When it comes to my platformers, I have practically no preference between two dimensions or three. I spent so much of my younger years playing every 2D mascot platformer I could get my tiny hands on, and as I grew and the third dimension suddenly appeared in my games I was happy to jump around new vast environments with glee. There are a few middle grounds to be found in the platforming dimensions as well, and one of my favourites of these is when a 3D platformer features flat 2D characters. It makes for a really cool aesthetic, and always immediately catches my eye. It was this visual style that led me to play a demo of Ruffy and the Riverside months ago, and I couldn’t get enough of this unique spin on my favourite genre. Now many moons later the full game is here, and it brings a lot to the platforming dinner table.
Our hero Ruffy is just an everyday furry critter living in Riverside, who happens to work for an artist. With his magical Swap ability he is hired to copy paintings for the masses, until one day adventure comes knocking on the door. A giant mole thinks Ruffy could be the chosen one who defends Riverside from evil, and whisks him away to take the test of the chosen one. Naturally it turns out Ruffy is the hero we all need, which is fortunate as while he’s initiated into the heroes’ gang an ancient evil is unleashed. You’d better believe you need to collect some magic letters from various themed worlds to stop this, so (thankfully after the lengthy opening) it’s time for less talking and more jumping.
From the very first moment you move Ruffy around the colourful world he inhabits, you’ll feel those perfect precise controls that the best in the genre all share. In terms of getting around Ruffy’s move-set is pretty basic, he can run, jump, and hover by holding onto his bee buddy. There really isn’t anything else you need to get around the forests and beaches though, except of course your signature swapping ability.
Swapping is the core mechanic of Ruffy and the Riverside, and is seriously cool. At the push of a shoulder button you can aim and absorb a texture from the world around you, and then apply that texture to something else. You can swap water into lava to burn the enemies within, turn metal crates into wood so they float in the ocean as handy platforms, or even change a waterfall into vines so you can climb right up it. There are so many clever ways you’ll use swap throughout the game, especially when confronted with a puzzle.
The main open world area of Ruffy and the Riverside (the Riverside) is jam packed with different puzzles to solve, which will give you various rewards for completing them. Sometimes you’ll find a pile of boxes that you need to create a shape out of, and that shape is revealed by a painting on a nearby wall. Other times you’ll need to swap pieces of a snake picture around to make one long serpent. Around every corner is a new swap-based challenge for our hero, and you’ll always feel like a genius for beating them.
It’s not just swapping you’ll be doing in Ruffy and the Riverside though, there’s also plenty of platforming fun to go alongside it. The best of this proper no-nonsense platforming is found in the linear levels you’ll enter from the open hub area, which are chock full of tricky hazards that genre fans will love dodging. Fans of faster paced action can hop on a hay bale and race around Riverside too, which is as fun as it sounds.
Ruddy and the Riverside is a clever platformer full of great ideas, but it does have some fairly significant issues. The most egregious of these for me are the collectibles, which almost all feel worthless. The majority of these are tied to specific quests, and these quests require you to collect every single collectible of that type in the game to get a meaningful reward. The only reward you’ll get otherwise for gathering doodads is a pocket full of coins, but considering it only took me an hour to get enough cash to buy all the health upgrades, this currency is hardly in short supply.
There’s just a bit of a lack of polish throughout Ruffy and the Riverside, and because of this the issues start to add up. For example when I bought all those previously mentioned health upgrades, the vending machine allowed me to keep buying more. This meant draining my cash for absolutely no reason, because I already had all the hearts I possibly could. The world is also absolutely littered with invisible walls, which block off so many platforms that look like they’re supposed to be part of the world. This gets old fast, and I could also say that about the rather sporadic checkpoints.
It may have its issues, but I can’t deny that Ruffy and the Riverside is a creative platformer that I had a blast playing. The swap ability is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a 3D platformer, and can be used in so many creative ways to solve puzzles and reach collectibles. With a bit more polish Ruffy and the Riverside would be an instant classic, but even without it you’ll likely enjoy exploring this colourful world and meeting its flat inhabitants.
