3.5/5 ★ – Sefferson's review of Ruffy and the Riverside.

Most of the time, when I sit down to write my impressions of a game down, it’s pretty close to the time I beat the game. With Ruffy and the Riverside, I needed to sit on it for a while to really gather my thoughts. My initial thoughts after rolling credits were less than stellar, and I had to figure out why that was. On a surface level, Ruffy and the Riverside is a 3D Collectothon heavily inspired by the N64 classics of the time. Yet, it feels very fresh and unique in a landscape of indies inspired by the same games. A lot of that comes down to just how stylish the game is. The soundtrack is absolutely something unlike anything I’ve really heard, the art direction is pretty cool and the world design, for the most part, does a pretty good job. The soundtrack to this game is so fresh and funky. There’s some really great tracks here, with the obvious highlight being the weird rap song that plays throughout the game at various points. If you’ve heard it, you know exactly what track I’m talking about. Unfortunately, and this does not take away from the game at all I just wanted to mention it, you can ONLY find that track on YouTube, none of the other songs in the OST are uploaded as far as I can tell which is a real bummer. Ruffy and the Riverside’s style extends into its art direction. Wearing its inspiration from Paper Mario proudly on its sleeve, it pulls this off pretty well. Sometimes animations can look a little funky due to the way characters are animated, and sometimes the environments can clash pretty hard with the paper cutout characters, but overall this is another spot where Ruffy and the Riverside does a pretty solid job at creating its own identity. Design-wise, Ruffy and the Riverside has a few large hubs located in a pretty modest-sized open world, with levels attached to different landmarks throughout the world. It’s nice to have everything be cohesive, but unfortunately traveling between areas gets old pretty fast. There’s too much distance and not enough movement options to really make the backtracking super enjoyable. Easily the biggest draw and downside of Ruffy and the Riverside however is its swap mechanic. On paper, this is a great idea. You can point at any surface, copy its material, and apply it to another surface. This creates some really fun and interesting puzzles that aren’t like anything I’ve played before, like turning stone pillars to wood in the after turning the ocean into lava, creating staircases by burning the wood and turning it back to stone. Often times the puzzles are clever and memorable. Unfortunately though, there are some that really just halt the flow of the game. I don’t know if it was user error, but there were a handful of times where what I was supposed to swap the environment with was not a very clear answer, and even more times where it would feel like I couldn’t swap certain objects with others because the game didn’t want me to have too much freedom to solve puzzles my own way. There’s always only one solution, which falls in line with the N64 game design, but really limits the swap ability, never letting it see its full potential. Despite its main mechanic being so frustrating at times, it’s really unique and sets Ruffy and the Riverside apart. There’s a strong sense of identity and confidence on display here with the visuals and soundtrack, and I hope to see whatever comes next from this studio learn from what made this game interesting and expand on it.