izigame.me

The following review contains many endgame spoilers. Read at your own risk.

I just wanted to start by saying how pretty the game is and how good of a job they did portraying Bilgewater as well as The Shadow Isles. The story really gives you the feeling that you're part of the universe. They made me love Bilgewater even though it wasn't one of my favorite regions and i absolutely adored how they build Illaoi's character around her religion and faith to Nagakabouros.
I absolutely ate the story and combat up. Really liked the fact that even if it's a turn-based game, it still had some open-world feeling to it. The champions aren't just what we've already seen in League of Legends, but have more abilities, strategies, a whole lot backstory that we aren't seeing in LoL lore. Made me wanna play Ahri, Braum and Illaoi more. All of them (except Miss Fortune) had peak dialogues and interactions, really enjoyable and pleasant to listen to Rest Conversations (which btw is a great addition to show us each champ's personality).
Depending on the enemy, you are given many options to build your character however fits the upcoming battles best while also giving you the opportunity to experiment with your own playstyle.
The boss fights were great imo and kinda hard since i fought most of them with underleveled gear, skills and with no enchantments.
Really thoughtful to give each Legendary Weapon components LoL item names (Pyke's duskblade is literally LoL's recipe for the weap). Every single character's dungeon abilities were amazing. Never thought i'd see Pyke dive into sewers to dig up chests and Braum send poros to bring us items back. Also the fact Braum swam all the way to Bilgewater when his ship sank?!
On the other side, as i already mentioned, Ruined King is one of the buggiest games i've played. Many quests took a lot of loads from my saves to be completed cause every time i ran into a bug. While trying to forge Braum's legendary weapon, i faced a bug where i couldn't re-use his shield to protect the poro from the gun traps so i tanked every single hit with him as a meat shield. Also, fishing is so buggy i literally felt like losing my mind at times.
Miss Fortune was extremely boring to listen to and even play with. Really underwhelming. I love the champ but it was such a let down how they wrote her dialogues making her a wannabe intimidating captain that took an oath to take down gangplank. I almost skipped every single dialogue of hers. They must decide what Sarah actually represents. Is she a doll-like captain that walks the rift like she's on a catwalk or is she a strong woman of power that leads a crew in the ocean while being Bilgewater's best captain? I'm completely fine with either of those, just decide already.
Yasuo was a bit cringe and apparently an alcoholic. Also why is he the bodyguard of one of the strongest creatures in Runeterra...? In addition, i expected his backstory to be a bit more interactive (also why did Yone lose his beard when he entered the spirit realm...?) btw the yone/yas fight was really easy (for me atleast). I wanted a bit more drama & action. A little oomf. Overall, he was a much better character than MF for sure.
At last, paying to enter the arena is unnecessary. Why would i ever pay to fight some monsters? It wasn't that much gold but it just sounds stupid to me. I really needed more fights in the arena though. There were around 7-8 to do.
The ending was good, i loved Viego's skills and ultimate abilities. I really enjoyed how things turned out to be with Viego being a toxic, opressive and obsessive boyfriend when i used to think that he was just madly inlove but in a platonic way. I liked a lot that showed what path everyone else took after defeating the Ruined King, but i wish we had seen more of Pyke's lore. He was a great character and the ending just showed us that Viego got on the "list".
Overall a great game. If i could i would play the game for the first time all over again just to re-experience the enthusiasm i felt. Not a 10/10 but a strong, really deserved 9/10. If it weren't for the bugs it would be the perfect game for me. Would pay again for a game like that from Riot Forge and i'm also planning on getting Song of Nunu. Money well spent.
Riot needs better programmers for sure tho.