Even twelve years after its initial release, League of Legends has topped the e-sports charts as one of the most popular competitive games in the world. Ruined King: A League of Legends Story takes some of the beloved MOBA’s notable characters and transports them into an entertaining, albeit lengthy, immersive experience. Skill-based progression, discoverable hubs, and turn-based combat may immediately excite fans of Airship Syndicate developer’s debut project, Battle Chasers: Nightwar. However, implementation of these features by the Ruined King is often trivial. However, the overall package is a decent single-player alternative to Riot’s multiplayer-centric titles.
Sadly, Runeterra’s verdant savannah lacks the Ruined King. Instead, I spent mostly a few hours traversing the port city of Bilgewater and its vicinity, the Shadow Isles, to find and defeat forgettable enemies. These localities are inhabited by ferocious pirates, wild beasts, and restless spirits. Ruined King is gray and sickly green with gritty motifs like revenge, greed, and substitution. But after stepping back through the same dark caves and dreary harbors for a few hours, that soft palate took its toll; Many markets and temples are becoming more and more lifeless and dull.
This is unfortunate because the composite cast – Miss Fortune, Illaoi, Braum, Yasuo, Ahri and Pyke – all have fun and diverse personalities. The silly jokes and tense disagreements between the main characters make the Ruined King’s predictable story interesting. Each legend interacts with the game world differently, creating some fascinating interactions. Pyke’s expertise as a plow allows him to dive into deep waters to access hidden passages. At the same time, I would fire Ahri’s magic spheres from various angles to activate remote switches or solve environmental puzzles. These skills are always valuable, especially when scouring dungeons for rare items and lore material. Of course, collectibles aren’t the only thing waiting for me to complete the main and side quests.
Most areas have a multitude of enemies, from long-bearded undead warriors to stone giants, and fighting these monsters helps make up the tedious level design. Once the battle begins, the “initiation bar” at the bottom of the screen indicates the order of turns, but the “lane” system – inspired by the League of Legends mechanic – spice up the recipe by allowing The character moves up or down the initiative bar at will. A sword swipe or a magic blast from the speed lane will hit earlier with reduced damage. In contrast, shots or shields from electric lanes take longer to trigger but are particularly devastating. “Areas” appearing along the bar have a chance to apply summoners or debuffs, so using lanes to hit or avoid these random conditions even adds depth to the game. act. While I wish the enemies were tougher, the smart rhythm of the Ruined King’s laning system makes me always want to look for brawls.
I love using Braum’s “Stand Behind Me” skill in the power lane to create mighty shields for the party. And if I didn’t want to wait for laning, I relied on default attacks for instant gratification. A measure of ultimate is accumulated during skirmishes, and activating these superpowers often means the difference between taking down a powerful boss or losing the match entirely. Unfortunately, I can’t replace party members in or out of battle, which doesn’t allow for multiple formations to be tested. Furthermore, in some combat situations I felt like I was being punished for any tactics that didn’t include the typical healer or tank-focused formation. Fast travel to a rest point to do emergency swaps and fix this problem is a continuous soak breaker.
Defeated enemies will drop gold and more importantly materials to use for weapon and armor enchantments. I’ve gathered an impressive number of enchantment recipes while on the way to defeat, and my fighting prowess against the Ruined King’s second half has benefited from this. I usually change my gear to increase the crit so that Yasuo holding the katana and Miss Fortune holding my gun have a significant amount of attack. I also earn ability points to level up my party (shared experience), which I will use to power up defaults and laning. “Rune shards” are also broken down every few levels and, once equipped, introduce cool summoner spells that boost stats of my choice, like Illaoi’s healing or Pyke’s dodging ability. I appreciate having multiple routes to upgrade my favorite fighters and customize their respective kits.
Ruined King is a casual RPG set in the League of Legends universe with an interesting laning system that intelligently recreates the standard turn-based loop. However, a forgettable story of good and evil and repetitive setting are glaring limitations. The action and imaginative characters do their best to keep the game’s 20-30 hour stretch of gameplay interesting. However, players who are not yet fans of the top brand of Riot Games are better off skipping this section.
