Ruiner

Twin stick action shooter for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Inspired by 80s-90s cyberpunk like Akira and Blade Runner.



You have an infinite ammo default gun that can be upgraded with more damage and faster shots, a melee strike that can be charged for a large swing that can be upgraded to slow enemies hit down. A basic dash that has no iframes but can be upgraded to take 60% less damage,you can slow time and set multiple dash way points to dart around and flank foes. You can pick up all sorts of temporary weapons like various pistols, smg, shotguns and sci-fi stuff like fire/ice beams, richochet gun, tesla gun, lots of gunz etc.

Other abilities include:

Ghost Break: Hack foes to make them fight for you, can upgrade to 3 at once.

Energy Shield:Portable shield that covers your front, can be upgraded to deflect shots and ram foes to damage/stun them, can be used while dashing.

Kinetic Barrier: Stationary wall that stop bullets and slows foes who pass through it. Can be upgraded to deflect shots, absorb 50% energy and damage foes on contact when spawning.

Overload: sends you into a state where you move faster and deal more damage, can be upgraded to have infinite dash while active. Super op when upgraded and used with slomo.

Reflex Booster: Manual slomo useful for reacting faster and dodging fire and positioning.

Shock Launcher/Frag Thrower:Emp stun/frag grenade, nothing else to it but emp is handy for brief stun effect.

All of these cost energy meter which always recharges to one slot, you have four but can get 5 slots. It's super easy to be op with a few powers, especially if fully upgraded.

I've beaten it on normal, its tough in a few places but it's pretty easy with certain powers and tactics, playing it on hard now it's not much of a step up but I'll have to play with less upgrades. It's quite short only about 14-15 levels including the intro level and boss fights. It has a neat small hub area you visit about 3 times, it's really just set dressing as you don't have any uses for it beyond some simple npc dialogue and basic quests like find some coins/cats in a level or kill a mini boss which you have to anyway during a level. I would have liked it to be more expansive as the lore is present but not explored at all beyond your menu data which is quite detailed.

It seems too small and short for its own good, I was left wanting more from its gameplay and world as the plot isn't anything noteworthy it's a sort of revenge tale I guess against an evil corporation called HEAVEN.

You fight some bosses which are identical and they are all pretty underwhelming, specifically the giant mother unit robots which only have one giant laser attack and you fight them about 3 or more times, the final boss is just a glorified version of them which is pretty lame.
The mini bosses are a much greater challenge as they have a comparable move set to the player, they very fast and can kill you faster.
Enemy types are decent, it's mostly reskins which have more life/damage and better guns, you got melee guys, ranged guys, suicide guys for most part, along with suicide robots and turrets.

It doesn't have any extra modes which it could really use as the core gameplay is great, I'd love some various challenge missions, for example in the intro you are forced to kill a mini boss and his goons with a timer of 15secs or your head explodes, kills grant more time, so you have to keep killing or die which is a nice stipulation which doesn't get explored beyond that moment and the final seqence which is an enemy gauntlet with mini bosses. My main gripe is a lack of content it really needs more or different levels, most are same industrial areas with no gameplay variation. They have gifs of an office area on their site but it's not in the game for some reason. Areas always have plenty of space to move around so tight office areas would have added a different dynamic to the gameplay. It's a budget title so they clearly did a lot with a little, a sequel would likely address the issues i have, felt like it needed more use out of its hub area, some optional areas and a longer more varied set of levels with more boss and enemy types.

EDIT: gonna sleep I'll clear this up later.

I've started a fresh game on hard, it's so short this game, in a unsatisfactory way, you have the intro level which doesn't seem to be on the level select, then 3 other levels, in order are: Creep's Nest, Hanza Compound and Hell. Each is a set of levels capped off by a boss, it's all over before you know it.
The highly detailed hub just seems superfluous since you only visit one level that's located there and the rest are identical industrial areas visited via bike, you don't have anything to do there other than chat with npcs and find some cats which you hack.
I wish there was more game here it's so fun and fresh with its gorgeous aesthetic and ost.

This is on sale on the NZ store at the moment along with Nex Machina.

I have an interest, but I have a few other games I want to get in this sale and don't want to go overboard. The short length actually sounds good to me especially for these types of games.

You said there were no extra modes but is there a score? Score chasing is one of the highest selling points for me in this type of game.

Birdman wrote:You said there were no extra modes but is there a score? Score chasing is one of the nighest selling points for me in this type of game.

Yes, each fight in a level is scored based on kills, (elapsed) time and karma(points) gained. End of a level also tallies deaths. Ranks go from E to S+(Or S++) I think.

Not sure about online leaderboard stuff.

I’d think it’d benefit greatly from just one more mode using a mechanic that only exists during the opening levels boss and the final levels gauntlet. You have 15 seconds and if the time is up your head explodes, kills add time. Would be great if this timer would reset at the beginning of every fight to make you be more effective and aggressive in combat, which this games combat is designed for, along with high enemy count make this mode easily implemented.

I suspect if this did well enough, an updated re-release will be made with more content and modes, game seems a bit lacking in levels and bosses(most bosses are the same giant robot that shoots a giant laser, which can be blocked with your shield as a tip) as of now.

Bought it yesterday.

I need to git gud. I tend to forget about using dash points and just use the regular one. I don't like it when stuff slows down.

Looking through the ability trees there's some really cool stuff here and I can think of a few interesting builds. Do you get enough Karma to unlock and have everything active at once? I probably wouldn't go for that. Too boring.

Finished it, then it crashed and corrupted my save after the end credits. When I try to start the game it asks to load, but can't load or cancel the load. It's stuck in a loop so I'll have to delete it and reinstall if I ever want to play it again, which I kind of don't.

Hated the melee but the shooting was fun. I would use the barrier that sets up a wall that deflects shots, and I really like the ability that controls enemies.

That is SO bad god I hate that kind of stuff. Maybe it backed it up via PSNPLUS for you? Or did you play on PC? Still, glad you enjoyed it! What made you hate the melee system?

I don't have plus at the moment.

Maybe hate was too strong a word. It was ok, but not as the focus. I avoided the melee upgrades and focused on shooting, with the barrier and mind control as support. Only used melee if something got too close.

The wall barrier is cool but more powerful enemies destroyed it too fast, though fully upgraded and with the ability that gives you energy back while shooting, I was able to use it near continuously.

Lost everything when the save corrupted so for now I have no motivation to play it again.