Ruffy and the Riverside was provided by Phiphen Games for review. Thank you!
Many of us carry plenty of nostalgia for the N64 and PS1 3D platformers of the late 90s. Ruffy and the Riverside definitely attempts to capture that feeling and bring it into a modern setting. And for the most part, it succeeds, though it does stumble here and there.
Ruffy and the Riverside has a story that matches the period it's inspired by. Ruffy (our protagonist) does something, an evil entity is unleashed, and the entity ruins the world. Our protagonist must then embark on an adventure to restore the world and defeat the entity. It's very basic as storylines go, and pretty reminiscent of a Spyro or Crash Bandicoot story, but that's not the focus of the game. The characters in the storyline are well-written and interesting, told completely through text boxes that appear at the bottom of the screen.
In theory, Ruffy and the Riverside has all the makings of a classic 3D platformer. Low-polygon 3D models? Check. Slightly blurry textures? Check. Collectibles spread across multiple maps? Check. These all work quite well, and I don't mind the visual style of Ruffy and the Riverside, even if it's intentionally "dated." But the game lacks that nostalgic charm I was looking for.
To give some context, the game's world has a hub, which is the biggest map in the game, and then there are a few, smaller, maps that are connected to it, the game world in total is pretty small, and doesn't compare to other titles like Yooka-Laylee, for example.
There are collectibles as well, but they aren't the focus of the game. In fact, they're pretty much not mentioned at all. I went for 2-3 hours before I even saw a true collectible, and this is not a long game. Your primary objective is to complete the main goal in each of the maps within the hub world to obtain a new "Sacred Letter" and rebuild the Riverside sign, which requires a total of six letters.
Ruffy and the Riverside places a large emphasis on puzzles, and although there are enemies, there isn't much variety in the enemy types, and they can easily be defeated with a punch, which is pretty much your only offensive move. The puzzles usually involve the main mechanic of the game, which is your ability to swap material types between objects.
For example, you may need to absorb a wooden material from a tree and turn a stone platform into a wooden one so it floats. Or maybe you need to turn the water into lava so that it burns away an object. It's a pretty unique gameplay mechanic, and it works well. Unfortunately, it is pretty much the only gameplay mechanic used for the puzzles, so you'll be doing a lot of it over and over for every puzzle. Sometimes, these puzzles will have the same solution that you already know. The examples mentioned above are used at least a few times throughout the game.
Movement is also pretty basic, with just jumping, gliding, and sprinting (odd choice) being your options here; there's no ability to grab ledges, which would be super-useful in the game. I'm not sure why we have a sprint button either, it's "hold to sprint" and not a toggle; it gets pretty annoying having to hold a button whenever you're traversing the map, and combined with the stamina gauge, it just makes traveling around the world tedious.
The UI also feels a bit messy; the collectibles menu is just a mishmash of all your collectibles, seemingly thrown onto the screen in whatever position they can fit. This might be reminiscent of some older games of the period, but there's a reason developers moved away from that: it's hard to read.
So Ruffy and the Riverside does somewhat capture the feel of a 3D Platformer of the 1990s, but mostly in the wrong ways, the visual style of the game is good, but the movement is really basic for a platformer, the swapping materials gameplay mechanic is unique, but it's overused seeing as it's the primary method of doing anything in the game, there are collectibles, but it's not explained what they do or why you should collect them.
It isn't a bad game, but some areas of the game feel basic and unpolished, and these are the areas that should receive the most attention to detail and polish. Movement is the highest priority, and not having any movement or momentum is a real shame. In reality, there are pretty much no enemies in the game; you can ignore them, and the puzzles get repetitive towards the end of the game. There's only so much you can do with the 1 mechanic available to you.
Ruffy and the Riverside runs well on the Steam Deck. It has good controller support, and I would recommend using a controller, even if you're playing on a PC. It also supports 1280x800 as a resolution, which is beneficial, as the game does not offer any graphics settings.
Because of the Steam Deck's 16:10 aspect ratio, however, some UI elements are "chopped off" in certain areas. It's not a major issue, but it's worth noting. The game officially only supports 16:9 aspect ratios, as users with 21:9 displays are also reporting even worse UI issues with the game.
As I mentioned, there are no graphical settings available here, so I recommend limiting the game to 60 FPS in SteamOS and running with the 15W TDP Limit. The game will nearly always run at 60 frames per second, but it does suffer from traversal stuttering, which the higher TDP limit will mitigate slightly.
The power draw is around 8-10W, and temperatures are around 50-55 °C. So you can expect about 5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED, and about 3.5-4 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
Ruffy and the Riverside has no accessibility options.
If you're after a modern 3D platformer that perhaps tries to emulate the 90s a little too closely, then Ruffy and the Riverside is worth a look. It's definitely not the worst attempt I've seen, and it's better than some of the 3D platformers of the '90s, for sure. However, it does feel like the game needed a little more polish, especially in the UI and platforming departments.
Ruffy and the Riverside runs great on the Steam Deck; the only thing preventing me from awarding it a "Best On Deck" award is the slightly chopped-off UI elements due to the 16:10 aspect ratio, although they aren't essential to the game.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Ruffy and the Riverside is a decent 3D Platformer that lacks polish. It does run well on the Steam Deck.
