Ready for a kooky one? Ruffy and the Riverside is one of the quirkiest games I’ve played in quite a while, and though it took me a bit to warm up to it, once I started to get comfortable in the world, I found myself really appreciating the vision the developers set out to bring to life. Ruffy is an adventurous open world puzzle extravaganza with a kaleidoscope of retro and hand drawn graphical treats to enjoy whilst figuring out its wealth of brain teasing tests sprinkled judiciously around the town of Riverside and its many outlying regions. It’s weird, it’s wildly inventive, and it’s worthy of your time!
So much to do, So many ways to do it
As Ruffy, a bear that has been deemed “the Chosen one” by the world’s inhabitants, you use a very special power that you have called “SWAP” to try and save the town of Riverside by collecting a set of six letters to rejuvenate the core of the world that has been damaged by an evil entity known as Groll. I’m not going to spoil too much else of the overall story, but just know it’s as silly and off the wall as it sounds. I mean, you go to a big cathedral and spin a huge all-knowing wheel to see what area you’ll be sent to next to retrieve a letter. In your travels across the open world, there are lots of colorful characters set up with challenges and puzzles to try and complete. Sometimes you’ll be unable to finish them until you get certain abilities, but a lot of them are available right from the start.
Part of the fun of Ruffy is discovering what the goal is for each of these in-world puzzles. It’s not always immediately obvious what you’re supposed to do, and the constantly available SWAP ability to aim at and pick up a lot of the materials you see around you and “swap” them with another drives the inventive gameplay. For example, maybe you’ll need to grab some water with your ability and then swap it with a wood plank that’s on fire. Or maybe use iron to change floating wood platforms into iron ones so that they’ll be weighed down enough to plug a burst water fountain. I got a kick out of really observing the world around me to find that little piece of metal to use, or ice to grab, and while some of the puzzles were harder than others, most weren’t so difficult that you couldn’t complete them with a kid by your side helping. I do think that the possibilities for these swappable materials could’ve been even further expanded, and sometimes the time it took me to figure out what I needed to do to finish a task was made harder by the fact that not everything was swappable, and sometimes I assumed something wouldn’t be swappable when in fact it was, and was a key to finishing a goal at points.
Zoom Zoom!
In addition to the puzzles and mental challenges, Ruffy’s movement and controllability were a blast to handle. You’re helped out by a bee companion that helps you glide with an extra button press, and you eventually gain a hay bale to roll around on and explore the world much more quickly. But even without these helpful mobility options, Ruffy himself scoots along brisky with his sprint, and the levels aren’t so intimidatingly large that they can’t be traversed easily when you want to proceed to the next objective. Along the way, you may even find extra coins, butterflies, or puzzles to solve, so the open world nature of the game doesn’t get too taxing or boring. Which is good, because you’ll be running around a ton. I sorta wish there was a fast travel system, but the game is all about completionism in the end, so that wouldn't have facilitated discovery as much. Also, the camera can get a bit cumbersome at times.
Lots to See in Riverside
Speaking of collectibles and keeping up with them, the game has a helpful stats screen that keeps up with all of the findable items and main puzzles you can complete in a fun, retro style that puts a smile on my face. Also in the menus are a reward for puzzles that you eventually unlock, and that is the ability to completely redraw and color certain textures in the world. Think Animal Crossing’s t-shirt and graphic design function, but with the ability to swap out the textures you make on any of the 30+ reused textures in the game. For example, you can make the water look green, or the sand have little crabs in it, or make the grass purple with pink spots. Whatever your heart desires, you can create. Getting new textures to edit is one of the rewards for completing a certain type of puzzle, and once I discovered that, it really opened up how much love was put into creating Ruffy and the Riverside as a whole. With all that love, the clashing of quality with some textures and art being different fidelities was a bit all over the place. If that’s the vibe they were going for, awesome, but it is very noticeable throughout. Plus, the use of 2D and 3D was super fun, but also unusual to navigate at times. Overall, the effect was used with good execution.
Gotta Have Character
As you look around, you’ll discover a wide variety of fun characters around every turn, and they all have hand drawn personalities bopping on their faces. A sly snake here, an adventurous (to a point) mole there, a wise old turtle in the lake…these are just a small sample size of the lively cast of characters that make up Riverside. Plus, you never know who will be around the corner! One minute I’m racing other bears on a haybale around a race track that I’ve (morally) sabotaged, and the next I’m jumping from platform to dangerous platform whilst barreling down rapids. The game was never afraid to go “out there” with its ideas. All the while the conversations you have with quest givers and puzzle placers are short, but cute, and everything is off the wall but still in character. It just all fits into their world, where it may not fit anywhere else.
For Your Fluffy Ears!
One thing that may not be for everyone is the audio choices. Like the visuals in the game, the audio is avant garde in a cute and potentially annoying way. They drive home a musical theme continuously at many story cutscenes and during exploration, which, if you find fun, can add to the feel of the world you’re in. Same with Ruffy and his -very- constant vocalizations when he starts running, jumping, or whatever you make him do. I found myself able to tune them out for the most part, or enjoy them now and then. I did like the noises other characters made, mainly because I didn’t have to listen to them over and over. But! That’s not to say it was too much. At the end of the day, it filled out the world and Ruffy is who Ruffy is, and I wouldn’t want to change that. The music overall was silly and appropriate for the game, along with the various sound effects that accompanied all that was going on around you.
In Conclusion
Ruffy and the Riverside is such a huge labor of love from the developers. It’s hard to critique it too harshly because of this. It really feels like they were going for a fully fleshed out retro style exploration puzzle experience, and to that end, they accomplished their goal. The style they have imparted into every pixel of the game may not be for everyone, but for someone looking for a cozy, surprisingly packed adventure game, you can’t go wrong with Ruffy by your side.
Thanks to the developers for a key. The game was reviewed using an Xbox version.
