctant to do so because the image depth is the most striking of its visual qualities. It lends a sense of tangible solidity to the otherwise unremarkable environments, even if it has the unwanted side-effect of highlighting a few PSone-era textures in the foreground.

Offer a man trinkets of a slightly higher numerical value than the ones he possesses and he will snatch them up greedily.

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The trade-off for the ugliness is that, frame-rate issues aside, the netcode holds up pretty well in a four-player game. There are occasional glitches and loading times are excessive, but on the whole the online game is surprisingly robust for a Nintendo console. Indeed, the game would rather you tackle its dungeons with friends or strangers than alone: the default mode is multiplayer, and n-Space eagerly ushers you towards options that allow you to link your account to the Heroes of Ruin website to track and compare stats, and to set up StreetPass for trading purposes. There’s even voice chat, though the sound quality is akin to someone speaking through a sock into a microphone while sitting in a particularly echoey bathroom. Still, it’s more than we’ve seen from any other developer on 3DS so far, including Nintendo.

If the online focus is admirably brave, the game itself is a little more risk-averse. You begin your adventure with a choice of four player classes. The leonine Vindicator is a sword-wielding warrior with healing abilities, and the Gunslinger is your standard ranged fighter. The elven Alchitect is a powerful mage from afar and an average melee combatant in close quarters, and finally you have the brutish Savage, who compensates for his limitations with the ferocity of his attacks. A relatively short campaign – most players will finish somewhere between six and eight hours – and four save slots betrays the developer’s intentions: they want you to go through the story once with each character type. It’s a testament to n-Space that you might well be happy to do so.

That may come as a surprise given the disappointingly uninspired setup. Each mission begins at a hub city so generic it’s actually called Nexus. Quests are accepted here, and there are plenty of merchants to trade with. Otherwise it’s a lifeless setting populated by static characters, your interactions with them purely text based, aside from the variations on “hello” and “goodbye” that bookend every conversation. From here you’ll travel to various areas to fulfil requests, which tend to comprise rescue missions, boss fights and the occasional item hunt. The few puzzles are embarrassingly simple, requiring you to trigger switches in the correct order, or move statues until they form identical poses. Upon completing a dungeon you return to Nexus and repeat the process.

What keeps things interesting is the steady stream of loot you’ll gather from defeated enemies and treasure chests. It’s one of gaming’s oldest and most effective hooks: offer a man trinkets of a slightly higher numerical value than the ones he possesses and he will snatch them up greedily. Though the overhead perspective makes it difficult to see the visual changes that come with equipping a new pair of pauldrons or boots, you’ll find it difficult to resist the allure of newer, shinier gear. In four player mode, you’ll all be racing for the same prizes, adding to the thrilling sense of chaos wrought by the basic but satisfying combat.

It’s not quite as nourishing as it could be, however. There’s never any real need for team tactics given the regularity with which the game showers you with new items and healing potions. The desire to provide players with immediate gratification and to keep teams alive results in a difficulty curve that’s far too gentle. Even the end-of-dungeon bosses can fall quickly to a squad doing little more than collectively jabbing the standard attack button over and over.

Other minor flaws gradually begin to niggle. The ability to instantly sell unwanted items is extremely useful for the solo gamer, though in online sessions it allows avaricious dungeoneers to instantly profit from loot that may have benefitted their fellow players. Elsewhere, you’re required to shift from circle pad to d-pad or touch controls to negotiate menus, a pointless and unnecessary change. These are very minor usability issues, but they betray a general lack of polish untypical of a Square Enix production.

Verdict

Daily and weekly objectives should, in theory, encourage players to stick with Heroes of Ruin, but even with the promise of rare items exclusively available to those who complete these tasks, it might not be enough for seasoned gamers who would prefer a more substantial challenge. It’s more of a short-term investment than some might be expecting, then, but while you’re caught in its irresistible loot cycle, you’ll probably find it very hard to put down.

Heroes of Ruin Review - IGN (2024)

Verdict