Review - Ruined King: A League of Legends Story

Introduction

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story is a turned based RPG by independent studio Airship Syndicate, with the League IP being licensed to them from Riot Games. Airship, having had experience with making an RPG for another IP (Battlechasers: Nightwar), follows their prior title up with a game that both does a great job of adapting the Runeterra universe and improves on the game mechanics that Nightwar had.

At its core, Ruined King feels like an incredible title all-around: the terrific cast of voice actors from League reprise their roles voicing the games’ characters, the turn-based battles have meaningful and interesting mechanics, the music drive the tension throughout each scene, and the character writing keeps you hooked between the motley crew of champions. Though not perfect by any means, Ruined King is a great title that is fun start to finish and one that I highly recommend. Let’s dive in.

Premise

Ruined King primarily takes place in Bilgewater, Runeterra’s port city of backstabbing thieves, bands of pirates, fishermen that gut titanic sea monsters, and an order of kraken-worshipping people. Though the story inevitably arrives at the protagonists banding together to take down Viego, the Ruined King, what’s more interesting is how the six characters of the story all have their own reasons for joining the group, each of which are explored throughout the story.

Characters

Though the game is called Ruined King, most of the story centers around the six champions of the party:

• Miss Fortune is the pirate captain who runs Bilgewater, having taken control back from Gangplank, their prior leader. Upon discovering that Gangplank is still alive, and that Bilgewater is under siege from the Mist, she sets out to protect her city with her own two pistols.

• Illaoi is the Kraken Priestess that leads the Buhru, a religious order that worship Nagakabouros, a godly Kraken that oversees the world. Illaoi struggles to understand her goddess’s messages as she tries to aid Miss Fortune in protecting Bilgewater from the likes of Viego’s rise.

• Braum is the incredibly lovable himbo-strongman, wielding a massive shield. Braum comes from the frozen mountains of Frejlord, who sailed all the way out to Shadow Isles in search for a cure for a plague that trouble his people. Braum honestly is one of the best parts of the game.

• Ahri, an semi-immortal nine-tail fox girl, is the last of Vastaya people. Ahri comes seeking an artifact of the Vastaya in an effort to uncover more of her unknown past. Despite her desire to come close to others, and to escape the loneliness of being the last of her kind, she is possessed by a powerful urge to feed off of the life force of others - sometimes, even her own lovers and friends - and feels conflicted about distancing herself as a result.

• Yasuo comes from Ionia, fleeing his former homeland after wrongfully being accused of killing his elder. Haunted by the past of being branded a traitor and having had to slay his own brother in self-defense, Yasuo wanders the land, unsure of where to take his life next, besides with the company of the party.

• Pyke has earned a reputation as a sort of serial killer of the harbor. Having been betrayed by his crew during a hunt at sea, Pyke sold his soul for his life to the monsters of the deep, and took his revenge on him all. Now, the Blood Ripper continues to hunt the wicked of Bilgewater, but the threat of Gangplank and Viego are great enough that Pyke agrees to help the party… just this once.

I understand including so much information about the characters in a review like this is unusual, but the game is really about these six characters. Their interactions in cutscenes and downtime are what drive the game’s story. Of the six, most have interesting and meaningful arcs to go through, and Braum and Pyke provide a nice juxtaposition for the cast to interact with. I should note, I don’t mean this as criticism: not every character needs life-changing development; Braum and Pyke are well-written for the jobs they serve in the story.

Besides this, a number of other League champions appear in the game. Thresh and Gangplank serve as the villains for most of the story, Maokai is featured in the shadow isle arc, and of course, Viego himself eventually makes an appearance. Gangplank is the only one of this cast that feel particularly well-developed, but overall their appearances are well-welcomed nevertheless.

Gameplay

Ruined King has a number of interesting mechanics that ought to broken down. Overall, the systems that the game implements have a good amount of depth and made the game feel engaging for me, all the way through the very end of the game.

Battle

Each champion has a completely unique set of actions available to them - yes, all six! Actions are divided into three categories:

Instant actions activate immediately. Attacks generally generate overcharge (temporary mana that lasts through the current battle), defending grants damage reduction till the next turn, and the third ability is typically either an attack or utility.

Lane attacks activate in the future, down the game’s “timeline”. They typically have much more powerful effects, and cost mana. Besides this, you can also put them in the “Speed Lane” to activate a slightly weaker version of the attack that comes out sooner, or “Power Lane” versions that are stronger but don’t activate till later.

Ultimate abilities have powerful effects, and are activated by charging the Ultimate bar in battle by performing instant or lane attacks. Each champion has access to three different ones that are unlocked throughout the course of the game, and add extra strategy to fights.

Fights often present many opportunities to use the timeline to your advantage. Want to kill an enemy before they attack? Use a speed lane attack that hits right before they do. Or, generate overcharge for a spell cast, and make the most of it by placing the attack in the power lane. Often times, events occur on the timeline - these will give you buffs or penalties if someone starts their turn in the region, and the lane system allows you to land in or avoid these. Many enemies also have buffs that can’t be removed without hitting them with either a speed or power attack, further encouraging you to engage with the system. All in all, it works impressively well to the point where I’d play a sequel from Airship with a similar system.

Besides everything I mentioned, the game has more typical RPG mechanics as well: damage over time effects, buffs that increase your party’s stats, and a somewhat typical tank / healer / DPS role layout. Yasuo, Pyke, & Miss Fortune serve as DPS, Braum as Tank and utility, Ahri as healer and DPS, and Illaoi… kind of does everything. Illaoi is strong, which brings me to one related note:

You form your party of three of the six characters, with some not being available till later in the story, and some being required for specific sections of the story. I should remark that character balance is generally pretty solid, but Pyke and Miss Fortune generally feel unnecessary, and Illaoi is a little too universally strong. Besides this, the difficulty curve of the game is a hair uneven. I played on the second-hardest of the four difficulties, and found that the early game of Ruined King is often a little too hard, while the late game is far too easy. Later on, the utility you have access to simply allows you to break a lot of the game, though the game doesn’t need to be terribly hard to be enjoyable, I still think it could have been a hair more challenging. At the same time, I didn’t need to grind at any point during the game (though I generally ran through the side quests as well), which I consider to be a plus.

Despite some gripes, combat is still a blast. Each character’s kit is modeled after their League of Legends moveset, and Airship did a great job of incorporating their mechanics into RK’s turn-based system. The different bosses that you fight (Thresh and Viego especially!) have awesome adaptions and creatively use their kits against the player. In general, the boss fights of Ruined King are the high points: they force you to not only play smart but feature lots of unique mechanics that allow them to feel like more than stat-sticks with lots of HP, damage, and minions that other RPGs often have. Bosses will require you to hit them with certain effects, use speed/power lane moves to either land in or avoid certain zones on the timeline, and utilize unique buffs or debuffs that must be played around to succeed.

World & Leveling

Outside of battles, there is an overworld that can be navigated like most RPGs. The environments are appropriately pretty and creative - Bilgewater as a towering city of old ship parts is brilliantly imaginative while feeling very much lived in and real. The various parts of the world like the Shadow Isles, the Buhru temples, Thresh’s domain, and the Vastaya labs were spectacles to observe. The worlds are filled with quests, puzzles, environmental traps, secret treasures, and enemies to explore. Areas are mostly linear in their design, but it works well as you move through each stage of the game; there isn’t too much backtracking at hand. Oh, there’s also a fishing minigame too! You can sell fish for nice rewards (and find a very special piece of equipment…).

As most RPGs do, Ruined King features an equipment system, including the ever-popular colored loot rarity system. Some items are unique and have special effects associated with them (bonus damage or mana on strike, etc). For the most part, the system is mostly what you’d expect to see. There is an enchantment system as well - however, I found myself mostly ignoring until the end of the game. It’s an interesting idea, but I didn’t find myself needing to engage with it, or finding much interest in doing so.

As each champion levels up, they gain skill points and rune shards to spend on perks. Skill points can be spent on the different abilities that each character has - for instance, leveling up Yasuo’s basic instant attack gives you the choice between a chance to bleed on hit, or increase his critical hit chance. Similarly, runes are split into two “trees” per character that focus on different builds for character. While this does add some interesting ability to adjust build characters the way you want to, I found many of the choices weren’t very compelling - for instance, there’s virtually no benefit to building Braum with additional damage rather than his tank / utility perks. Despite this, the system is very good at encouraging interesting synergies and makes your party feel significantly stronger late game. Say one champion has an ability that does bonus damage if the target is bleeding - that bleed could be applied by a variety of your allies depending on what perks you add to their attacks.

Between the abilities you unlock, the perks you add, and the ultimate abilities that champions have, you’ll have a huge toolbox to address different threats that the game throws your way in a strategically meaningful fashion. I found myself settling into Braum, Yasuo, Illaoi, and Ahri during the game, but I could consistently find uses for everyone in the party. I weirdly enjoyed sections of the game where near champions were introduced, and you were required to include them in your party for a while - it helped encourage me to try out new setups periodically.

Visual & Audio

Graphics, Art

I generally find Ruined King to be a mostly attractive game. It runs on the Unity engine, which serves quite well but doesn’t particularly catch the eye for a 2021 title. The art style is where the game truly shines - the environments are consistently terrific throughout the entire game and deserve commendation. Character models and similar generally look great, although close-ups during the ultimate ability animations don’t look quite as sharp. Speaking of, the game’s animations are also done very nicely. The game targets all major consoles, current and prior, plus PC - but not mobile, unlike Battlechasers: Night War.

The game also features some nicely animated cutscenes that are well-stylized and eye-catching. During normal conversations, you’re treated to still images of characters that also look quite good. As far as I can tell, Gangplank is the only character that looks significantly different from their LoL appearance, and his new outfit looks pretty damn cool too.

Audio

Ruined King completely nails almost all of its audio design in every regard possible. The music is absolutely great - Bilgewater fights feature playful shanties, boss battles feel appropriately epic in scale, and the overworld has music to suit whatever atmosphere that the world calls for. I’m very pleased by the amount of unique music within the game - tons of the major bosses seem to have their own themes.

The voice acting, as previously mentioned, is terrific. All of the voice actors nail their performances - having almost all of the character conversations and cutscenes fully voice acted was a great decision (there’s just a small number of conversations and some trivial dialogue that aren’t voiced, which I’m fine with).

Lastly, the sound effects, particularly in battle, do a good job of communicating the weight of attacks. You’ll quickly find the sound of a critical strike to be very satisfying (especially when it’s on an ultimate ability and you watch an enemy’s health bar get devastated).

Conclusion

Ruined King is a game that I’d regard as a pleasure to having played through. It succeeds both at being a great turn-based RPG and fitting well into the Runeterra universe - I constantly was pleasantly surprised at just how well elements of League of Legends were incorporated into the characters, the story, the world, and the gameplay of Ruined King. Though there are some rough edges here and there, I still find myself very eager to recommend the game to many.

Pros:

• Terrific turn-based combat; timeline mechanic is well-designed and used creatively

• Great work integrating LoL’s lore into the world….

• …and equally great work adapting the LoL characters’ gameplay into the party’s characters and enemies kits.

• Wonderful, pleasant music and audio design

• Strong, vibrant artstyle, terrific 3D and 2D animations

• A healthy amount of content - neither too much nor too little.

Cons:

• Some systems felt slightly underdeveloped (weapon enchantments, namely)

• Some party members felt weaker than others

• Occasional bugs and issues, some minor but some major as well

• 3D graphics could have looked a bit better for a 2021 title

• Could have had more Viego

I’d recommend to:

• Any general turn-based RPG fans, regardless of their knowledge of LoL

• Anyone that enjoyed Battlechasers NW will likely enjoy this as well

• Anyone interested in investing into the LoL universe, having come from any of Riot’s other Runeterra titles

Overall, I’d give Ruined King: A League of Legends Story a 94/100. It’s a game that I genuinely would enjoy a sequel to, and I’m looking forward to the next efforts from Airship Syndicate and Riot Forge alike.