Sir Eddler the mole causes a minor panic while digging for gems, which means everyone is going to die, and we quickly discover that Ruffy the bear can scan objects and swap them into others so they resemble the scanned object–a handy trick when the world is under threat.
Your mentor Master Qwin (who is also a bear, but looks just like Nigel Mansell) sadly allows you to leave his care and follow town elder and general smartass Sir Eddler on a vital quest–probably into more danger as you attempt to find all the hiding Etoi (one of Riverside's cuter creatures), save the world core and restore the RIVERSIDE sign’s letters, that were destroyed by the evil Groll (who looks like an psychotic flying Rubik cube.)
If that all sounds weird then that's because it is. The plot and many of the game mechanics are extremely odd, and I'd like to know what the designers were smoking during development. Unlocking the ability to roll and grind around the levels on a hay bale in one of the least weird aspects of the game. The basics are that Ruffy is a 2D bear in a 3D world and can double jump (A+hold A) to perform a ‘Bee jump’, a sort-of “jump & glide”, thanks to his pal Pip the bee. You scan an object's texture with 'RB' and can then swap it to certain other objects with the Right trigger. This mechanic forms the basis for many devilish puzzles.
Levels vary from open-worldy island weirdness to sections clearly inspired by classics like Paper Mario, Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie and Crash Bandicoot. Adjacent areas are linked with static transition screens but loaded very quickly on our Series X. There are coins scattered around that can be spent on upgrading Ruffy's health bar and buying new capes– an item of clothing that is obviously very important to a 2D bear (when upgraded via a slot machine subgame they improve Ruffy's health recovery speed and stamina.) There are various types of puzzles to be completed in each area in order to unlock or allow access to a new one. Each area has a warp gate back to Riverside, so if you get stuck you can nearly always swiftly go and do something else.
Each area has its own music, mostly non-irritating, jolly ditties that'll also remind you of classic platform adventures such as Zelda etc. Riverside is populated by lots of both normal and weird creatures. Apart from other bears and Etoi, Birds, Deer and Meercats live happily alongside rock monsters and spinning spikey things that need killing ASAP. Apart from other bears and moles, snakes, crows and a huge turtle named Silya are among the most helpful NPCs.
The game suffers from the age-old RPG problem of NPCs running out of things to say, so once you've completed their purpose they just repeat their final message over and over and over again, sometimes reminding you to perform a task that you've completed.
An odd, and probably pointless for most feature, is the edit textures facility, which allows you to alter most of the textures in the game. Even when trying really hard all I did was make them look worse, but fortunately you can reset them and you do get an achievement for altering all 30 textures.
There are tons of collectibles that you're extremely unlikely to find all of in a normal playthrough, including Coins, Etoi, Dreamstones, snake puzzles, Lazarus' messages, butterflies etc, many of which are fun to discover and extend the lifespan considerably.
I needed convincing of the unusual mixture of graphical styles, but the frame rate being smoother than a greasy weasel, which makes Ruffy a pleasure to control, and the sheer amount of exploration and puzzles converted me to a Ruffy fan. Ruffy supplies the same magical feeling as discovering a new area or solving a puzzle in classics like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. At a price of £16.99 Ruffy & the Riverside represents tremendous value, and will supply many hours of fun gameplay.
Many thanks to Zockrates Laboratories, Phiphen Games and Pirate PR