As someone who was born in 1992 and grew up with the Nintendo 64, I have a special love for 3D platformers. With how prevalent they were in the late 90s, it’s kind of hard for many people my age to not love these kinds of adventures. Over the years, the popularity for them has died down. In a world filled with battle passes and microtransactions, some of us are just left begging for the next 3D Mario or Banjo-Kazooie game. After playing the Ruffy and the Riverside demo, I’m coming away feeling a lot of the vibes from those classics. The potential is there for this to be a very memorable platforming adventure..
A neat gimmick, but hopefully it grows into something more
The short demo for Steam Next Fest lasts just under a half hour. You are immediately introduced to Ruffy, their bee companion, Pip, and a mole named Sir Eddler, who seems to act like a guide in the full game. Eddler is obsessed with digging up gems, and doing so has made a cliff fall that the three were standing on. To save themselves, we are introduced to Ruffy’s special ability of swapping textures to your benefit. In this early case, it’s swapping a waterfall into a climbable patch of vines. In the demo, I saw quite a bit of swapping rock boxes into wooden ones to break them or changing an ocean into ice or lava to solve a puzzle. Pretty basic stuff.
The swap mechanic is a really cool gimmick that is up there with the kind of visionary ideas you would see Nintendo make a game out of. Hold down your bumper button as you aim at the texture you want to take and throw it with the trigger at the surface you want to change. The first few times I did it was a little off-putting because it felt so different than anything else I’d ever done, but it’s easy to get your mind around. With all of that said, I hope the full game will let that swap mechanic grow and do more. It may be a great idea that I could see Nintendo coming up with, but I would also trust them to develop it fully and bring interesting and fun ideas to the table throughout the adventure.
In the Ruffy and the Riverside demo, you are pretty held back in the things you can copy and change, and there was only one situation where I felt I had to actually use my brain to get the star. I’m not saying I hope the game becomes too difficult that a kid can’t enjoy it. Instead, I hope the progression through the game feels as good as you might see in a Mario game as you get closer to the end.
Too much charm to bare
Upon jumping into the Ruffy and the Riverside demo, I was quickly washed in nostalgia. The game itself plays similar to that of a Banjo-Kazooie or Super Mario 64, but the characters look like they are more animated versions of something you would see in a Paper Mario game. In fact, the charm that you get from Ruffy as they dance in place is much more lively than we’ve ever seen the 2D paper plumber. You can run around and punch the very few enemies that make their presence known. I was a little worried with the 2D nature of Ruffy that hitting enemies would be a little difficult, but I came away feeling like my punches and jumps felt like they hit the natural spot.
Pip seems to play the role of a calmer Kazooie. You can press the jump button again while in the air to grab them and you will glide a short distance. Like the swap mechanic, I hope new moves and abilities will be made available to give both characters a larger toolbox to play with on their adventure. In the demo, they’re very basic, but I did notice a drawing on a wall that looked like an area to jump into and do some 2D platforming, so I imagine the game has more in store outside of the swap mechanic.
Walking around the village area, I felt like I was in an animated children’s storybook of colorful characters who were going on with their life. In this area, I ran into a young fox named Quintus, who is the sole member of the local butterfly club. He recruits Ruffy to bring him different butterflies to take record of. At the moment, I’m not sure what the reward is for doing this, but side quests like this could go a long way to making sure the game keeps giving unique challenges and rewards outside of the main levels.
Ruffy and the Riverside demo final thoughts
I went into the Ruffy and the Riverside demo with low expectations and came away highly surprised and excited to get my hands on the final game. This is a world I want to run around in and see more of. Everyone is animated and lively, making me think back to many of the games and cartoons I loved growing up.
Of the 10 stars I gathered in the demo, only a few felt satisfying to get, but seeing Ruffy do his dance afterwards gave me those Mario and Banjo memories I love to look back on. Unfortunately, the demo levels were very, very small, and because you get kicked out of the world when you grab a star like in Super Mario 64, there were a few times I was in an environment for less than a minute before I was kicked out and made to enter again. There does seem to be an open world area to run around in after the 10 star gate, so hopefully, this will be a fun playground to get lost in and these short bouts are exclusive to the opening minutes of the game.
