Platform(s): PC (version reviewed)
Genre: 3D platformer, Banjo Kazooie tribute, Neo Retro, Cute

If you were a child of the 90s, chances are you’ve touched or heard of a 3D platforming series called Banjo-Kazooie. It’s a Nintendo 64 series of games where you control a bear-and-bird combo, exploring a googly-eyed fantasy world with snarky cutesy humour and equally-colourful denizens laced in its narrative, tons of collectibles, and some good-fashioned puzzle-solving and platforming. Oh, and they make tons of noises and grunts that passes off as conversations, which was the style at the time when you rather focus your budget on game design than presentation.

Ruffy and the Riverside is channeling the vibes off of that 3D platforming era, sporting a unique 2D art style atop 3D backdrops and levels, taking place in a saccharine bright world, and a cutesy plot about saving the world from a nihilistic colour-sucking animated cube. The kicker here is that our hero Ruffy, accompanied by his bee pal Pip who dishes out clues and reminders every now and again, can copy textures and colours from one object and replace another object’s elements with the ones you have.

This power, called SWAP, is what you need to turn that waterfall in front of you into a “river” of vines (via copying the texture of a nearby overgrowth on a stone gate) that you can climb atop. You can even multiSWAP, setting multiple targets so you can chance the colours of a bunch of objects simultaneously instead of one by one; very handy when dealing with crates that need to be turned into breakable wood.

Is it fun and adds more to the 3D platforming you’ll be doing? For the most parts, yes.

The Right To Bear Arms

There are oodles of puzzles and extra mini-levels hidden all over the place. Want to enter that 2D mural stage on the wall? Solve a simple tile puzzle based on the riddle from the shady hooded crow. See that 3×3 grid with the patterns? Look for the nearby symbol and use your SWAP powers to align them so that it looks almost like said symbol for a collectible. They’re numerous and all over the place, but thankfully not not mandatory if you’re not a fan of 100% a late 90s-style collectathon platformer.

When the game says “unleash your imagination”, it just means “use your SWAP powers until you figure out what the developers want out of this problem they’re presenting to you”. The puzzles here, the bread and butter of this platformer, range from simple to tricky. While challenging and trying at times, you just need to pause a bit and apply logic since the solutions are all within the same room you’re in. They even made the maze portal room -a favourite among 90s game developers- a lot more bearable as the clues to the correct door lie in the room you’re in.

Personally, I don’t mind the linear design since these puzzle rooms and block parties do make my grey matter get all tingly and stumped, testing my problem-solving while thinking outside the box at times. My favourite puzzles involving SWAP are the ones where you have to cheat the system; rig a bale-riding race by putting mud on the tracks since you’re the only one who can use the special electric railings for traversal. Or do tricks on a bale racing ramp extreme course, then change up the score during the first round so you get a huge lead against two other extreme bale-riders.

Having said that, there were a few puzzles that are bugged; some that required me to start over again because I knocked out a few elements by accident and couldn’t get them back in its original state. One involves harmonizing a bunch of trees, where I accidentally knocked off an apple and it didn’t respawn back to its position, softlocking me. Otherwise, a lot of the puzzles and levels feel standard, especially close to the end where the devs ran out of ideas and go for the “SWAP symbols on coloured panels” brainteaser for the umpteenth time.

In Too Deep?

Your fondness for Ruffy and the Riverside is dependent for your tolerance for cutesie googly-eyed platformers in the late 2000s and N64 era, repetitive saccharine sound bites and all. If it’s pretty low, stay the hell away from this bear-and-bee combo. Throughout my years playing indie platformers, Ruffy and the Riverside has the skeleton of a winning title, but it’s not there yet as it does lack a certain “oomph” to its overall design. Maybe it’s the floaty controls. Maybe it’s the frequent bugs for some of its puzzle rooms, and also the lack of variety in half of them. Maybe I’ve just played more intense 3D platformers that I’m spoilt for choice, making this Banjo-Kazooie-inspired title feel like an imitator than a duplicator; a title that should feel genuine with its aspirations but just could use more conflict and more SWAP-involved bold puzzle choices.

Still, you could do worse than with a game that actually tries hard to capture that bygone early 2000s era of cerebral-challenging platforming, even if all it has going for is its deft use of 2D artwork onto 3D landscapes. At the very least, this game deserves a sequel that will hopefully iron out its flaws and repetitive moments.

Final Score: 60/100

Review code provided by publisher.