Ruffy and the Riverside is a 3D platformer in which you play as a bear and his diminutive flying companion. Together, you must explore a series of semi-linear environments, searching for collectibles and meeting the world’s wacky but lovable inhabitants.
If all of this is starting to sound familiar, it’s because you’ve played Banjo-Kazooie or its sequel Banjo-Tooie, and that’s a comparison Ruffy and the Riverside developer Zockrates Laboratories is eager to encourage. There’s even a little nod to the bear and bird in one of Ruffy‘s secret areas.
Of course, Ruffy and the Riverside isn’t just a Banjo knockoff (a Banjo riff, if you will). It’s got a rather clever and unique central mechanic that differentiates it from its closest inspirations, and that’s just enough to elevate it above mere homage, even while certain elements grate.
Ruffy and the Riverside Offers Fun Throwback 3D Platforming
At its core, Ruffy and the Riverside is a 3D collectathon platformer that has you combing large, semi-open areas for various goodies. It’s very much in the spirit of its forebears (no pun intended); you’ll feel right at home here if you’re a fan of the aforementioned Banjo games, as well as the likes of Spyro the Dragon.
As a 3D platformer, Ruffy and the Riverside works perfectly well. Its controls are solid, its levels are packed with things to see and do, and it’s got plenty of wacky offbeat characters to enjoy as well.
The central hub, the titular Riverside, is probably where you’ll be spending most of your time when it comes to hunting for secrets and sidequest objectives. It boasts that all-important “ooh, what’s that?” factor; you’ll be chasing down one sidequest, then you’ll get hopelessly sidetracked by other quests and ambient puzzles.
It’s all wrapped up in a charming papercraft aesthetic that calls to mind Nintendo’s RPG classic Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, as well as descendants like Bug Fables. It’s big, colorful, and simple, which is exactly how games like this should look.
Swapping in Ruffy and the Riverside Works Well
Most of Ruffy and the Riverside‘s puzzles are driven by its core swap mechanic, which is nice and simple. Some objects have textures you can swap with others. That’s pretty much it, but it’s the driving engine behind some pretty clever and fun challenges.
For instance, you might come across a weight that’s too heavy to lift, so you’ll need to swap its current stone texture with a wooden one to allow you to move it out of your way. Alternatively, to get the upper hand in a race, you may need to swap water with mud that will slow your rivals down.
While the number of textures you can swap is limited – you cannot, for instance, steal the texture of a brick wall, or of a living creature – you can swap most objects’ colors, and some puzzles call for you to do just that. It’s fun to play around with textures to solve puzzles, but it’s also fun just to experiment with swapping on your own.
Swapping also forms the basis of Ruffy and the Riverside‘s all-too-brief boss battles, and while I don’t want to spoil, suffice it to say the mechanic is used in some pretty interesting ways to help Ruffy defeat his foes. You’ll pretty much never just be punching bosses to death here.
Ruffy and the Riverside Won’t Shut Up
Unfortunately, while the collectathon and swapping elements of Ruffy and the Riverside work well, there’s one area where it decisively stumbles, and that’s the story. You might think the narrative in a game like this isn’t particularly important, but sadly, that’s an opinion Zockrates Laboratories doesn’t seem to share.
To put it bluntly, none of Ruffy and the Riverside‘s characters will shut up. One line of dialogue will never suffice; every conversation drags on interminably, with characters often repeating sentiments or concepts, presumably to check you haven’t fallen asleep.
Narratively speaking, your quest is to save Riverside and its surroundings from a giant evil cube called Groll. There’s no real depth or complexity beyond that setup; Groll bad, your team good, beat up cube to win.
Ruffy‘s story isn’t particularly deep or interesting, and its dialogue isn’t terribly amusing either, although I did get one or two chuckles out of some of the more left-field jokes. On the whole, though, there’s really no need for the story to take center stage like this.
Story Often Dictates Exploration in Ruffy and the Riverside
The suffocating presence of the story proves to be a problem in the exploration elements of Ruffy and the Riverside as well. All too often, I’d be wandering around Riverside, looking for puzzles I could solve, when I’d happen upon a particularly interesting conundrum.
I’d spend a few minutes trying to work out how to solve said head-scratcher, before mentally filing it under “return later” and being distracted by a passing collectible. Upon progressing the story, I’d then discover this was a puzzle I literally couldn’t solve until the narrative gave me what I needed.
This proved extremely frustrating, and it stopped me from wanting to explore levels; after all, why try to solve puzzles when there’s no reason to believe I’ve got all the pieces? In fairness, there are still many optional areas and challenges waiting for you in Ruffy and the Riverside, but those roadblocks are too numerous to fully relax.
I don’t want Ruffy to be The Outer Wilds or Elden Ring, but coming across these roadblocks is demoralizing and strange. It feels like the level designers haven’t quite finished building the stage yet, and they want you to go away so they can finish the job.
Ruffy and the Riverside Review | Final Thoughts
Despite its issues, I enjoyed my time with Ruffy and the Riverside. It’s a fun enough way to while away a few hours, and its central hub is fun to explore. With a little more organic exploration and a lot less dialogue, this formula could really shine. As it stands, though, too many words, your honor.
Ruffy and the Riverside was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by the developer over the course of around 8 hours of gameplay. All screenshots were taken during the process of review.
