Ruffy and the Riverside – PS5 Review

I feel like I missed all those 3D platformers back in the 90’s. At that time, I had a PC and most of them lived in Nintendo town. Approaching them as an adult makes me wonder if I’ve missed the boat. Ruffy and the Riverside, from Zockrates Laboratories is a big love letter to those games. With a big and colourful art style, it largely succeeds, although the simplistic puzzle design doesn’t make for the most cerebral experience.

The game begins with Riverside under threat by a meddlesome cube called Groll. He’s laid waste to the place and it’s up to Ruffy to restore colour and rebuild the town. Along the way there are furry creatures to collect who are part of the equilibrium of the place. Primarily, it’s about putting the cube in his place but there’s a few diversions aimed at giving the world more context.

The story doesn’t really expand much but the town is very lively with a lot of charming characters to talk to. Most of them are animal in nature but the paper-craft appearance of them makes them seem lively. They’re relatively talky which might make things more difficult for a younger audience but I did find the writing to be fairly inoffensive. I do find the ending to be a bit of a damp squib but the journey was fine.

Ruffy and the Riverside takes the form of a 3D platformer. Specifically, it takes cues form the collectable-heavy era of the likes of Rare. Thankfully, the trinkets, gems and butterflies you’re tasked with finding are strictly side content. The main path introduces you to all areas of the island and drip-feeds mechanics in a sensible way.

Ruffy’s has been given the innate ability to swap things. He can move colour from one object to another and also transfer some material properties. For example, he can freeze water or make something lighter by making it straw or wood. It’s a straight-forward system that is simple to grasp. It’s used as the main means to solve puzzles and, whilst they never delve into complex territory, it’s still enough to trigger some brain cells.

Whatever is needed to solve a problem is nearby and, despite the possibility of lateral thinking, most of them appeared to have one solution in mind. I did overthink a couple of them. It’s fair to say Ruffy and the Riverside is aimed at a younger audience and that shows in the puzzle design. A lot of it involves colour swaps and tinkering with numbers. It’s not pre-school level but it’s certainly something an adult should breeze by. That said, there is an option to buy your way to some of the solutions. It’s easily done with coins being so abundant.

I really like how the campaign is built. It gives off the lightest hint of something more expansive but is firmly a direct experienced. To get the town back in shape, Ruffy has to recover the letters of the Riverside sign, taking him to six distinct areas. There’s some really specific references thrown about with a couple of the levels. There’s a couple of moments where Ruffy has to resort to cheating to proceed and it shows off the swapping in a more comical light.

Swapping has another purpose that I didn’t really explore in my playthrough. You can edit in-game textures to give the world a more personal touch. I think that’s neat and definitely gives a player more agency in an environment they’ve already got a hand on. The tools are like a simple paint program so you can plop pixels down as you please. It doesn’t have the cleanest interface but it’s a minor aspect of the game at large.

Puzzles reset so there’s no chance of you being locked out a solution. I did run into one odd moment in the mid-game. In an area where blocks will cycle through colours, I couldn’t fathom why the one I wanted wasn’t triggering. I originally thought it might’ve been glitched but revisiting the area seemed to resolve it.

Ruffy and the Riverside is paced really well with very little repetition on display. I did run into a couple of choke points. I think the mandatory race you enter has a tight timing to it. It didn’t hold me back too long but it felt like something I had to get exactly right. Everything else feels leisurely, including the boss fights. There’s only a few of them but I never felt at risk of defeat.  I do feel there’s a lot of backtracking.  The world isn’t huge but, after regaining a letter, the trudge to the town’s sign can be laborious.

There’s a variety to the main areas that is smartly executed. Sometimes they switch perspective on you or task you with a bespoke event. It’s surprising and nothing outstays its welcome. I particularly enjoyed one late dungeon that will feel very familiar to people of a certain vintage. Even that has a twist which makes good use of the swap mechanic. I don’t think this is a game of the highest quality but a lot of good decisions have been made here. I struggle to think of something that felt wasted or underused.

The presentation is wonderful. It looks colourful and vibrant and I enjoy the hand-crafted character art. Ruffy has a collection of gleeful, childish yelps that sound genuinely enthusiastic. The rest of the cast have their own chirps but Ruffy’s the one you’ll hear the most of. The environments aren’t the sharpest but they do radiate a lovely aesthetic. Even the villain isn’t too dark with Groll acting more like an occasional nuisance. He raises the stakes he’s not a constant presence. The soundtrack is good and keeps things light and cheery. It does rest on the main theme a bit too much.

I really like Ruffy and the Riverside. It’s definitely aimed at younger hands but the sheer optimism and charm on display is infectious. The puzzles aren’t mind-bending but there was enough to keep me engaged. Two specific events aside, the campaign is a brisk, well-paced journey. I think the environments are nicely presented and some of the levels are smartly designed.