Sometimes I really do miss the 90s, especially for the games.
The mind-blowing explorable worlds ofSuper Mario 64compared to the Game Boy levels in my hand.
The daft inventiveness of Banjo Kazooie.
The (supposedly) mature comedy and film references of Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
Yet Ruffy and the Riverside thrives for its thoroughly modern gimmick: the power to swap textures.
Turn water into vines to climb a waterfall!
Turn stone blocks into wood to smash them!
Turn the sea into ice for easy crossing!
It’s one of those genius yet simple ideas that makes a game truly stand out.
The swap powers are limited, though, for good and for bad.
I can imagine puzzles growing swiftly in complexity with multiple textures needing to be swapped around.
On the more negative side, though, not everything can be swapped.
Still, with such a smart idea, there’s potential here for some properly clever puzzle solving.
