Heroes of Ruin (3DS) Review

I am officially in dilemma. Part of me recognises that the game I’m about to talk about with you is somewhat innovative for the Nintendo 3DS, while another part of me recognises that behind all of this, it does nothing particularly ground breaking in any department. Such game is Heroes of Ruin, a Nintendo 3DS title developed by n-Space and published by Square Enix that aims to provide 3DS owners with a portable version of loot hunter dungeon crawlers such as Diablo and Baldur’s Gate with all the bells and whistles that come with it (including online play). But does Heroes of Ruin deliver on its overly ambitious promise? The answer shall remain a mystery until the end of this review.

Heroes of Ruin focuses mainly on providing a compelling gameplay experience and essentially foregoes most other aspects of the main package. The story provided here is no exception – comprised of components that you would find in almost any generic fantasy adventure game. Taking place in the land of Veil, the player finds themselves washed up at the Nexus after an attack by a nautical behemoth, the Leviathan and literally being washed ashore. Once you get acquainted with the locals, it’s discovered that a city’s founder, who for some reason is a sphinx named Ataraxis, has fallen into a coma and needs to be woken up and cured otherwise some evil force will destroy the Nexus and land of Veil. Or something – the story is incredibly dull, the characters are annoying and the twists and backstabs are telegraphed from a mile away. You won’t be playing Heroes of Ruin for its story and it’s quite clear from the outset that this is the case.

Heroes of Ruin isn’t a really impressive looking game – in fact it’s quite the opposite. The artistic direction for the game is generally uninspired as the fantasy sub-genre of role playing games has well and truly played their role out to death. Heroes of Ruin is no exception, with generally uninspired designs and overly generic characters. Looking past design and onto technical prowess, Heroes of Ruin doesn’t really do a great job at that either, with the frame rate being rather choppy especially during more intense encounters, and character models lacking details making them look like early 3D graphics on the original DS. It’s a rather muddy mess, to be quite frank. The presentation is augmented with a rather generic and yet so well-orchestrated soundtrack – the piece that plays over the hub world really takes you somewhere and brings you in, while the voice work is just downright awful.

The 3D effects, on the other hand, are a little bit more ambitious in their execution. Enemies enter from all angles utilising the depth the 3D effect provides quite superbly and the game’s isometric viewpoint seems like it was made for this kind of stereoscopic approach. The biggest deal breaker, with the 3D implementation however is that using the 3D seriously exacerbates the problems the game has with frame rate, dropping the game’s action to an almost painful crawl especially during the more intense battles.

Thankfully, despite the game’s visual shortcomings, the gameplay is actually quite addictive and generally speaking sets out to do a lot for a handheld dungeon crawler. Heroes of Ruin starts off as you would expect – there are four character classes and four save slots (presumably encouraging multiple play throughs). Your character can be edited using a rather comprehensive character creator, but it’s a bit odd as to why you’d spend so much time as most of your characters features aren’t visible during gameplay due to the camera angles. Healing and potions are assigned to the D-Pad, while attacks can be hot mapped to the face buttons (with B being reserved for a basic, chargeable attack).

The crux of the game is, of course, collecting loot and traversing through four distinct areas (each with quite obvious and done-to-death themes). There are obvious similarities here to Diablo, however Heroes of Ruin is not anywhere near as deep but to be quite fair it really isn’t trying to be. The combat system in particular needs quite a bit of work – there are a lot of attacks to unlock for your main characters but many of them are useless when compared to your main (inexpensive) attack. Additionally, you can dodge and block attacks but this also feels quite mundane – the combat system doesn’t ever really call for it and it comes off as rather shallow as a result.

The main reason you won’t be gunning to dodge or block attacks is the way the game is just so horribly misbalanced. There are no support roles or healing roles – mainly because potions that restore health are so plentiful. On top of this, you’ll be stocking up on so many potions that you’ll actually have to sell them, eventually escalating to the point where your inventory will be full as will your wallet. This leads to another problem – there’s never really a point in the game where you find an item to work towards, you’ll most likely be able to afford most items quite early on in the game. Heroes of Ruin has a great schematic behind it, but the flesh of this body is just so poorly balanced that it really takes away all challenge.

Heroes of Ruin’s biggest drawcard is the online component – and the way in which it’s implemented in a rather ambitious and when it works, very cool. Heroes of Ruin utilises a seamless drop-in drop-out online co-op system, also utilising voice chat (although it’s near inaudible at times). Generally, the online works quite well when people would just join us and play along in our own missions – but we had notable problems finding and connecting to other players which was quite disheartening. Playing online also adds a whole new element to the game – item trading with those who you play with as well as those who you might StreetPass with. It’s a cool system that properly utilises both SpotPass and StreetPass and its simplicity makes it so perfect. The developers even have an online stat tracker which is quite nice.

The biggest problem with the game’s online system is, once again, tied into how unbalanced the game is. Heroes of Ruin has a “Quick Sell” function that allows players to quickly sell loot with the press of a button – while this is convenient when playing alone, It becomes incredibly annoying in multiplayer where everyone rushes to get loot and sell it straight away rather than share or vote as to who receives it. This is an annoying oversight that should probably be addressed at some point, though I doubt it will be. This aspect of the game hammers one point home – that this game is best enjoyed with three friends who you know won’t be douches when playing online.

In terms of longevity, it’s hard to say just how long Heroes of Ruins’ legs will be. The campaign itself will last players about twelve hours overall, which isn’t too bad considering the pricing of the title. The online component, of course, gives the game quite a notable extension though you really need to play with those you know or get a good group going to reap the full benefits and/or enjoyment. There are weekly and daily quests provided via SpotPass, but many of these are quite vapid. The lack of a proper loot system leaves little incentive to continue playing.

Heroes of Ruin is a great dungeon crawler with an ambitious ideal that unfortunately falls flat on its face due to a distinct lack of balance from the developers. While on one hand it’s quite enjoyable and somewhat substantial, it’s just not deep enough or difficult enough to warrant further play throughs once you’re done. By no means is Heroes of Ruin a bad game – it just needs a little bit more polish and a lot more thinking behind its main mechanics to make it not only more balanced, but also more difficult for more advanced players. Those who are looking for an entry level dungeon crawler, look no further, but those looking for something as in depth as other offerings on the market, look elsewhere. That being said – this is a portable dungeon crawler so if you want the experience to take with you, this might just be it.